I’m shaking now, completely and utterly confused by this hot-cold shit. How am I supposed to interpret this?
“You said you were going to bury me, remember? What else can I do but fight back? We could call a truce, if you want.”
Parrish studies me for a moment, his fingers lightly massaging the back of my head. It feels good, too good actually. I could stand like this for hours, my hands resting on the front of his t-shirt, that citrusy smell of his playing tricks on my senses.
“That could work,” he muses, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “But you have to correct the lie: we both know I have a huge dick.” I give him a look and he laughs. “Well, I do. Just the other night you were feeling me up; don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
He’s referring to that moment in the bathroom. While I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘feeling him up’, I did get a bit of a handful …
“If I find some way to correct the micropenis rumor, you’ll lay off a little?” I ask, heart thundering, wondering what’s going to change between us after this moment. I mean, we’re having a thing right now, aren’t we? The way Parrish is staring down at me, I can tell that this is a pivotal moment for us.
“Say it, and I’ll leave you alone,” he says, lifting up a hand and offering me his pinkie finger. “Pinkie promise.”
I give him a skeptical look in response. As if your heart isn’t thundering like crazy right now, Kota. Hah. If I can’t even lie to myself, how am I supposed to stand here in front of Parrish and act like I’m unaffected by his presence?
“Say what?” I reply with a sigh, reaching up to curl my pinkie around his. We hook fingers and my pulse goes crazy, blood roaring in my head, dizziness sweeping over me and leaving me wavering.
“Tell me I have a huge dick,” he replies, and I cock a brow. “That’s it, all you have to say, and I’ll leave you alone.” I narrow my eyes at him. Like I said, I enjoy a good idiom. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
My gaze shifts over to his desk, to where his phone is lying, propped up and resting in just such a way … I tear my hand from his and scramble over to it, snatching it before he can stop me. Just as I thought: the fucker’s recording this.
“You royal piece of shit,” I grind out, ducking into the hallway just in time to slam into Tess.
Oh.
What fantastic timing.
“Royal piece of shit?” she queries, looking up and over my head at her stepson. “What’s going on over here?”
Quick as lightning, Parrish snatches the phone from my grip and does … something with it. When Tess holds out her hand, he passes it over with a scowl, giving me a look that quite clearly says keep your mouth shut. Not like I was about to cop to making out with my stepbrother. What would Tess do if she were to find out? I have a really good feeling that I don’t want to find out.
After a moment of scrolling through Parrish’s phone, Tess hands it back and does her best to smile at me. Still, there’s something in her gaze that bothers me. It must bother Parrish, too, because his mood takes an even deeper nosedive into the abyss.
“Tell your daughter to stay the hell out of my room,” he hisses, as if he wasn’t just trying to film me saying he had a big dick. Likely he’d make a nice little cut of the footage and post it online. I hate him. I should’ve kissed Chasm at the lake.
I scowl but say nothing. Tess is saying enough for me, giving Parrish a stern look that’s leagues better than the one she had on just a few minutes ago. She senses something developing between us, doesn’t she? I feel suddenly itchy and disturbed by the idea, like I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
“Your sister,” Tess inserts forcefully, and I swear, both Parrish and I cringe a little, “should not be in your room without your permission.” And here it’s my turn to get a stern look. “But don’t refer to her like that, you know better.”
“Refer to her as what? The stranger that she is?” Parrish questions, and then he slams the door closed and Tess gives a deep frown. She might be overbearing and controlling, but she also spoils her kids. It’s a toxic combination.
I can see it as she turns to me, looking me over with that same, sad desperation. Despite that, Tess has yet to give me more than fifteen minutes of her time this entire week.
We stand there in the hallway, just staring at each other for a moment. I wish we weren’t though, because the longer I stare at her, the more I see of myself in her face. That bothers me, immensely.
“I know he comes across a certain way …” Tess begins, her familiar raven-black eyes shifting to one side, toward the window at the end of the hall that shows off a sliver of lake. “But he’s really a sweet boy.” She looks back at me, and I do my best to stifle a snort.
