One Night of Passion and Death

Sam's POV

“What you need, friend,” said the almighty Rachel, sloshing her mojito like it was holy water, “is to be thoroughly, recklessly, maybe-illegally kissed.”

Or perhaps what I need is to lie on my bed and have a good night's sleep and not be here. I stared at her above the rim of my glass of whiskey. I had a thousand things I wanted to say to her in my head. One of which was, I don't want to be here, girl. I don't want to do this. Instead, I faked a smile, took another sip of the whiskey, and said, “Let’s see how the night goes, Rachie.”

Rachel was my best friend. One of three, actually, that includes Lexi and Riley, who both sat around us at the round high-top bar table. Rachel was a defense attorney, a woman who was obsessed with being in control of everything. Riley was a model, a glam girl. The next thing she loves after herself is her designer clothes and bags; we were third in that hierarchy for her. Lexi, on the other hand, was an elementary school teacher. Every word that came out of her mouth was almost always a lecture. She'd always assume we were her kids and needed guidance.

We are all so different that it is always a surprise, even to me, that we could still be together. Yet we were. Since elementary school, we have never forgotten each other, and now we were family. They were my family.

My eyes drifted around to the dim amber sconces casting a hazy glow across the exposed brick walls of the bar and the oil-slick leather booths, the jazz trio playing slow, sultry, and dreary music behind us.

I poured the whiskey down my throat, and I shut my eyes, feeling the alcohol knock me out from the inside.

I opened my eyes to the bar once again, giving it another prejudicial visual sweep. How did I let them talk me into this? I hated bars, hated sticky tables, hated loud music, and especially hated excess alcohol. Yet, getting drunk was the only way I could get myself to do what they wanted me to do—sleeping with a random stranger. The girls said I needed to get laid simply because it had been years since I did. Since I was unlucky at getting a boyfriend to do that with me.

I wouldn't say I was ugly. I was just unfortunate. I had an athletic body wrought from years spent in the gym, which slightly marred my natural, almost hourglass figure. A razor-straight bob of jet-black hair cut to my jawline. My last boyfriend said I was too macho and stuck-up, and like the other before him, he left after I knocked two of his teeth out when he pissed me off. I was a lost case—I know. But it isn't my fault. It's just who I am.

I am a homicide detective, an important member of the major crimes division. I wouldn’t describe myself as the best detective on the block, because I wasn't, but I was quick-witted, smart, and passionate about my job to be considered one of the best in the precinct.

There were better things I could have done tonight, even if I didn't spend it sleeping. There were a couple of cold cases I could look through to spot the hidden clues I'd missed before…

The phone buzzed just beside the gold-rimmed cocktail glasses on the high-top table. Riley, always the enthusiastic one, snatched the phone from the table, reading the text that should be from my date on Tinder. The one she had chatted with herself, using my profile. He is devilishly handsome and charming, she had said. I had no doubt about that. Riley knows her stuff. But do I even want to do this?