Ruthless Love

by Penelope Bloom

  He was watching me. I’d been doing a pretty good job of seeing him as a villain ever since that moment in the library, but right now, my brain was betraying me. It was ignoring all the obvious warning signs and strictly taking him in as he was. And he commanded as much attention as a dark storm cloud rolling in on a sunny day. He was as beautiful, but he also managed to drip with an ominous air—as if the next rumble of thunder could come at any moment.

  I guessed if I followed my little metaphor, I’d be like the idiot standing in the middle of the field, staring straight up at the storm cloud, ignoring the fact that my hair was standing on end. I deserved to get struck by lightning at this point.

  I tilted the bottle back and tried not to wince at the taste. I’d never acclimated myself to alcohol. In fact, I absolutely should have checked with my mom to be sure it didn’t conflict with any of my medications, but that would’ve meant asking her. In the spirit of recklessness, I took another long sip, wiggling my eyebrows at Tristan when he grinned at me.

  “Why don’t you get out your camera,” he said. “We can get this interview over with.”

  I nodded, digging through my backpack. “You should probably move the beer out of the shot.”

  Tristan drained half the bottle, then set it an arm’s length away.

  I turned on the camera. “So I’ll just ask questions and you answer as naturally as possible.”

  “Like an interview,” he said dryly.

  I set the camera away from my eye to glare, then held it back up. I’d already thought of the questions I wanted to ask him. I burned through some of the basic questions quickly. Tristan gave surprisingly detailed answers, almost like he actually cared about making the video good.

  We paused so he could get me another beer when I finished mine. Little by little, I was starting to not mind the taste as much. Or maybe it was in my head, but I was already feeling what I guessed would be the “buzz” people always talked about. It felt kind of good.

  “So,” I said, blurting a question that wasn’t in my script before I realized what I was doing. “Why are you so into wheelchairs?”

  My eyes widened slightly. Did I really just say that aloud?

  Tristan’s brows lowered, then he reached for the beer and drained the last of it, grinning. “Believe it or not, the chair isn’t really the part I’m after. I’m more interested in the girl who rides it.”

  I felt like I was going to choke on my own tongue, if that was possible. I tried to swallow and failed, only managing to make an awkward clicking noise. “Sorry,” I said quietly. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  “Alcohol,” he said. “It has a way of making us forget to be so up our own asses for a change.”

  I shut off the camera, smiling awkwardly. “I should probably go. I think I got what I needed.”

  “I didn’t,” Tristan said, stepping closer.

  I lowered my eyes. “I should really go.”

  “Then let me push you back home. You shouldn’t drive drunk.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at the stupid joke. “It’s a wheelchair. Traffic laws don’t really apply.”

  “You crashed that thing completely sober once. I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

  With a sideways smile, I nodded. “Okay. fine.”

  A few hours later, the home phone rang. It was an automated message from the school about how I’d missed three classes. I tapped my finger nervously on the table a few times, then hung up. Assuming they never sent a letter home, I might have just saved myself the wrath of my mother.

  Just a week or two ago, I would’ve never considered hiding something like this from her. I thought Tristan Blackwood was rubbing off on me, and that was a very scary concept.

  I hated how thinking of him made me want to smile and blush at the same time. I knew I shouldn’t let him off the hook so easily, but there was just something about him and his intensity. Maybe a life of being stuck in a wheelchair and craving adventure made me like an empty vessel for him to pour all of that energy into. It didn’t matter how much he gave; I was hungry enough to swallow it all up.

  I figured that was probably a dangerous combination, but he’d also proven in the car that I wasn’t willing to walk away from it.

  My mom came home in time for dinner. She was exhausted from working all night, but she still sat at the table with me, like always.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  I shook my head. I didn’t feel tired. If anything, I felt more alive than I maybe ever had. “I’m good. Great, actually. I think there’s a boy I am kind of starting to like.” I bit my lip. I’d never had boy gossip to share with my mom, but like many things, it was something I’d spent an unhealthy amount of time imagining.

  Instead of looking excited, my mom looked wary. “That one who came to check on you?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said. “I just… I think I’m starting to like this guy.”

  “Well,” she said, shoveling down a bite of mashed potatoes and swallowing roughly. “Just remember that you’re not getting better any time soon. That means whatever little boyfriend you bring back is going to have to be willing to be a caretaker. Not many boys your age would be up for the task, I imagine.”

  A cold ball of ice felt like it was growing in my stomach. “I’m in a chair, but it’s not like—”

  My mom surprised me by bringing her fist down on the table. “Because I take care of you. You want to replace me with some pretty boy from your school, just wait and see how happy he is when he realizes everything involved in being your caretaker.”

  I hung my head. “Can I be excused?”

  “Go on, then.”

  I parked my chair in the chairlift at the bottom of the stairs and waited for it to bring me up to my room. Once I had the door closed, I threw myself on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling stupid. She was right, of course.

  Why would anyone want to sign up to be with me? I was a burden, and I always would be. Tristan wasn’t a dumb person, and I wondered if he had already thought of that. But he was so incredibly protective. Part of me could almost imagine what kind of boyfriend he would be. If his possessiveness was any indication, he’d stop at nothing to keep me safe if we were together.