“I’m sure he is,” I choke out, thinking of Parrish snatching Kimber’s phone and chucking it out the window. A real peach. A rotten one. Teeming with maggots. “We’re just … clashing a bit.” And by clashing a bit, I mean … fighting and then kissing? Somehow, I really, really, really seem to like the fighting and kissing. In that order, too.
I could never tell Tess that. I’m sure of it. She isn’t the type of parent to say well, you two aren’t related, and you just met, so it’s okay if you want to … Do what? Date? When we live in the same house? When we’re calling the same woman ‘mother’? I want to scream.
Instead, I make myself smile. If I get hurt, and I smile, then I can remember who I am. When I react, I feel like I’m hearing a stranger use my mouth, like I’m Mia Patterson with a quippy comeback instead of calm, cool, chilled-out Dakota Banks.
Tess puts her hand on my shoulder, giving the barest of squeezes.
“You’ll figure it out.” She gives me a sly half-smile that I almost want to return. But then I remember that she offered me a nose job for my birthday, and the urge dies before it can take root. “I’ve somehow learned to live with Paul,” she says, giving a slight tilt of her head. I should laugh, probably, but instead I just stand there.
The silence stretches strangely between us as Tess reaches up to adjust her glasses. I’ve literally never seen her wear them before, not this whole time I’ve lived here. A whole three weeks. When I still have years to go before I can escape. This is going to drag, that’s for sure.
“Well, I’ve got a deadline,” she posits, and then just stands there awkwardly for a minute. Out in public, Tess Vanguard puts on the persona of a deeply confident and impossibly successful person. In private like this, she sort of fits the stereotypical shy and hermit-like writer, the type who’d happily live in a cave in the middle of the woods and let an owl fly their manuscript into the publisher.
Looking at her, I decide that there’s only one side of that persona I like. If having both facets is what it takes to be a writer then it is most definitely not a career choice I’d ever entertain.
“I should probably get started on my homework,” I say, just before I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. A moment later, Chasm appears with an iPad tucked under his arm. He looks pissed at me, but he gives an award-winning smile when Tess glances his way.
“Parrish has locked himself in,” she says, gesturing with her chin in the direction of her son’s room.
“That’s okay,” Chasm says, shrugging his shoulders loosely. “I’m not here to see Parrish.”
The expression on Tess’ face is worth about a million words, but I’ll let her write them since that isn’t my thing. Freaked-out is how I’d describe it, actually. She looks between the two of us with surprise for a moment, but Chasm makes certain she doesn’t get the wrong idea.
“Dakota is behind in every class,” Chasm says, flipping his iPad around so that Tess can see it. There’s some sort of Japanese worksheet on hiragana and katakana that I vaguely recognize from seeing my first day in class. There was a quiz today, but Ms. Miyamoto excused me from it. “I’m here to tutor her.”
“Oh.” Tess blinks a few times in surprise, pushing messy hair back from her face. She doesn�
��t let anyone outside the family see her like this, without the power-suit and the expensive heels. Chasm is included in that elite group, apparently. Chasm and Maxx both, for that matter. “Your dad’s okay with that?”
There’s the slightest look of hesitation on Chasm’s face before he shrugs his shoulders again.
“As long as I’m on track to be valedictorian, he doesn’t care,” he drawls, giving a tight smile as Tess slides her phone from the pocket of her sweats and sighs.
“If you two want to use the living room, I’ll kick the kids out. But I’ve really got to get this damn book done. I’m running two chapters behind, and my editor isn’t happy.” She glances back up at us, but Chasm clearly knows how to handle her.
“We’ll leave the door open,” he promises, but he closes it as soon as she disappears into her office and we can both hear the clacking of her typewriter.
“Did you really come here to tutor me?” I ask as Chasm yanks an unopened box of my clothes over and sits down beside it. He points to the spot on the floor beside him.
