by Eden O'Neill
Something I guess he would know.
The thoughts had me thinking about how messed up this was, but not just because the woman was married and in an abusive relationship.
I mean, Charlie was a student. She wasn’t his teacher, but still, a student. I didn’t know how old our principal was, but the age didn’t matter in this situation considering their current roles to the other.
“Even still, what you’re doing is wrong,” I said, making him laugh again. “You’re a student. You guys shouldn’t be messing around.”
“We are both consenting adults,” he stated, facing me. He frowned. “And you got some nerve preaching your moral compass to me.” He shook his head. “How much fucking shit do I keep from Royal and December about all the crap you get up to? All the girls you fuck around with at six-fucking-teen. Coming to parties like this and getting baked and shit—”
“We’re not even in the same ballpark,” I seethed, making his eyes lift. “I’m not in the wrong here. The shit I get up to is nothing like what you’re doing.”
It was nothing like it—at all, and he had no right comparing the two.
“Well, aren’t you just perfect, Robin.” He angled around to look at me. “Just fucking perfect and have it all together.”
“I never said that.”
He laughed.
Until, well, he didn’t.
Until he was in my face and giving me a look he’d never given me before. A look of darkness and laced with so much heat and aggression. Charlie had never stared at me this way.
“Newsflash, kid,” he said to me, eyes scanning mine. “Sometimes shit isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’s hard for some of us to have it together all the fucking time.”
I never said that he had to, and I never made him feel like it had to be that way. Shit wasn’t perfect. Not for me either and especially not for him.
I knew that.
We all did, Mom, Dad, and the rest of our family. My friends and his friends… We all knew things weren’t perfect for him.
We all knew he was hurting.
My grandparents’ death left a void in my life. I mean, they were my grandparents, but even still, it was different for Charlie.
They were his parents.
Charlie put on a good front. I’d give him that. He never waltzed around angry or broken. In fact, he made it appear as if he were the epitome of the opposite. He was number one in his class, senior class president, captain of the football team.
Homecoming king.
He did have his shit together, and no one would ever question that.
Maybe we should have.
Mom, Dad, and even the guys and me checked in with him all the time, but that didn’t mean he told us shit, and I wondered if Principal Mayberry was giving him something we couldn’t. Maybe she wasn’t pushing. Maybe she was letting him give in and just bury himself in other thoughts for a while. Maybe she was being different with him like we weren’t.
Charlie blinked, like maybe he’d said too much. He faced away, putting the car into drive, and I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to just leave like this.
That didn’t mean he didn’t do it anyway.
He started us off on that more than two-hour drive, a pregnant silence in the car, and I had more than a sinking feeling. If Charlie was bottling up all this stuff, it wasn’t good, and the fact made me feel nothing but powerless. This wasn’t like when we’d been kids.
Just tucking him in and telling him we were brothers wouldn’t be enough this time.
Chapter Seventeen
Dorian - present
My dad dropped me off at the curb with a huff, and considering how pissed I knew he was at me, I just got out of the car. The other guys, Wolf, Thatcher, and Wells were out there too. They stood in their tuxes in front of the theater. They’d obviously been dropped off by their dads too.
We’d been set up.
I knew what had been coming on the way to the theater downtown, but still, seeing my buddies was a surprise. They eyed me as I exited the car.
Dad leaned over the seat, jutting his chin at my friends. “Boys.”
“Sir,” all three of the fellas proclaimed. We all had respect for our fathers. We referred to each other’s with similar terms. Our dads had all been friends for forever, but I was the only one out of my buddies to know each of their dads as a godfather. Wolf’s dad, Ramses, was closer with my mom and, from what I understood, became friends with my dad through her.
Wells’s and Thatcher’s dads were super close with my father, so they did call my dad godfather, though.
Keeping it all straight over the years really was something else, but at the end of the day, none of it mattered. All our parents held a deep bond, and that extended to us. We all were family, and the labels really didn’t mean much.
Dad nodded at my friends. “Where are your dads?”
Wells pushed a thumb behind himself. “Parking the cars.”
Dad acknowledged that once more with a nod, also in a tux like me and the other guys. I could imagine all the dads were dressed in a similar fashion.
An evening at the ballet usually warranted it.
We were obviously all dragged here tonight, but my buddies and I didn’t complain. Never did. From the street, Dad mumbled about going to park too, and I got a moment to breathe when he pulled away from the curb.
The drive up here had been tense to say the least.
I turned, and the others eyed me. Wolf pulled a joint out of his pocket, lighting up right there on the sidewalk. I let him because I needed the hit. There were also enough people loading and dropping off that we blended in enough. Most probably just thought it was a cigarette.
Wolf passed smoke through his nostrils before handing me the joint. I took a good long hit before passing it off to my friends. Wolf frowned. “So now that we’re alone, who fucked up?”
The question of the evening. If we were all dragged here tonight, at the ballet, someone had fucked up. Our fathers only took us to the theater when one of us kids was being an asshole. Trips to the ballet were reserved for special offenses.
Ones usually concerning females.