  Or maybe that was just how he acted when he was in pursuit mode. Maybe if he ever got what he wanted from me—whatever that was—he’d toss me aside as soon as he got a glimpse of the hassle my conditions posed.

  There was a crunch of branches outside and then a loud, scraping thud by my window. I sat up and saw Tristan grinning outside in the darkness. “Open up,” he mouthed.

  22

  Tristan

  It took some convincing, but I eventually got Wheels to agree to let me sneak her out. As soon as she agreed to come along, we both realized the obvious snag in our plan.

  “When does your mom leave?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t have a shift tomorrow. She should be sleeping by now, but there’s no way I can use the chair lift without her hearing.”

  “Easy.” I said. “You let me carry you to the roof. Lay down, and then roll off. I’ll catch you and we’ll be golden.”

  Wheels stared at me. “Wait. You’re serious?”

  “This is the shortest two-story house I’ve ever seen. It’s going to be fine. I jump down, then I catch you. Easy.”

  “What about my chair?”

  “I’ll carry you to my house and then you can use an office chair to scoot around during the party.”

  Kennedy crossed her arms. “Why am I even considering this?”

  “Because you’re starting to realize it’s more fun to do stupid shit than trying to avoid it?”

  “Or maybe you’re a bad influence on me.”

  “Are we doing this or not, Wheels?”

  “Under one condition. You call me Kennedy for the rest of the night, since I’ll be without Wheels. And you have to promise you won’t drop me.”

  “I’m an All-American athlete,
Kennedy,” I said. “If I drop you, I’ll turn in my Letterman jacket.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And for the record. I still don’t forgive you. I’m just agreeing to this because you said Logan will be there.”

  I knew she was just trying to screw with me, but I felt a stab of anger all the same. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  If my tone frightened her, she didn’t let it show. “Okay. Maybe I just enjoy watching the great Tristan Blackwood’s clumsy attempts at apologizing.”

  “I can live with that one,” I said. I reached in the window for her.

  “Wait,” she said, gesturing to the hilariously outdated nightgown type thing she was wearing. “I can’t go in this.”

  “Fine. I’ll help you change if you’re going to insist.”

  Kennedy snapped the window shut on me and held up a warning finger.

  Grudgingly, I waited while she spent what felt like an unbelievable amount of time going from her closet to the bathroom and back with clothes. It all took even longer because of the way she had to lean against the wall and anything she could use for balance in the process.

  After a small eternity, she came back to the window wearing a loose-fitting yellow shirt tucked into a pair of faded jeans. She hadn’t bothered to do anything fancy with her hair. It was just parted slightly to one side and tucked behind her ear, falling otherwise down in a straight, simple style that I liked.

  She let me pull her out of the window and hold her tight to my body as I made my precarious way down the slope of her roof. I sat her down on the edge with her legs dangling over the side. I didn’t let go until I got her to confirm she wasn’t dizzy anymore.

  “Okay, remember. Don’t jump or fall off until I tell you to.”

  “Don’t fall off the roof until you give me permission to. Got it,” Kennedy said dryly.

  I carefully eased myself down, hanging for a second and then letting myself drop the last couple feet. I bent my knees with the fall, absorbing most of the impact. “Alright, I got you. Just—”

  I had been expecting to need to coax her down, but Kennedy threw her arms up and smiled like a lunatic as she slowly turned over in the air. By the time she got to me, she was halfway toward being upside down. I had been expecting to catch her the other way, and the last-second adjustment sent us both toppling to the ground. Kennedy was on top of me when we landed.

  Her legs were spread around me and I could feel the warmth of her through our clothes. “On second thought,” I said, reaching up and tucking her hair back behind her ear. “We could skip the party.”

  “Tristan,” she said warningly.

  I didn’t take my hand away from her face. “I’m going to get you right back here. You realize that, don’t you? I don’t care how many times you push me away and run and make excuses. This is where we end up. Well,” I said, grinning wickedly. “I actually wouldn’t mind being on top, but you get the idea.”

  She grunted, giving me a little shove and rolling herself off me to the grass. She sat up, clearly feeling dizzy if the way her eyes were unfocused, and blinking was any indication.

  I scooped her up, carrying her with one arm under her knees and the other under her arms. She shot me a somewhat annoyed look but didn’t struggle as I started walking her toward my house.

  “You sure you can carry me the whole way? I’m not exactly light.”

  “You weigh like eighty pounds. I think I’ll manage.”

  “I’m a hundred and ten pounds.”

  “Do you weigh yourself with or without the chair?”

  “Asshole,” she muttered.

  I found myself grinning as we headed down the path to my house. Logan, Cassian, Gage, and a couple girls from school had come over about an hour ago. I was doing fine until Haisley showed up and started trying to talk to me about “us” again. I lasted through roughly two minutes of that before I ducked out back and headed to pick up Wheels. Granted, I hadn’t expected to literally pick her up, but I wasn’t complaining.