“You, here,” he tells me, turning up the brightness on his screen and holding out an Apple pencil. “Take this and start copying characters. As you draw them, pronounce them.” I give him a skeptical look that he returns with a challenging one of his own. I can only imagine what Parrish is going to think when he finds out that his best friend stopped by to see … me?
If he hadn’t turned up his stupid music so loud, then maybe he’d have already realized that Chasm was here.
With some reluctance, I take a seat beside Chasm and pull his iPad into my lap.
“In exchange for this,” he starts, and I look up because I just knew it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, is there? “Don’t tell anyone about what you saw at my house.” The way he looks at me, there’s a tenderness to his expression, like he’s afraid of being found out. As if being a nice guy and helping drunk girls out is something to be ashamed of.
Unless … he’s protecting the girls and not himself?
Since Lumen knew the girl Chasm took to his room (she knows everyone), I texted from her phone to see how she was doing. He was great, gave me my space, took me home in the morning. No wonder all the girls like him. There’s something distinctly sexy when a guy isn’t a creep or a perv. So why put on the display like he is, flashing his feathers like a peacock every day at school?
I just stare at him.
“You’re a virgin, I get it. I won’t tell anyone.” I look back down at the iPad, but the letters may as well be an alien language for all that I understand them. Deep breath, Dakota. You watch plenty of anime, you got this.
“Did I say I was a virgin?” Chasm grits out through his teeth, reaching over and curling my fingers tightly around the Apple pencil. My hand burns where he touches me, but I refuse to give him any indication that I’m in the process of catching on fire. “Just don’t tell anyone about Friday night. Write. I have other things to do today.”
“You’re a virgin,” I repeat, but I do as he says. He doesn’t respond to me, but whenever my attention starts to wander, Chasm flicks me in the nose and I throw the pencil at him. When he packs up to leave however, I look down at the worksheet and realize with a start that I’ve started to memorize most of the characters. Three hours have passed, and I barely noticed.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he tells me, standing up and collecting his things. As he turns to leave, I finally remember what it is that I meant to ask him about last night.
“Hey, did you ever …” God, this is going to sound weird. “Did you ever prank me by dragging me out to the woods at night?” I look up to see the expression on his face and see him staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“God, you’re weird,” he replies with a roll of his eyes, stepping into the hall and closing my door behind him. I stare after him for a moment and then grab my phone, setting it up on the tripod and making sure that it’s facing directly toward my bed.
If there is someone creeping around in the dark, I’ll catch them eventually.
I’d easily forgotten Paul’s casual mention of the talk show until several weeks later, when Tess’ knock wakes me up at an ungodly hour. What is wrong with these people?! Are they all androids? Do they not need to sleep?
I force myself out of bed, opening the door to find my biological mother waiting for me.
“I was hoping we might go out for breakfast together today?” she asks, and even though the idea of spending a day alone with her makes my anxiety spike through the roof, I’m also relieved. As much as Tess says she loves me, all of the things she’s done thus far regarding me have really been for her. What was best for her. She hasn’t really tried to get to know me.
A small spark of hope fires in my chest as I mull the thought over and fight back my initial reservations. A mistake I’ll regret later, I’m sure.
I end up nodding and yawning at the same time.
“That sounds nice,” I admit, because it does. It isn’t that I don’t want to get to know Tess or her other kids. It’s just … why did she have to rip me away from my family, from everything that I knew? Just to bring me someplace where I feel like an afterthought or a relic at best, a burden or an inconvenience at worst. It’s been an entire month since I last spoke to my grandparents, and I feel more homesick than ever.
“Meet me downstairs in an hour,” she says, and then pauses, still dressed in pale blue silk pj’s with flowy pants and a matching cami. She gives my Overwatch pajamas a curious sort of look before grimacing slightly. Last week, she made a light suggestion about dying my hair a more natural color; I ignored her. “Oh.” Tess turns away and then pauses to glance back at me, like she’s just thought of something. “And wear something nice. We’re going to the club.”
