by Eden O'Neill
Billie was his girl, and though I had seen him at the wedding, I thought the conversation would be between the pair of us. I mean, I’d said nothing incriminating and may have told him more if not for how he’d reacted. He’d been completely judgmental when I only sorta talked about some of what I’d planned to do.
“Yeah, but nowhere in that conversation was there mention of fucking plans.” Royal’s blond eyebrows narrowed.
LJ folded his long arms. “That’s because I hoped there wouldn’t be. That’s because I hoped after talking to him he’d get some sense in that thick-ass scull.”
“Hold up.” Knight propped his glasses up into his dark hair, really looking like a fucking grandpa now. “Is that why you went running off to Florida the way you did?”
Royal’s eyes twitched wide. “Holy fuck. Is that why?” But then a sigh. “Jax…”
“Don’t fucking ‘Jax’ me.” I wanted to toss my computer, goddamn destroy it. “And none of you have fucking anything to do with this.”
“No, dude. But when it comes to you, we have every fucking right.” Royal again, his expression serious. “We care about you, man, and this shit sounds dangerous. Not physically, but mentally.”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t give a shit about your dad and definitely not about his family.”
That last bit came from Knight, Knight who’d do anything to protect, avenge his family. We all would. That’s how we operated, brotherhood, family the most important thing.
That’s what our chrome rings meant, and we all had them. We’d gotten them in high school, a unity that ensnared us for life. Recently, the three had given what we called king rings to their girls, but the sentiment was still there. We were family, tight-knit as hell, and we’d do anything to protect our house.
My family, my moms were my house, and my boys should be supporting that.
My jaw fucking tight, I braced my screen. “That fucker, my father, destroyed my family. That fucker left…”
I didn’t have to finish because they knew. They knew everything. My dad hadn’t just left us, left me. No, he destroyed us. And sent my mother in and out of therapy for years to deal with it. Thank God she had Mama. Thank God she had support and me to help bring her back from it. It’d been some dark times back then, and it had been up to me to step up and keep everyone sane. I kept everyone happy.
I made things all right.
Well, now that I was older and had access, I could do more. A golden opportunity had come around when, out of the ether, my dad had wanted me to come down here. He’d been preaching about reconnecting with me, and I jumped on it. I wanted to see this new family he created. The one he left us for. I wanted to see the woman he’d cheated on my mom with.
And I wanted to see the daughter he’d replaced me with.
My buddies… they’d never be able to understand that. All of us shared our trauma, but mine was my own. It was mine to fix. Not theirs.
Silence through the screen, like they knew I was mulling so much shit over. I hated the pity, the remorse on all their faces as they looked at me.
At this point, Knight had peeled his gaze away, and though LJ looked on, he wasn’t saying anything.
Royal gripped his hands, leaning in. “I know you’ve been hurt.”
“Do you?” Emotion in my voice. Emotion I fucking hated. I wet my lips. “Do you know what it’s like to pick up your whole family after that shit? To be the one with the humor and the laughter…”
I’d spoken too much, knew that. But Jax, me, wasn’t the one people took seriously. Jaxen Ambrose was always the one with the laughs. I was always laughing but not any-fucking-more.
Now, I was making shit right finally, and my buddies, as much as I loved them, weren’t going to take that away from me.
LJ started to say something, but Royal waved a hand. It was like a silent exchange was going on I wasn’t a part of.
Royal cradled his arms. “We want you to be happy. We want that, so how can we do that for you?”
A nod from the others in the screen, and I fought from pinching my eyes. Instead, I tapped my keyboard. “Just let me do what I have to do.”
A jaw clench from Royal, then another nod from the others. Royal sat back and eventually did move the conversation on to other things. Things like December, things like his wedding. The others popped in too, when appropriate, and I did as well. Happy for that.
They were things that, gratefully, had nothing to do with me.
Chapter Eleven
Cleo
A week or so of classes passed, but I’d begged housing for a new living placement. I spent the majority of my time outside of my living space and the other, locked up in it. Between avoiding Jax and hiding out from Kit, it’d been a necessity. My friend had been incessant on trying to hash things out with me, texting me, calling me. I avoided her at all costs and thought, with a new placement, I might be able to talk to her again—eventually. She’d said things weren’t her fault, that she’d been misled and I believed her, but I was just so embarrassed about the whole thing. Embarrassed about my place in the whole thing. I was naked and pressed up against my stepbrother only days later and all the countless times before with him and me simply made me sick. Add to the fact I’d found the pair of them screwing?
I just couldn’t talk to her. Not yet.
Housing hadn’t budged following my request, not with the term already starting and placements solid. I’d been told the best they could do for me was something for next term, but I couldn’t wait until next term. Not with how awkward as hell things had been. Kit was basically stalking me.
Then there was Jax.
He lingered, always there. I barely left my room, but I didn’t have to. I felt him down the hall from me. Just silently waiting.
I’ll be waiting for you, Girl Scout… And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t make me wait long.”
