by Eden O'Neill
Me: Take the photo down.
Dasha: What photo?
Me: The one of you basically naked in booty shorts. Do it or Mom’s getting a call.
Mom didn’t stalk Dasha or my other sisters Gwen and Lia’s profiles like I did. She worked too goddamn much at the department store in Maywood Heights and didn’t have time. I supposed that was my job being away.
I got nothing but a swift flip off emoji in response, but after refreshing the hell out of Instagram, I noticed she’d taken the photo down. She could be mad at me all she wanted as long as she listened to me.
Seeing what I just did, Niko shook his head. He tipped his chin. “An iron fist even from here, yeah?”
And fuck it’d stay that way. My sisters knew who the boss was. First it was Mom, but then me. Always.
Grinning like a son of a bitch, I tapped Niko’s fist before checking up on my other sisters and that grin widened by what I saw. Gwen and Lia were in middle school and it made me happy like a proud papa just to see where they were at in their lives. Their feeds were filled with nothing but after-school activities and sports like Dasha too. Dasha was captain of the tennis team while Gwen and Lia were in Mathletes and track respectively. I’d helped my mom raise some fucking kickass girls, and it brought me lots of joy to see both Gwen and Lia showing off the new kicks I’d sent them in their photos. I tried to send them things whenever I could, well aware that kids could be bullies when they wanted to be. You were either the one bullying or the one being bullied most of the time in school, and hell, if I’d let my sisters be on the wrong end.
I swiped and swiped and swiped before a whistle from Niko sent my gaze in the other direction. Angling his neck, he pointed out not only who turned out to be my neighbor but the teaching assistant in my film gen-ed class. I took that shit just to graduate, simply delighted by the reappearance of a pair of soft tits and lips crafted by the gods for giving head. That was all my cloudier-than-fuck mind could go upon meeting my neighbor Billie, a fire cracker with deep red hair the tone of her perfectly fuckable lips and anger. The girl had actually talked back to me, more than once, which I found cute.
Smiling now, I found it even more so that she tried to hide those delicious tits of hers under a sweater set. The girl was basically a walking porno, one of those where the school teacher wore a sweater to cover her gorgeous tits and rocked a skirt so tight it barely covered her ass. Billie’s came to the midpoint of her thighs, and though she housed those shapely legs of hers in stockings, there was no hiding the goods. The whole display of her was a goddamn Greek tragedy since the girl was so high-strung, and smirking, I watched Niko basically salivating over her. She came in with the other TAs from my class today, Davey and Griffin. They sat at the bar, ordering food, and upon turning around, Niko jabbed me.
“Still can’t believe you called that chick the stripper,” he said, a sure as fuck disappointment when the stripper actually did come around that night. The brunette hadn’t been nearly as hot. A damn letdown. Niko chuckled. “What a waste, man.”
He was right about that, my own whistling sounded. The girl was basically the chick from Clueless in those skintight stockings and visions of me pushing that skirt up, ripping those stockings off while I drove my dick inside her had me more than uncomfortable in my jeans. That girl was high maintenance as fuck and not something I wanted to deal with. I could smell snobbery from a mile away, my radar strong with that considering I’d been surrounded by it a lot coming up. With the exception of my close buddies back home, the elite could really be something else, and I got that off Billie. In bounds.
“You find out anything about Billie?” I asked Niko now. I’d sent him on a little errand after she’d stormed my house like a hurricane last night, and though I wasn’t trying to fuck with her, I did want to know everything I could. This was my campus, and I needed to know.
“Oh, a fucking lot. Did you know she was a beauty queen?”
My gaze shot right. “Fucking really?”
A sea of chuckles as Niko threw his arms back. “Miss Sweet Apple Ridge,” he singsonged. “Wasn’t hard to find out about her. I guess she and her family are from around the area. A local girl. We’re talking captain of the cheerleading squad, homecoming queen,” he ticked one by one.
“Naturally.” I dashed my eyebrows up. “What else?”
