Hell on Heels (6 page)

“A
ll set.” Tom adjusted the small mic affixed to the neckline of my dress.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here to provide this evening’s opening address, I have the pleasure of introducing the founder of the Halo Foundation, and the woman behind tonight’s fabulous event, Miss Charleston Smith.”

Tom cued me, and I stepped onto the stage as the clapping grew louder at my introduction.

It was a small stage and only took a few paces of my long legs to reach Kevin. He welcomed me in a dramatic showboat of a hug, no doubt for the guests’ benefit, and as we separated, he squeezed my shoulder in comfort, no doubt for my benefit, before he exited the stage and left me alone.

My hands gripped the edge of the podium and I looked down at my speech.

I didn’t need to read it. It wasn’t very long and I’d memorized it weeks ago. Nevertheless, I was comforted by the safety net it provided.

“Good evening, everyone.” I smiled as a hush fell over the crowded room and all remaining eyes came to me.

This was always the hardest part of the speech, the hook. The hook was Henry, and it gutted me a little every year I used him for it, but it had to be done.

Henry was the reason we were all here. He was the reason I was here.

“I buried my brother the year he turned twenty-four.” I heard gasps as I expected I would, and paused accordingly like I’d been taught to do.

“Henry was my favourite person in the world, my only sibling, and with him, I buried his suffering, but our family’s suffering lives on with his memory.”

My chest burned in a way that made me grateful for the crimson of my dress. This way, if my heart actually was bleeding, they wouldn’t be able to see it.

“Addiction is a petty thief; it steals the ones we love from not only us, but from themselves. He was only fifteen when addiction began stealing pieces of who my brother was. It started so innocently, as it often does with teenagers. Just a little fun here and a little danger there, but it was the gateway to a world that inevitably cost him his life.”

There were sympathetic nods from the room, and I prayed that none of them were crippled with that theft in the way I had been. I wouldn’t have wished that on my worst enemy.

“I remember not being old enough to understand what was happening to my brother, and my father had tried to explain it. He told me that Henry wasn’t like other people, that he was sick. Other people could walk by the stench of stale beer on the sidewalk and never notice. It wasn’t like that for him, not my brother. He needed to beat down the door of the nearest liquor store or bar and drown in a twenty-four case of Budweiser to satisfy an inch. My dad had been right. Henry was sick, and was for nearly a decade.”

I took a sip of water and thought of Henry, the way he was at the end. There was hardly any of my brother left inside his body. He was so angry, all the time. He would pick a fight with the sky if he didn’t like its shade of blue, and feel no remorse. The brother I knew had never been an angry person, not like he had been at the end.

He hated himself.

“It was never enough. That inch never went away. It wasn’t long until he added cocaine to his list of poisons. This, of course, allowed him to drink more and never feel the need to sleep. He lost days and sometimes even weeks to a high.” I paused, catching my breath. “As a family, we ran ourselves into the ground, trying to help him. We did everything we could. Henry completed two stints at world-renowned rehabilitation facilities and burned through over a half a dozen sponsors, but it never stuck. My parents drained their life savings and nearly destroyed their marriage trying to save their son, and they lost him. They lost him long before he died.” I was grateful in that moment my parents chose not to attend these events. “That’s the saddest part about loving an addict: no matter how much you are willing to sacrifice, you will never be able to save them from themselves.”

I flipped the page in my speech and gripped the podium a little tighter.

“I used to position the phone next to my pillow all through high school when I slept. I was terrified I’d miss the call, the one that told me my brother had died. That this time he’d driven drunk and killed an innocent family and himself in the process, that this time my seventeen-year-old boyfriend hadn’t been there to stop him from being beaten to death by one of his drug dealers. Or worse,” I paused, “that this time he’d followed through on what was one of many suicide threats and someone had found his body.”

The room had fallen heavy with sorrow, and I felt the air claw at my neck as I struggled.

Almost over.

“My brother told me once that alcohol had taken everything he’d ever loved from him, and yet still, he wanted it. It was the love of his life, it was his best friend, and it is what killed him. Henry was my angel with no halo and one wing in the fire, and it is in his memory that I started The Halo Foundation four and a half years ago.”

Applause ensued, and the pressure in my chest eased long enough for me to finally breathe.

“It is my hope that we can prevent what happened to my family from happening to yours. Addiction touches the lives of nearly every one you meet, and currently only one in ten addicts seek treatment for their disease. It is my hope that we can one day see that number be 100%.”

More applause.

“This year has been an incredible year for us. Through your donations, we have managed to integrate our addiction education program into post secondary schools across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. It is our hope that in this next year we will continue to expand into the remaining provinces until we are in every school across Canada.” I paused to allow the clapping to subside. “It has also been a remarkable year for our Clean Teens initiative program. In British Columbia alone, we have helped over three hundred teens get clean this year.”

More applause.

“I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your continued support, and it is a pleasure to have you joining us this evening at the Fourth Annual Halo Foundation Gala.”

I exited the stage to applause as Kevin returned to the podium to thank our sponsors, the first of which was political candidate Beau Callaway.

The 2014 elected mayor, Jeffrey Huntsman, was not in attendance and would be finishing out his year in office, and the mayoral municipal election for which Beau was running would take place in November of next year.

Leaning against the railing to the stairs, I pressed my eyes tightly closed.

I love you, Charlie bear.

“I miss you,” I said to the voice in my head.

“To Charleston.” Emma raised her champagne flute in the galley of the hotel kitchen.