He actually said that to me, said that like I’d ever touch him again. Jaxen Ambrose was dangerous, absolute filth and the scum of the earth. As it turned out, he had gotten Dad to assist with a placement in Tempest Hall. But unbeknownst to my adoptive father, Jax had wiggled his way into my dorm specifically. Neither Dad nor Mom knew anything about my stepbrother actually living with me, and how did I know? Because of the way the conversation went.
“Have you run into your stepbrother yet?” Dad’d asked me, simply giddy. Both he and Mom had been blowing up my phone since I hadn’t checked in as soon as I’d arrived to school. I always did so I had more than a few text messages and missed phone calls before I finally answered. Dad had laughed light. “I hoped for it to be a surprise, but I got him into Tempest Hall with you. I’m sure he’s nearby. You should look for him.”
Because he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known at all that Jax was in the same living space as me. If he did, he would have told me.
And yes, I was definitely surprised.
“It’ll be so nice to have him nearby,” Mom had said too, a video call. “You can help him, and you both can get to know each other.”
Dad had simply appeared ecstatic on the line, agreeing. He really wanted this situation to work out between Jax and me.
But how could it? I had a psychopath for a stepbrother, one out to get me at the first strike. I was so frustrated and depressed about my situation I didn’t even go to classes for the first week. Just stayed in my room. I kept thinking the ball was about to drop, that Jax would strike. But worse…
That I would succumb to it.
I had no idea how an interaction would be between us if I let it happen, and what had started as a daring act to put me out of my comfort zone and lose my virginity turned into a tried and true nightmare. I’d just wanted to be free for once, not be bound by my head, and someone had taken advantage of that. Someone with perfect green eyes and a handsome grin. Someone who’s laughter had elicited nothing but tingles when I’d met him.
But now haunted my dreams.
Eventually, I had to come to terms with
my current reality. This was my life, a mess, but my life nonetheless. My parents, God love them, really wanted this to work between Jax and me, and though I knew that was a hopeless case, I just couldn’t disappoint them. Doing that would crush my dad’s heart. I knew that Jax really didn’t care about any of this. He obviously had issues with me, Mom, and my adoptive father. Truth be told, he might even hate Rick Fairchild as much as he hated me, but at the end of the day, my dad didn’t know that. My dad never mentioned any hate or issues that Jax had with him because every time we talked and he talked about Jax, it was only good things. They were still checking in with each other, getting along.
So how could I ruin that?
It’d be selfish so I refused. Instead, I put my big girl panties on and went to class. I went on with my life. I proceeded in the typical college experience, getting coffee before my classes.
That’s when I spotted Kit.
She’d been at the Bean Brewery, the hottest spot to go for coffee on campus, which was why I went there. It was always busy, but they were fast. Especially when you used the app to put your order in.
Kit had been behind the counter, a barista apron on and since the place had been so busy, I hadn’t noticed her until I was too late. I stared at my best friend since freshman year in the face, her blond curls tied back and looking so petite before me. Since I was so tall, I could literally lay my head on top of hers in photos.
She’d stopped, of course, mid-call-out and clearly surprised to see me too. We were about three weeks into classes at this point, and she’d pretty much given up on trying to talk to me. She hadn’t even been texting anymore, just coming and going. That last day she’d stood outside my door she’d said she would back off, that she’d wait for me to come to her when I was ready.
How ironic as that was exactly what ended up happening here today.
She rubbed her hands on her apron, sliding in front of the cash register. She opened her mouth to say something to me, but I stepped back.
“Cleo!”
I walked off, darted around the other patrons in line, but her hand looped around my arm.
“Just let me get you a coffee. Jesus, stop please!”
I was ashamed and couldn’t even look at her, and definitely didn’t want to stop. I tugged my arm free, but she got it again. I faced her. “I don’t want to talk.”
“I know.” She raised her hands as if I were a small child she may scare off.
She just might.
A sweep of her blond curls she pulled out of her face. Some had fallen from her ponytail, a crushed tone to her cheeks from her mad dash after me. She huffed. “Just let me get you your coffee order, okay? Did you use the app?”
I nodded, and before I could protest, she walked off. She sprinted back behind the counter, and though I could have darted off, I stayed. She came back in like three seconds, but was very much sans coffee.
She chewed her lip. “We have to make it over. One of the new people misread the—”
“Forget about it.”
“Please, Cleo. God.” Hands on my arm, she squeezed. “Please, just let me remake it. After I do, you can leave. Just let me please.”
A slow pain seared my insides at the harsh plea in her eyes. She wasn’t to blame in this situation. I knew that.
It was just so hard.
I just kept seeing her, seeing her with him, and it brought everything back with him and me. Stomaching my pride, I slid my arm out of her hands, folding them. “Okay, that’s fine.”
One would have thought I granted her dearest wish with the sudden light in her eyes, and that made me feel even worse. She told me, “Two seconds,” before she was off, and huffing, I decided to take a seat while I waited. I ended up over by the windows since the place was so busy, staring out at the beach. I watched the waves for a while before I had to turn away, feeling a little sick again. I was usually okay by the water.
But not always.