See, our fathers came up with it in their heads long ago that, when their sons were being dicks, we all needed a reminder to be better men. Something about the male dancers of the ballet treating women in softer ways, more delicate. Respectful.
Honestly, the shit just put my friends and me to fucking sleep, but when we were all dragged here, we knew the reasons. One of us had fucked up, a personal offense against a woman, and our fathers were now trying to teach us all a lesson about it.
It made me wonder what kind of men they either believed we were coming up as, or how they themselves had been in the past. The fact they felt the need to orchestrate a group punishment such as this (one including themselves) was suspect as hell. All our dads were so deliriously drunk in love with our mothers I couldn’t even imagine they’d been any other way, but stranger things had happened.
Despite me obviously being the offender tonight (i.e. the whole Noa Sloane thing), I kept my mouth shut. I would have said something, but I spotted LJ coming around the corner.
Shit, they called him too.
LJ was my dad’s other best friend. He was my last and final god dad and called Wells and Thatcher god sons as well. Our four dads used to be in a strong clique back in high school, something that obliviously expanded once my dad met my mom and Wolf’s dad came into their circle.
All our parents were tight as hell now, the husbands and the wives. Again, labels didn’t matter, but LJ and his wife, Billie, had no children.
That didn’t mean he was exempt from this little punishment.
“Okay, which one of you boys messed up,” LJ growled, and out of all of the dads, he was the only one who looked like a surfer. He wore his blond hair free in his dark tux, eyeing us all on the sidewalk. He must have arrived first since he was coming from the lot without the other dads, and since we hadn’t been pre
pared, we tried to hide our joint. Thatcher had it, and LJ chuckled upon seeing it. “I know you kids smoke weed. Stop.”
That didn’t mean he didn’t fucking take it.
He put it out under his shoe, mumbling something about it being a waste. Odds were, had the four of us not been here, he might have finished it off with our dads. We’d caught them more than once in the garage lighting up. I mean, they never did it in front of us, and whenever our moms found out, the arguments commenced. We’d yet to catch any of our mothers smoking weed, but again, in front of us. Let’s just say my mom kept a lighter in her dresser, and she had not one candle in my parents’ bedroom.
The fact only made me mentally give my mother cool points, though, and each of the fellas gave LJ a hug, myself last. I ended it with a handshake and a snap. “The other dads?”
“They’re coming. Saw them behind me but I was ahead.” LJ’s eyes narrowed. “Was it you?” He directed a finger. “Because if so, you owe me a night with Billie in the Hamptons. I had to get on a red-eye to make this shit happen today.”
He and his wife traveled the world without the ties of children. LJ was a businessman like the rest of our fathers. He even had a few businesses with Wolf’s dad, Ramses.
Yeah, we were really fucked if they’d called LJ all the way over for this thing. He and Billie did nothing but party, living a dream life. His wife used to be a college professor but stopped teaching years ago to just live life and travel the world with her husband. None of us kids ever asked, but we assumed they either couldn’t have kids or didn’t on purpose. Either way it was none of our business. Not like our parents would tell us anyway.
“Uh,” I started, and he eyed me.
“Mmhmm,” he said, figuring it out, and my friends groaned in my direction. I hadn’t told any of them what had happened the other day when my mother had stormed the end of football practice. Hadn’t really had time. Dad had had a field day on my butt when I’d gotten home that night, and it hadn’t mattered that I explained the situation, that a prank had been played on me and I hadn’t gotten a girl pregnant. It’d all been a lie, and I explained that.
It hadn’t mattered.
I knew that because us guys were being dragged to the ballet. My friends’ eyes were on me when the other dads finally did come around with mine. They’d taken a beat to come back, and I wondered if they’d been talking. That wouldn’t have surprised me. They all greeted LJ before us kids.
Our fathers and LJ all took the time to shake and hug it out, not having seen each other all together in a while. Everyone lived in Maywood Heights, but they were all busy men in their various businesses. Outside of his online security startup, Knight, Thatcher’s dad, ran Reed Corp. His company mostly delved in real estate development like LJ and Wolf’s dad, Ramses. Ramses’s businesses ventured outside his company Mallick Enterprises, though. He ran several major art galleries all over the world and Wells’s dad, Jaxen, had fast-food chains all over the country amongst other businesses. This basically allowed us guys to get free food anywhere there was a franchise, and we had when we’d gone on weekend trips without our parents.
Odds were, those trips were dead in the water. Personal freedom, at least right now.
“Brother.” Dad shook, then snapped LJ’s hand since they’d been the last to shake it out. They all called each other brothers, all of us family. I didn’t have memories that didn’t include my god dads or their wives. They were all like second fathers to me, to all of us, and their wives, second mothers.
Which meant I had five fucking fathers to own my ass.
Yes, the dads definitely had talked because when I got my hugs from each of them, I got a look that accompanied it. It was official. Everyone’s Saturday night was gone because of me. Even Ramses flashed me a look, and he was the nice one.