“To Charleston,” the rest of the team, including Kevin, Tina and Tom repeated after her.

The speeches had concluded and the party was officially underway. We were celebrating a job well done, and I was already emotionally exhausted.

“To all of you.” I lifted my flute of ginger ale into the air. “Thank you, for everything.”

We toasted, and Kevin wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Proud of you, Char.”

I leaned into his body and nodded.

“Where’s the dreamboat?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance to go say hi yet.”

Kevin sighed. He knew me well.

“Want to dance?”

“Yeah.”

He kissed the top of my head and emptied his champagne glass.

“We’re going to mingle.” He tapped his breast pocket, indicating he had his cellphone. “Buzz if you need us.”

Sliding his arm from my shoulders, he joined our hands together and we joined the party.

“Where’s your date?” I asked, as he spun me around.

Kevin rarely came stag to an event, and he was also a magnificent dancer.

Rolling his eyes, I saw him scan the crowd over my head. “He’s dull, but probably around here somewhere, boring some pour soul to death.”

“What do you mean he’s dull?”

Kevin dipped me and whispered, “It’s like having sex with a mime.”

Throwing my head back, I laughed.

“Actually, a mime might even be better.” He frowned and lifted us upright again.

“So why did you ask him to be your date?” I questioned, now having composed myself enough to speak.

It felt nice to talk about something other than Henry for a few minutes.

“Char, darling.” He winked behind his mask. “Mime sex is still better than no sex.”

I laughed again, and Kevin smiled.

He was trying to make me feel better, and it was working.

“May I cut in?”

Looking over my shoulder, all I saw was a wall of black Prada and hard man-chest.

“Sure thing,” Kevin drawled.

I wasn’t even able to mock him, because I was still looking up, up, and up. The man looked like something straight out of a Sylvester Stallone movie.

I felt Kevin’s lips on my cheek. “Relax, Char.”

Then his hands were gone, rougher ones taking their place on my naked back.

Even in my heels, this man stood at least five inches taller than me. His chest was broad enough that I was almost certain his suit had to be a result of a custom fitting. Brown hair in messy waves fell to just above his shoulders, and through his mask, I could tell his eyes mirrored the colour of coal.

He was intimidating just with the sheer size of him, but he was surprisingly graceful as he moved me across the dance floor.

I should have balked at the hands of a strange man on me so publically, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. There wasn’t even the smallest part of me that grew concerned over his potential identity. This excitement seemed to call to the part of me that revelled in the exchange of new highs.

That part of me was hungry tonight amidst the angst, and I was a woman who fed the addiction in her.

My hands slid up his chest and found their way to the back of his neck. This brought our faces closer, and I admired his full lips, though he never spoke another word. He was a beast, and I felt delicate in his arms. His olive skin was darkened by a few days of stubble, and he pulled me closer as the song bled into another and then another.

He seemed to know how I wanted to be held, so I didn’t speak either. Resting my head against his shoulder, I closed my eyes.

I had found a moment of peace in the chaos with this masked man.

I wasn’t sure how long we danced like that—minutes, maybe hours. The songs continued to blur together until a growl erupted from his chest and abruptly we were moving.

His hand at my lower back was pushing me impatiently through the crowd. It seemed as though he knew where he was going, falling in tandem with the floor plan of the event and leading us into the back hallway where, at last, his pace began to slow.

His legs were longer than mine, so I shuffled in a hurry to keep up with him.

“Are you all right?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He grabbed my hand and backed himself into the corner of the wall, plastering me up against his front.

Whatever fear I had that my having spoken would break our trance fell quickly by the wayside.

His hands fisted roughly into my hair, jerking my head backwards as his mouth came down on me fast, hard. It was domineering, just like he was, and my lips pushed back against his, finally our tongues duelling for control.

My hands grabbed at his jacket for some kind of grounding as the race in my chest began to soar.

He bit.

I moaned.

Our bodies pressed against each other so hard I wondered if we’d become one entity.

My hips bucked and I pulled at his hair.

It was less a kiss and more a battle of sorts.

It was only the crash of a vase hitting the floor that reluctantly separated our lips.

Breathing heavily, I forced my eyes open and found one of Tina’s arrangements strewn across the tile floor beside us.

Dead flowers weren’t pretty.

“Ooops.” A woman to our left stumbled and giggled.

The masked man pressed into my front and groaned in annoyance. I felt in agreement with this response, as I was not fond of this interruption either.

The woman noticed us, the state in which we remained, and grinned like a Cheshire cat in heat.

“I’ll have that taken care of,” I told her, nodding to the floor.

The masked man nipped behind my ear.

He didn’t like that idea.

A whimper fell from my mouth and a sweat broke out over my skin when his teeth bit at my collarbone.

“Your speech was ah-mazing,” the somewhat older and definitely intoxicated brunette slurred without thanks, waving her wine glass towards us before swaying in the direction of the restrooms.

“Yeah.” He scoffed against my throat, nipping again, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at full attention.

“What?” My mind was hazy.

Lifting his head, he glared at me. “Who wrote that for you?”

I came crashing into reality at Mach five and not a moment too soon. “Excuse me?”

“The speech. Who wrote it?”

“I did.” My voice had dropped low. I was edging farther away from being turned on and closer to being royally pissed off.

“You didn’t,” he accused as his hands trailed over my backside. I loosed the grip I had on his suit lapels for fear I’d rip one off and use it to choke him.