Teaser Tuesday

So at AW, everyone with a blog is doing this thing called Teaser Tuesday. Teaser Tuesday is when you post a teaser of a piece that you are currently doing on your blog, so that is I am doing today and will be doing every Tuesday! This is a teaser from the first chapter of   WIP, Picture Perfect. Enjoy!
 

Sunlight splashed against sleepy eyelids, arousing a horrible groan from cracked lips. Ella Wilson shielded her blurry eyes from the early morning light. Inside of her head, a little construction worker was pounding a hammer mercilessly against her skull. God, how many drinks did she have last night? Her head rolled to the left, her eyes now fixated on the unconscious, half-naked guy wedged in the small space of floor in the back section of the car. What a minute … a car?

 Ella bolted upright prior to cradling her swimming head with her hand while she tried to figure out why was she in the backseat of a car. She shivered violently as a cool breeze waft through the car from the rolled down windows. The brown peaks of her chest hardened from the sudden gush of air causing her to glance down. Ella widened her eyes as she realized that she was topless.

    “Wonderful,” she murmured as she ran her slim brown fingers through her rumpled tresses, hunching her back a bit as she leaned over to look at the motionless guy whose face was planted against the carpeted floor. Was he dead?

    To answer her own question, she jabbed a finger at his back, but there was no response. On the verge of poking him again, Ella let out a yelp as a loud snore erupted into the air. The guy’s back rose like a giant wave as he took in a gulp of air. Okay, so he was alive … that’s good.

    Her attention then turned to the front section of the car littered with empty bottles of vodka and beer cans. As she crawled over the guy for a clearer view of the front seats, she nearly gave a sigh of relief as she saw her purse, heels, and strapless dress crumpled in a pile on the floorboard of the front passenger seat.

    Ella was careful not to awake the guy as she crawled from the backseat and into the front, brushing away the empty alcoholic containers as she sat down in the passenger seat. After slipping her feet into her heels, she put on her dress before grabbing her purse. She retrieved her cell phone from her purse and turned it on with a press of a button.

    She noted the low battery and the time, which was 6:13 in the morning. Searching through her contacts, she found her family driver, Franklin. Ella glanced through the windshield to spot the lit sign of the nearest place in which the car parked in an empty parking lot. “Twilight Inn,” she read a sign located across the street where the inn was stationed. Ella composed a text message.

    Need you to pick me up, she sent.

    In moments, her cell hummed in vibration. Location? He replied back.

    Twilight Inn on Wells Ave, she sent back.

    ‘Be there in fifteen minutes’ was the final text message Franklin sent to her. A pinch of relief filled her chest at the response.

    Ella waited about a ten minutes before gathering her things and leaving the car, her five-inch heels clicking against the tattered black top. As she jaywalked across the street, she tried to piece together the events of last night while dodging honking cars.

    Once safely in front of the Twilight Inn, she waited near the curb, hugging herself as she waited for Franklin to come. Drivers and passengers from passing cars gave her odd or disgusted looks. She probably looked like a prostitute trying to bait a trick. Messy hair, wrinkled strapless dress, odd colored heels, and probably bloodshot eyes, she couldn’t blame them if they did.

    Barely a few minutes later, a familiar black limo with deeply tinted windows slid up to the curb. She opened the door and climbed inside, sinking into the firm black leather seat as she settled in. “I’ll assume that grad night was a success,” Franklin said as his coal black eyes stared up at her through the reflection of the rearview mirror.

    “If it was, I wouldn’t remember,” Ella replied.

    “That’s not a first,” he said more to himself than her.

    Ella tilted her head back and groaned. “Please don’t preach. It’s too early in the morning.”

    “He cares about you, you know,” Franklin stated, the subject ‘he’ meaning her father.

    Ella frowned. “You’re siding with him now?”

    “I’m not sidin’ with anybody. I’m just statin’ the facts. The facts that you refuse to believe.”

    “I only refuse to believe because it’s not true. You don’t know him like I do. None of ya’ll do,” Ella gazed out of the window.

    “When I was growin’ up, we didn’t have love-hate relationships with our parents. They loved us, we loved them, and that was that,” Frank uttered. Ella moistened her lips before a small sad smile played across them. “You’re right, Frank. My dad and I do have a love-hate relationship,” she said. “I love him, he hates me.”