“Eh, uh. I suppose there’s her name. It’s Coventry, and her dad, I guess, is some big-time lawyer, the DA actually.”
“Really?” I looked at her again. She and the crew were still waiting at the bar, chatting amongst each other.
Niko nodded. “Dad ain’t in the picture, though, from what I understand. Ran off with some young thing while she was in college on the coast. Billie just moved back. Her mom’s here, so I guess that makes sense. Might even why she’s going to school here now.”
I rubbed my king ring, a symbol of a history from my small town. Many of the guys from Maywood Heights had them, a gorilla mouth on the front, and our way to throw our weight around. It proved very helpful for me since I grew up on the wrong side of the privilege for many years.
I didn’t know how I felt about hearing Miss Sweet Apple Ridge’s history, a similar story there with our absent fathers. Truth be told, I hadn’t even gotten to know mine. The asshole had walked out on our entire family when my sisters had been basically still in diapers.
“And her boy?” I questioned, cutting back over to Niko. “The one who talked to me.”
The one who thought he could talk, the whole thing funny really. He obviously knew who I was and tread lightly because of it.
Niko smirked. “Sinclair Huntington the third,” he emphasized. “Comes from a long line of Huntingtons, also lawyers and pretty prominent in this town.”
I rubbed the ring below my knuckle again. He’d been quick to throw that shit around, his education or whatever bullshit. I smirked this time and especially when I peered over to Billie’s backside propped like a sweet peach on her barstool. I took a good long look, maybe reconsidering my previous position about not fucking with her.
“Uh oh.”
“What?”
“I know that look.”
I swung it back to Niko, catching his grin again.
He jerked his chin. “You want to fuck with the beauty queen.”
Did my friend know me or did he know me? And smirking, I tapped his fist. Getting up, I passed him, and my friend followed me. I had a few minutes before my next class.
Might as well fill it.
Billie
A blond titan and his dark-eyed demigod stalked my way, Lance Johnson easily believing he was sex on legs. He carried himself with a swagger reserved for one who felt they ran supreme—clearly, with his plastered on grin and blond locks tousled with product. Still slightly too long on one side, it swayed over his eyes, making him more dashing than I was willing to admit in an open forum. He’d embarrassed me today again and made me a fool in front of the entire class as well as suddenly making both Davey and Griffin nervous now. They noticed him coming over and immediately hunkered down in my direction. Griffin’s jaw worked. “What the hell did you do, Coventry?” he asked before tipping his head back. “Pissing that guy off…”
“You do know they call him the kingpin, right?” Davey asked, basically gnawing on her lip as she turned back. “As in, he is the ins and outs of everything around here? You need drugs? He knows a guy. Test answers? Again, he knows a guy. Fuck, even if you want sex—”
“Let me guess.” I propped an elbow on the counter, resting my chin on my hand. “He knows a guy.”
“I was going to say prostitutes, but yeah, same thing. The guy is a legend around here. Has been since he was a freshman.” Davey cupped her mouth. “I even heard Professor Douglas gets his weed through him.”
Well, I supposed that explained this morning.
Just my damn luck.
Wondering if that’d been Sinclair’s deal last night as well with his warning about the pair, I watched as Ni
ko arrived first and threw his long wingspan around my fellow TAs. We’d all been trying to enjoy some lunch after this morning’s disaster zone class, the hell I guess never-ending. Niko jerked his chin at me. “What’s up, Queen B?” he asked, then faced Griff and Davey. “The royal court, I presume?”
“Queen B?” I stole LJ’s personal attention with the question, arriving last when he sidled his hard body up against me.
And he was hard, chiseled from his jean-clad thighs to that baby tee that stretched just a little too tight across his broad chest. He grinned. “Miss Sweet Apple Ridge.” He bowed. “Had no idea we were in the presence of royalty.”
I rolled my eyes, my history in beauty pageants nothing secret. Everyone did them around here. Not just me. It was like you really weren’t from the Midwest unless your pushy mother forced you in one or five. Though, I supposed, maybe that was just my experience with my own. I angled my body back to the counter. “Can we help you with something, Mr. Johnson?”