“Kid,” Ramses said to me, grabbing my head before taking me into a hug. His was extra tight, and out of all my god dads, we were the closest. That was mostly because Wolf and I were so close. I even had a second bedroom at the Mallicks’, and Wolf had one at my house too. Ramses pulled away. “You okay?”
And he checked in with me, something I had a feeling was coming from my own dad on the way home. He’d kept the drive to the theater quiet, but I thought mostly because he was considering his own thoughts. I’d figured out over the years, that was his process. He didn’t like not having control and saw that as weakness in others. He’d never say that, of course, but I knew it in the way he handled what he obviously considered his own weakness. Dad had a temper, but he never, at least in my life, openly showed it.
That was one of the many things that made him so strong in my eyes, how he obviously dealt with shit, but had his own way of processing things. He always put his best foot forward.
But he still sure as fuck intimated me, his gaze studying me over Ramses’s shoulder. My father watched on, and I knew a talk was coming.
Brilliant.
“I’m okay,” I said to Ramses. I was okay. At least, right now. By the end of the night, I might not be, though.
I may want to plan my funeral.
A million fucking acts were in tonight’s ballet. At least, that was what it felt like. Our dads had literally dragged us to this one a million times, and I think all the guys could probably do the moves on stage if it came down to it. That said something considering I’d never danced ballet in my whole damn life.
The four of us had to sit between our huge fathers and LJ, tucked tight between them. We couldn’t even sit next to each other, a dad between each kid, and they’d even taken our cell phones. We literally had no fucking escape.
I thought I’d die by intermission, but at least our dads and LJ had given us our cell phones back. They said it was an act of mercy while they went outside the theater to talk.
Probably about us.
Most certainly about me, the star of this apparent fucking show. I’d caught more than one eye from my buddies between dance moves prior to intermission, a scowl from Thatcher and Wells on my far right. The worst had been Wolf.
He’d mouthed, “What happened?” at one point before Ramses had checked his son by putting a finger to his own lips. We’d all sat in a theater box, and Ramses had made Wolf switch seats with him at that point, so Wolf couldn’t even mouth shit to me.
It was all an epic fucking disaster, and with our dads gone at intermission, I was immediately assaulted left and right by my friends. I gave them the rundown the moment I could.
It was a long story, and every word rehashed all kinds of fucking crap in my head. The girl had most certainly gotten into it.
And was still there.
Like my father, I didn’t like losing control, and Noa had taken me there. I ventured a line I didn’t like, an obsessive one, and an anger that made me want to wring her fucking throat and shove my cock inside her while I did. It was all sick and fucking confusing as shit.
And the look Wolf sported while I spoke wasn’t nice.
He stayed dangerously quiet the whole story. Though, I left the part out about nearly fucking the girl on the bleachers. He might have had something to say about that, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he had to say. He may say something about playing with my food again, or something else I didn’t feel like hearing.
“Fuck, and I bet I know how she found out shit about your mom. Where to find her and send her shit?” Thatch gritted toward the end of my story. Our dads and LJ hadn’t come back yet, but we probably only had moments before they did. He tossed his head on the seat. “Bow said Noa came over to the house the other day.”
“The fuck?” I shot off the seat. “And you’re just now mentioning that?”
“I just found out,” he said, his look apologetic. “I was going to mention it today.” He punched the ledge in front of our seats, and the only reason the noise probably didn’t garner any attention was because we were in a private box and people were still milling around down below. Thatcher shook his head. “Bitch obviously used my sister
. Bow said Noa came over to study. They got the same math class or some shit. I just found out Noa was over because Bow mentioned it at dinner last night, and I really didn’t think anything of it until what you just said, D.” Thatch huffed. “I bet if I ask my sister exactly what they talked about, something tells me information about your mom may have come up. Bitch was obviously doing some digging.”
“She’s dead.” Wells said it, but out of all of us, typically he wouldn’t say that. He was more laid-back.
But this was a special situation.
This was Bow, our Bow and Thatcher’s sister. Someone fucked with her, they fucked with all of us, and that went double when it came to Wells. He didn’t like Bow being messed with.
At least, if someone else was doing the messing.
None of us guys talked too much about that. Wells’s deal with her was his own deal, but when it came to Rainbow Reed, all of us had a stake there. She was our sister, and we protected her like we did each other.
Wells’s jaw clenched. “What do we do?”
“Payback.” Wolf draped an arm over the box’s ledge. He nodded. “Penance. She can’t get away with this shit.”
He’d really been dangerously quiet while I’d been speaking, like he’d been simmering over there. Noa Sloane had never been his favorite person, made sense with how they’d met.
Wolf was really capable of some dark shit. He was filled with a lot of anger, like me, and together, we typically checked each other.
We did that to protect each other.
Wolf was my boy, and we often kept each other from going down some really dark paths. That came with the territory of us all being brothers. We watched each other’s backs and would even go to the ends of the earth for each other if need be.
I agreed Noa Sloane needed to be handled, but I wasn’t sure how at the present. I needed to act.
I just didn’t know how.
“She needs to sweat,” I found myself saying. “We do nothing for now. The anticipation alone will drive her mad.”