Heh.
The country club for breakfast.
My small spark of hope flares out in an instant, but I do the dutiful daughter thing, showering and fixing the green and black hair she hates. I even put on a small amount of makeup—mostly just some copper shadow and a touch of lip gloss—but it’s the effort that counts, right?
Wearing nothing but a bra and panties, I slip on the diamond tennis bracelet Tess got me and then stare at the collection of clothes spread out across the floor. A couple more of my boxes arrived yesterday although my furniture is still at least a week out. Freight is sslllloowww.
Anyway, what Tess considers nice, and what I consider nice, are surely different things.
I decide on a black jumper with a long-sleeved white shirt underneath, some black and red kitten heels with very subtle werewolf faces on the toes, and a black denim jacket. Since I really am trying here, I remove most of the pins on the lapels before heading downstairs.
Parrish is in the kitchen, but Tess is nowhere to be seen.
He looks up and spots me there, taking in my outfit with a single, sweeping glance. I notice that he presses his butter knife against the bread so hard that when he goes to spread the mustard on it, it sort of breaks into pieces.
“Is Tess around?” I ask as he watches me, shoving the remainder of the ruined bread into the trash compactor and then grabbing the half-gallon of milk instead. A different teenage face stares back at me with the same headline: MISSING CHILD. Way to rub it in universe, thanks. Yeah, I remember who I am alright.
My worries seem small though in comparison to that missing boy’s. There is still a serial killer haunting the Seattle metro area. Shit, that dude is likely dead, just like the others. There are a lot of them, too, enough to get multiple agencies involved in the investigation.
Twelve teens dead; no clues of any worth.
I know more than I want to, thanks to Parrish and Chasm and their obsession with that Emerald City Murder Podcast. Gross.
Parrish shakes his head in a tacit response to my question, lifting the milk to his lips. My eyes find his throat as he swallows, watching the muscles contract with each gulp. My jaw tightens in response, and I tear my gaze away, glad to see that the
sofa is empty and Kimber is nowhere to be seen. I can stand up for myself, but it gets tiring after a while, especially since, even after a month and a half, she won’t lay off.
“We’re having breakfast at the club,” I say, because it feels suddenly awkward in here. There’s just something about being alone with Parrish that makes me uneasy. And not uneasy in the way it should. Uneasy in a ‘butterflies in the belly and sweaty palms’ sort of a way. Nothing’s happened between us since the last time we kissed, but I noticed that as soon as Parrish was aware that Chasm was tutoring me, he started leaving his door open so he could spy on us.
“Always fun,” he replies succinctly, frowning as he sets the milk down on the counter and drags his arm across his full, pouty mouth. His pants are far too low on his hips, and as per usual, he isn’t wearing a shirt. It’s like he expects the rest of us to feel privileged for being allowed to see his art. Maybe he should sell tickets?
I roll my eyes, and he narrows his in response.
“Parrish,” Tess says when she appears from the direction of the pool area. “I’m getting tired of telling you to use a glass. And to put on a shirt. You have teenage sisters in the home, and they shouldn’t have to look at your nipples all day, every day.”
Parrish’s gold-flecked eyes light on my face, as if in challenge, but he just grabs a wadded up black t-shirt from the counter and yanks it over his head. It strains across the muscles in his upper chest as he tugs it into place, leaving it to gather just above his belly button, so I can see a tantalizing bit of skin between the tee and his pants.
“Whatever,” is his response as he takes the milk and moves past me toward the staircase. A shiver takes over me, but since Tess is standing right there, staring at me with that intensity that makes me so damn uncomfortable, I don’t react—even though Parrish smells like clovers and clean linen.
My hands fist in the legs of my jumper as Tess looks me over.
Me and my hideous nose, right?
My mouth twitches, but I refuse to let it turn down into a frown. Sometimes, people hurt others without meaning to. If I don’t tell Tess how I feel, she won’t know or understand. I resolve to do just that during breakfast.
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