Sweet Poisons (Pretty Lies, Ugly Truths Duets Book 1)

by Natalie Bennett

  I felt eyes on me, but I ignored them, making my way towards what I thought was the kitchen. I couldn’t have alcohol, not even a drop. I wouldn’t stop there. I’d drink an entire bottle trying to see if it would feel emptier than I did. Also, that wasn’t exactly designated driver behavior.

  Finding what I was looking for, I grabbed a bottle of water from an ice-chest and then went through a set of French doors, stepping out onto an upper deck. Two guys and a girl were talking a few feet away, all holding the signature red party cups in their hands.

  They paid me no attention.

  I walked up to the bannister and looked at the lawn below. It took a few minutes, but I eventually spotted Emery and Annika standing by the docs with a dozen other people. Callum amongst them, the flirtatious grin on his face aimed at Em. I hoped Tyler was here to bear witness.

  I pushed off and went to sit in one of the plush deck chairs. This wasn’t an alcove, but it would work. I sent a text to Annika, knowing she wouldn’t check her phone as quick as Em, buying myself more time.

  I leaned back and unscrewed my bottle of water, listening to the people a few feet away talk about starting college in the fall. Had my parents’ still been around I would have found my way there eventually. As things were right now, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and felt no urgency to figure it out.

  “Nova?”

  I lowered my water and looked over, swallowing the sip I’d just taken.

  “Mickey.” I gave him a small smile.

  “I thought I was seeing things,” he joked.

  “Nope. It’s me. I got roped into being a designated driver.” I held up my drink for emphasis.

  “Ah, see. Now that makes sense. Always the do gooder.”

  “Always,” I repeated, glancing away.

  Mickey was the type of guy the parents around here wanted all their daughters to marry. He was smart, well-mannered, and had a lucrative future ahead of him. His looks were a bonus. With dark blonde curls, sky blue eyes, and a toned body from years of football, he was certainly easy on the eyes.

  Half the female population lost their minds when we first got together, practically celebrating the moment they find out we were over.

  I had no ill-will towards him, nothing negative to say. The sex was good, and he was sweet. A genuinely good guy. Exactly why he wasn’t for me. I’d heard he was with Melody Parker now. That was kind-of ironic considering how close our fathers had been.

  He lingered for a minute or two, his uncertainty palpable. “I’m gonna grab a drink. You want anything or…? Never mind. Be right back.”

  I laughed softly and waved him off. Staring out at the water, I didn’t see Rhett coming out of the house as Mickey went in. As fate would have it, I turned my head and met his eye.

  The night before I’d told myself he wasn’t my type. Looking at him now I knew it’d been the right call. He was unlike anything I’d ever seen in Legacy Falls. Enigmatic, with a flare of darkness that radiated off him.

  He had the perfect amount of bad boy allure. Except, he wasn’t a boy at all. Rhett was most definitely a man. He walked right over to where I was sitting, moving across the deck with a natural swagger. A small head nod of acknowledgement was all he gave the small trio that greeted him.

  He sat down in the chair angled beside mine, and then that was all I could smell. Him. A heady mixture of warm cinnamon and citrus.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be with your friends.”

  “How did you know that?” I asked, subtly glancing around for the nearest exit. I’d been perfectly fine sitting out here by myself. Now, all I wanted to do was move away. He made me feel unsettled. Yet, fascinated.

  “Because I know you.”

  That offhanded reply reeled in my attention.

  He was staring right at me, his eyes even more brilliant against the backdrop of a starry sky and soft glowing lights. I’d die to paint him like this. Swallowing, I twisted the cap off my water, suddenly needing another drink. “You do?”

  “Uh huh.” He leaned in and I had a flash of deJa’vu, but unlike last night where my hand was the only form of defense, the arm of the chair served as a barrier between us.

  “Right now, you look like you want to run.”

  “I don’t want to run.” I lied. Apparently, I hadn’t been as subtle as I thought and because he called me on it, I now felt compelled to stay.

  He didn’t look like he believed me. Nevertheless, he nodded and leaned back a small bit, peering down at my face. “You have extremely beautiful eyes.”

  I blinked in surprise, not expecting that to come out of his mouth.

  I’d been born with heterochromia, causing one eye to be light brown and the other to be green. I’d heard people say they were pretty every now and then, most just stared as if they were some major discovery.