  The way I was carrying her meant her ass was bouncing against my stomach with every step. All it did was add fuel to the flames. That, and the way she smelled. I caught myself trying to catch as much of the scent as I could, breathing a little deeper than usual as we walked. She smelled girly as hell, but there was a touch of something else underneath. I thought it might be the way her skin smelled, because it reminded of me of when we’d kissed, except just a little more faint.

  “This is going to be so embarrassing,” she complained as I climbed the front steps.

  “Here,” I said, setting her down carefully on her feet. I put my arm around her back, supporting her as discreetly as I could. “Does that work?”

  She had to lean into my side a little but seemed to be doing okay with it.

  Everyone was sitting in the living room with drinks, laughing about something. Except Haisley was standing by the back window with a look on her face that said she’d been watching to see where I went, and already knew I was about to come in with Wheels—Kennedy—in tow.

  The conversation halted for a second when everyone noticed us.

  “Sup, Kennedy?” Logan asked.

  She waved, pressing her lips together in an awkward smile. “Tristan… He uh—”

  “It’s cool,” Gage said. “We’re playing Saucy Suits. Want in?”

  “I’ve never played.” Kennedy’s voice was laced with hesitation.

  “She’s good,” I said.

  I noticed the way Cassian’s eyes lit up. “She doesn’t even know the rules. How does she know she doesn’t want to play?”

  “She’s good,” I said again, more firmly this time.

  “What are the rules?” Kennedy asked.

  I clenched my teeth together.

  “We split the cards up,” Gage said. “There’s eight of us. Four guys, four girls. So we’d have one card of each suit in both piles. Everyone draws a card, then we vote on something ‘saucy’ to do. Once we’re done voting, you figure out who you’ve got to do it with. Pretty simple.”

  Kennedy shook her head. “I don’t think that sounds like my kind of game.”

  “We’ll play later,” Gage said. “Maybe you’ll change your mind after a couple beers.”

  I held onto her a little tighter. I had no intention of letting her play Saucy Suits. There was a one in four chance she’d end up with me, and a three in four chance she’d wind up with Gage, Cassian, or Logan. Each of those made my stomach clench in different ways.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go get you a chair with some wheels.”

  Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Does this mean you’re going to start calling me wheels again?”

  “I made a promise,” I said. “For tonight, you’re Kennedy.” And you’re fucking mine.

  23

  Kennedy

  In the history of my life, tonight already qualified as my most wild and reckless by a long shot. Actually, it probably hit that mark well before I literally jumped off the roof and trusted Tristan to catch me. Now I was at a small, exclusive party with the most popular guys and girls in the school.

  I wasn’t the type to actually care about that kind of thing, but I’d watched enough teen drama shows to know how insane this all was. Add that to the fact that I was being wheeled around the house by Tristan while sitting on an office chair, and the insanity just kept on going. Once again, Tristan grabbed a couple beers for us and popped the caps on the countertop with a casual bump of his palm.

  I took one from him, smiling and sipping it. I wasn’t even sure the beers from earlier were out of my system yet, so I planned to take it slow. I’d just sip enough to blend in, but not enough to get drunk.

  “You don’t have to play that game with them,” Tristan said.

  “Saucy Suits?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s just this stupid thing Gage came up with.”

  “You’ve played it before though, haven’t you?”

  Tristan looked down, then lifted one of his shoulders in ack
nowledgment. “Like I said, it’s stupid.”

  “So what do you guys normally do when you hang out like this? Card games and what else?”

  “Depends,” Tristan said. “Logan will probably end up hooking up with one of the girls. Cassian, too. Gage might, or he might disappear unexpectedly. You never know with him.”

  “I noticed Haisley is here. Are you two a thing again?”

  Tristan leaned back, grinning as he took a sip of his beer. “Interesting.”

  “What is?” I asked, blushing. I knew exactly what he was talking about, and I hated that he’d seen through my question so easily.

  “Only two reasons a girl will try to find out your relationship status. Either she’s nosy, or she’s into you. And Kennedy Stills, you’re not nosy.”

  I took a long drink of the beer in my hand to buy time. “I’m actually a super curious person.” It felt like my words were spilling out faster than I could keep up with. “That night I fell in the bushes outside your house. I was so curious I wheeled myself all the way out here. And that morning I heard the voices, I—” I cleared my throat, then winced a little.

  “Yeah, you snuck out to listen in. I knew you did.”

  “Listen, I never—”

  “Tristan,” Haisley said. She let herself into the kitchen where we were sitting. It was hard not to like her. She was pretty, with wavy blonde hair that made me think of famous country singers. She had dimples in her cheeks and this soft, kind of raspy voice. She was probably every guy’s dream, and apparently, she had been Tristan’s at some point. “Can we talk?”

  “Not a good time,” Tristan said.

  I didn’t expect a little surge of jealous satisfaction when he shut her down. But it made me feel guilty, so I fought my instinct and spoke up. “Talk to her, Tristan. I’ve got to use the restroom, anyway.”

  He shot me a glare, then scooped up his beer. “Five minutes,” he said. “And I expect to find you right where I’m leaving you.”