Chapter 7 - Chapter Five — Naz

Damn.

I didn't get to watch Chandré grow from the girl I met at school into the gorgeous, self-possessed woman standing in front of me. Thanks to social media and a curiosity I could never quite talk myself out of, I got to see some of it from a distance. I kept loose tabs on Cliff, too. None of what happened was my fault, but he clearly laid it all at my feet. Every so often I'd look for a way I might help, some opportunity I could push in his direction that would get him back on the road, but he snorted and injected every chance he was given. You can't save an addict from himself. In the end he has to do that. But every time Cliff crossed my mind, so did his sister.

"Naz," Chandré says, blinking up at me in surprise. "Hey."

"I was looking for you earlier. Thought maybe you were hiding from me."

"Hiding?" She twists her lips into a grimace. "Not unless sitting by a pool counts as hiding."

"So you weren't about to leave without saying goodbye?"

She glances down, her smile chagrined. "Well. Maybe I was about to do that."

Mascaraed lashes paint shadows on her cheeks. Her makeup is flawless — bright blue and green and purple across her lids, fuchsia on her mouth, dark dramatic brows winging over those eyes. A strapless bodysuit lovingly moulds every curve and every bold line of her. Her shoulders, a warm golden brown, gleam under the light in the passage. Her arms look strong, but soft and rounded with it. A small diamond C hangs from a gold chain around the slim column of her neck and rests in the shallow well at the base of her throat.