  “And interesting fashion sense,” he continued, leaning all the way back in his chair.

  I glimpsed at my black midi halter. The words cry baby were scrawled across my chest in the same color pink that my pleaded skater skirt was. Unable to tell if he was being sarcastic or serious, I muttered, “Thanks.”

  “So, what’d you do last night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Last night…after I saw you at the store.”

  Oh. “Oh, nothing,” I replied, taking that long-awaited sip of water.

  He removed something from behind his ear and lit it, a second later the intense smell of Kush filled the entire space around us.

  “You’re going to spark that in front of all these people. Just. Like. That?”

  He took a long drag, making the cherry glow bright orange. Exhaling a puff of smoke followed by a loud, “Fuck these people.”

  Everyone near the bannister turned our direction, and I nearly choked on my next swig, trying not to laugh.

  “That’s not very hospitable.”

  “They’re here for my liquor, drugs, and to fit a status quo that doesn’t mean shit where I’m from.”

  “And where would that be?” My brain said don’t ask. Obviously, my mouth had better ideas.

  “Curious about me, are we? Just when I had started thinking I read you wrong last night. You do like me.”

  “Nice way to deflect,” I quipped.

  He laughed for the first time and my insides went crazy.

  His laugh sounded like chaos. It immediately became one of my favorite things.

  “Here.” He held out his blunt.

  “I’m good.”

  “Come on, princess.”

  I felt my face screw up. “Don’t call me that.”

  He laughed again, quieter this time. “Your friend did it. The nice one.”

  He had to be talking about Emery. Annika would never be referred to in those words. His hand lifted higher in a second offering. I sighed and took the blunt, bringing it up to my lips.

  “You’re a bad influence.”

  “Exactly why you and I are going to have so much fun together.”

  “I wasn’t aware we’d be doing anything with one another.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees “I can think of a few things, but we can start with this. For now.”

  A wiser woman would have digested that statement without giving a response or questioning what it meant. If anyone else had been in the chair beside me I’d have done just that, but the ominous tone of his words piqued my curiosity.

  “Care to share what those few things are?”

  A smug smirk gave tilt to his perfect lips. Whatever he was going to say next was cut off by the ringing of his phone. He pulled it from his pocket and stared down at the screen. “I gotta take this.”

  “And this.” I tried to pass him his blunt back.

  He stood up and shook his head, ignoring my outstretched hand. “Keep it.”

  I didn’t want it. I watched him walk away, slipping back inside the house.

  Wanting to be gone before he came back for various reasons, I eyed the group still standin
g a few feet away. Picking one of the three, I went up to the guy with too much gel in his hair and tapped his shoulder.

  “Sup?” he questioned, turning to look at me.

  “Its your lucky day.” I handed him the blunt, and then walked off to find my friends.

  CHAPTER SIX

  NOVA

  There was a room at the end of the hall that remained untouched.

  It had an air of abandonment about it. Just like the rest of the damn house. The queen-sized bed was still made, unslept in. Mom’s prescription pill bottles were in an organized, alphabetical row on her nightstand. As untouched as everything else.

  Had I seen them a few hours prior I would have known something bad was going to happen that day. She’d left the house knowing exactly what she was going to do that evening.

  She used to talk a lot about self-worth, preached about not putting up with anyone’s bullshit. In the end, she finally followed her own advice. I couldn’t solely blame her for what happened, though. She and Dad’s actions were equally devasting.

  Both my parents had a helping in hand in the destruction of our family. I would never forget the evening Dad took a wrecking ball to everything I knew to be true, finding out he was a liar in every way that mattered.

  As blow after blow was delivered in a flurry of weak excuses and prenominated warnings, I learned my mother wasn’t oblivious to his true nature. She stayed with a man who had cheated on her time and time again, not anything like who he pretended to be for outward appearances. From that day forward I couldn’t see either of the same.

  “Nova?” Em’s groggy voice came from the opposite end of the hall.

  I glanced over my shoulder, flashing a smile. “Hey.”

  “You okay?” she eyed me suspiciously.

  I swallowed down the bitterness and nodded. I wasn’t sure why I did this to myself. Every time I looked inside my parents’ room a debilitating ache sliced through my chest. I was madder than hell at what they’d done but missing them brought with it a pain I’d never known.