That was excruciatingly hard since I lived by water my whole life, but usually, I was pretty good about it. I didn’t have anxiety attacks anymore and funny enough, large bodies of water didn’t freak me out as much as other things. Sometimes I just got these triggers I couldn’t handle. Storms too hard on my windshield for example.
Swimming pools…
My gaze pulled up at the appearance of my friend, her grin too wide with a coffee in her hands. “Medium mocha latte with almond milk and no whipped cream.”
I thanked her, truly thanked her. Coffee sounded very good right now and always helped as it was something comforting. I took those comforts where I could these days, and she used to be one of them.
Kit rubbed her hands, then eventually, took it upon her self to sit at my table. She must have been working, but she seemed not to care.
“Cleo,” she started, wrestling so hard with her hands. This was killing her, killing me and I knew that, but… “You have to know how sorry I am. I really didn’t know Jaxen was your stepbrother, and had I known, I definitely wouldn’t have hooked up with him. Fuck, knowing what I know now about him, I totally wouldn’t have. That guy’s a total asshole.”
A chuckle, light but it did sound. It was a relief to hear it, feel it. I felt so alone in the fact that I did know who Jaxen was. He had both my parents wrapped around his finger. Meanwhile, I was off on this island by myself.
Seeing my laughter, Kit’s eyes shined. She took my hands. “I mean, he totally is, right? What kind of guy doesn’t share that he’s your friend’s stepbrother?”
“That one,” I said, totally knowing that. “He’s awful.”
“I can see that. Jesus.” Another lip bite as she looked at me. “I really didn’t know. He honestly just said he was our new roommate. And dude, I never do stuff like that but he’s like… seriously hot and oh my God so charming it’s scary. I mean, it was like he hypnotized the panties off me or something.”
God, did I know how he worked. That charm.
That evil.
The guy had some kind of crazy darkness inside him, but what was awful was, clearly it was reserved mostly for me. Kit had been a victim in all this, another one of his cruel games to get to me. He hadn’t said this.
It’d just been obvious.
“You forgive me?” Kit asked, so much hope in her eyes, but I couldn’t in good faith accept her apology. I couldn’t because that meant she did something wrong.
And I definitely couldn’t without giving my own first.
I did as words spilled out of my mouth like a raging river, a current of the chaos and evil that was Jaxen Ambrose. I told Kit everything. How he was the one I’d met at the club that night, how he’d told me his name was Brett only for me to later find out he was my stepbrother. I told her how kind he’d been to me.
Until he wasn’t.
I’d told her everything and ended with how he’d promised I’d come back to him. How he’d called both my mom and me a whore when the only person I’d ever slept with was him in my whole life. Kit sat awed, a fair amount of disgust on her face the whole time. At one point, I actually thought she’d be sick.
That had been the part where I walked in on them together.
“And I slept with him?” Complete dread overtook her face, large breaths from her lips. “Oh my God.”
I’d grabbed her hands then. She really hadn’t known, and I had understood that. I really did, but was sick over this all myself. “I’m not mad at you.”
“Well, you should be. Fuck.” She tugged her hands into her lap, staring at the beach. “He’s a psychopath.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated about an asshole?”she asked, head tilted. “Do your parents know about this?”
“No, and that’s why it’s so complicated.”
Obviously, none of this made sense to my friend. I gnawed my lip. “My dad… both my parents just want us to get along. Jaxen and my dad spe
cifically have a really rough history, and though I don’t know the details, I do know that Rick Fairchild raised me when he had a biological son back in the Midwest.”
She frowned. “You think all this… you and him is about that?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I just know my dad wants this to work. He… craves it almost. I just don’t want to disappoint him, Kit. This whole thing would crush him.”
“Yeah, which is why you need to tell him.” She hugged her arms. “He’d want to know about this.”
“But what if Jaxen does really want to get to know him?” My greatest fear, that maybe he did have issues with my adoptive father but was here to legitimately try and fix them. “I can’t be the reason my dad doesn’t get to reconnect with his son.”
“You wouldn’t be the reason. Babe, that dickwad dug his own grave with what he did and continues to do to you. Don’t you see that? You have to tell your—”
“I said I can’t be the reason!”
Her eyes twitched wide, the clanking of coffee cups and various conversations filling the air between us.
I heard my heart in my head after that, felt it and was visibly shaking by the time my friend took my hands. She said nothing, of course, waiting. She knew a lot of my issues, God love her.
Which was why she didn’t say anything.
She knew what I felt, the guilt I had. We’d only been friends for a few years, but she was my ride or die. She knew stuff.
She knew a lot of stuff.
“What are you going to do then?” she asked, rubbing my hands, and like I told her, I didn’t know. I just knew what I wasn’t going to do.
And that was break up my family again.
Chapter Twelve
Cleo
About the only good thing to come from the situation with Jax was, now that Kit was in the know, we could hate him together. We loathed him as a united front, and over the course of the next few weeks, he made that easy. Jax wasn’t only an asshole. He was a guy and one who didn’t pick up after himself. We found his school books and random trash all over the dorm’s common area quite often. He also ate everything, like literally everything. If Kit and I left something in the fridge, it was apparently free rein for the human garbage disposal.