“Ooh, Mr. Johnson.” And then he was close, real close when his breath ghosted the shell of my ear. “Be careful with that, beauty queen. You just might get me hard.”
What the fuck…
Jaw slacked and more than uncomfortable, I actually attempted to cover myself a little with my sweater. The nudge of the material brushed over my nipples and I forced in a curse that all the sudden they were way more sensitive than they should be. Growling, I crossed my legs, elbowing LJ until he got off me with a chuckle. I sneered. “And you’re inappropriate.”
And definitely a student in a class I was a teaching assistant for. I huffed, pushing hair out of my face. “You’re a student in Professor Douglas’s class, a class I TA for, so I’d appreciate you treating our relationship as such.”
Suddenly hard biceps hugged around me when he gripped the bar, his mouth to my ear again. “Last night you were quivering something a little different.”
If he meant that kiss he stole, that hadn’t been my choice at all and something he had no right to do. I had a boyfriend, and he’d been a jackass.
I didn’t move despite his arms around me, not intimidated in the slightest, and I noticed Griffin and Davey incredibly silent beside me. Niko still had his arms around them, watching the show, and Davey and Griff, well, I wasn’t getting any help from them. They stared forward during this whole thing. Like any sudden movements may hurt them. I had no idea if it would, but I had a feeling these would-be “gangsters” might just be all bark and no bite. They pushed drugs and sex to college students. Big whoop.
“You’re nothing but a rapey asshole,” I said to LJ, right in his face when I made eye contact. He was just as beautiful as he’d been last night, his eyes like crystals in a stark ocean-toned sea. It was only a shame such beauty was wasted on a complete D-Bag. My eyebrows narrowed. “That’s all last night told me.”
His eyes heated to a lustrous blaze, my tongue drying, but even still, I didn’t back down. I stayed until he made the first move, and he eventually did when he spun fingers in my hair.
The red curled around his lengthy digits, escaping from my updo. Letting go, he pushed off the bar. “I’d watch your step around here, beauty queen. I can make life pretty difficult for you.”
“Can you now?”
Blue fire now in his irises. “Just fucking try me.” He waved Niko to come on but not before stealing one of my fries. He popped one his mouth, sauntering his firm ass away and letting go of Griffin and Davey, Niko trailed after him.
“So long, Queen B,” he stated, bowing. He saluted Griffin and Davey. “Royal court.”
Catching up, Niko dropped an arm around LJ who didn’t once turn back around. He’d made his point and was now leaving, his bodyguard going after him.
“Do yourself a favor and don’t make an enemy out of those guys, Billie.” Apparently all lunched out, Griffin slid off his chair, Davey doing the same when she grabbed her bag. Griff frowned. “Davey’s right. They run this place and I knew that in undergrad.”
“Me too.” Davey shrugged. “Grad school is already hard enough. Pick your battles, huh?”
And let assholes treat me like crap? No way. Guys like him? Beautiful guys with swagger and a smile for days only needed to be tugged down a peg. Especially when they had money, which this guy obviously did. I knew money. I knew creeps, and if you let them throw their weight around, you were basically at the mercy of them.
I was over powerful men and their god complexes. I got to stare one in the face as he ripped my family apart. My dad used to be my superhero once upon a time.
Now, he was just the guy who raised me.
Chapter Five
Billie
I found my mom at home passed out on her couch that following weekend, day drinking, and how did I know? Because the margarita in her hands still held the slush.
Sighing, I bent beside her, tapping her face on the white leather sofa. “Mom?”
A groan as she shifted in her feathery bathrobe, her house and my childhood home a complete sty. Honestly, it looked like her closest exploded in the living room, her dresses all over the place, and considering our housekeepers came once a week, she’d done this all since the last time I’d seen her. I had no idea if she’d decided to entertain a little fashion show or what, but half her closest was downstairs and lining the furniture.
Getting up, I gathered some of it, and she moaned the moment I tossed opened the curtains and let some light into the place. She lived like a freaking vampire sometimes. I swear. Seeing me clean and get her things, she waved me off, getting up. “Don’t mess with that, sweetie. You know the cleaners are coming.”
So goes my mom’s life, reliant on other people to take care of her as always. I supposed I was here trying to do that for her. She’d just gotten worse since Daddy left.
I shook my head. “You need to get up. Eat something?”
It was just shy of eleven, which meant mom got an early start on her drinking. Or a late start depending on how one looked at it. She very well could have gone to bed after dawn, but considering half of her margarita was still intact, something told me she hit her Margaritaville Maker well after the sun had risen. She pressed a palm to her eyes. “What time is it, darling?”
“Eleven,” I let her know, not even checking. That’s when I usually came to check on her to make sure she was alive every few weekends since I’d moved back. She wasn’t always good about texting when I used to check that way, or returning my calls. I bunched up her laundry. “Want me to start you a bath?”
“A shower if you could, sweets?” But then she smiled at me, that scathingly beautiful smile that reminded me of my mom and not this shell of a person she’d become. She barely did anything these days besides drink, pamper, and party. A typical affluent housewife without the wife part. She pushed some of her blond extensions back. “I never meant to get such a late start.”
“You never do, Mom.” Leaving her and finding the laundry shoot, I tossed it all down to the basement for when the cleaners came. I tossed my head back to yell into the other room. “Want me to reschedule with Dr. Clayton?”
He was her therapist, and I knew she had an appointment with him this morning because I had access to her date calendar. She could see my calendar as well, but I had a feeling she never looked at mine. I ignored the nail and spa appointments, mostly just concentrating on when she was supposed to be going to therapy.
Stretching, she came into the hallway, shrugging before going into the kitchen. This too was dark, and when I opened the blinds, she cringed. “Don’t bother with the reschedule. I’ll do it.”
“Will you?”
“Of course, my darling. I told you I would.” She popped her little tush out when she dipped into the fridge, grabbing orange juice, so I gratefully hadn’t had to take anything away from her. Giving the bottle a shake of delight, she faced me. “How was your first week of classes?”
“Good, Mom. Good,” I said, knowing that was true after the first hiccup. The bright side h
ad been when LJ hadn’t shown up to recitation this week. Of course he’d been assigned to my class, but since he hadn’t shown, I could focus on teaching and going over the course material instead of thinking about him. The bonus I got was the sick thrill of marking him absent. Attendance wasn’t taken into consideration during lecture, but in recitation, it was worth over a quarter of the grade.
Just call me Petty Betty.
The guy was basically a prick and a half, so yes, I’d been happy to deduct points from his grade. I’d also decided someone was looking out for me because his pal Niko wasn’t in the film class period. I’d checked the class roster myself just to make sure. Having to deal with the pair of them would most certainly send me to my grave.
Mom kissed my cheek as she passed me. “Good. Good. So proud of you.”
She smacked my bottom, getting some of her energy back. Growing up, all my guy friends would call my mom a MILF, and being on the other side of all that, I could see it. She looked more like my sister than my actual mother, long flowing hair and tight little body. The only difference was she was a blonde and I was a redhead, and in addition, Mom never took life seriously in the way I did. I took more after my workaholic father in that way, which was perhaps what might have attracted Daddy to her. Mom was a free spirit. She enjoyed pretty things and making the world lovely, hence why there were always fresh-cut flowers sprinkled all around the house.
The old, colonial-style home with white brick and cream-colored lattice was simply filled with flowers, my childhood home smelling like a meadow and the blooms in Mom’s garden outside matched. Mom took great joy in tending to her flowers as well as sewing pretty things. She made all my pageant gowns growing up and even my prom and homecoming dresses. I wished she’d do something more with that than just spend Daddy’s money. He was forced to pay her alimony after the divorce and probably would be until he was dead and gone as long as Mom outlived him.