  I pulled the door shut, and then turned to face her. She had a crazy case of bedhead and still looked as adorable as usual. “I should be the one asking you if you’re okay. Do you remember anything from last night?”

  “Enough…” she trailed off with a sly grin.

  “Don’t leave me hanging.” I darted my arms out to the side.

  “I’ll tell you if you come with me to Pete’s for breakfast.”

  I pretended to think about it for a minute before moving past her and agreeing. “I’ll come if you wash your ass first.”

  Her laughter followed me down the stairs.

  I waited until we were sat a table and our food was in front of us before I brought it up again while buttering my toast.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened now? You know that Callum guy basically carried you to my car?”

  She smiled around a bite of eggs, cheeks getting a rosy sheen I had seen on her only twice before.

  “Em, you didn’t!” I pretended to be shocked, bringing a hand to my chest.

  Her head bobbed up and down. “I did. Well, we did. Against the back of the house.”

  “Do people not have sex in beds these days?”

  “Shut up. It wasn’t planned. One minute we were casually kissing the next he was all up inside me.”

  I laughed, slicing into my Italian sausage. “All up?”

  “I felt it in my stomach. That’s how big he is. It was so…”

  “Stop. I don’t need explicit details.” I took a bite trying not to imagine how they would have looked. “Anyone could have seen you.”

  “Anyone like Tyler?” she taunted.

  “He saw? I take back everything I just said. I need all the details.”

  I laughed, abruptly stopping when I remembered how out of her mind she’d been. “You wanted him, right? He didn’t…?”

  Her eyes widened, head shaking vigorously back and forth. “No, I wanted it!” she exclaimed a pitch too loud.

  I smothered a laugh as multiple heads in swung towards us. “I was just making sure. You were pretty drunk.” Understatement. She had barely been able to walk.

  “This happened before I got to that point.”

  “K. I’m happy for you. Proud. Just--.”

  She waved me off. “Be careful, I know. This wasn’t a one-time thing. I’m seeing him after work. You don’t have to worry. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I was going to say just don’t get pregnant, but that too I guess.” I left off the part about her not having any real idea what she was doing. She couldn’t.

  She’d never done anything like this before or been involved with a guy like Callum. But, Em was her own person and could make her own decisions. Telling her to be careful was also a moot point. Did that advice actually work?

  No.

  So, I’d be her shoulder to cry on and vent to if this went side-ways, or her maid-of-honor if somehow Callum surprised me and turned out to be more than a life lesson.

  She laughed at me, reaching for the creamer. “Your turn. Tell me about you and Rhett.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “I know he talked to you.”

  “How? Never mind that’s irrelevant. We shared a joint, he got a phone call, and that’s it. I didn’t see him again after that.”

  She leaned so far forward her hair almost landed in her eggs.

  “See, that alone is like, epic. You talked to a guy and smoked with him. This is the first step to you two having your own summer rendezvous.”

  I raised my brows at her. “Rhett isn’t…” Mentioning his name somehow summoned the man himself, I stared across the restaurant, watching him, Callum, and the beautiful guy with a man-bun come inside.

  Like two magnets, our gazes locked, and he started coming towards me. Callum followed. The other guy kept going straight, probably to place a take-out order.

  “You two are the best thing I’ve seen all day,” Callum stated, pulling out the chair on my right. Rhett took the one on my left and like meddlesome roots, they planted themselves without an invitation.

  “It’s only eleven,” Em pointed out.

  He snatched a piece of bacon off her plate and tossed it into his mouth.

  “I know, and now I’ll have the memory of two beautiful girls to get me through the day.”

  Em flat out giggled, sealing her fate with the hazel-eyed man between us. I simply stared. He glanced at me, and I wondered then if Emery couldn’t see it or just didn’t care, the darkness lurking just beneath the surface of his flirty persona.

  He shared a look with Rhett, and then smirked at me as if acknowledging that he knew I wasn’t fooled by him. “You could at least give me a smile.”

  “I personally want you to finish what you were saying when we were walking in here,” Rhett interjected smoothly.

  I lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Nothing important.”

  “If it isn’t important then you can tell me.”

  Screw it. Why not tell him? It was better to get out this out in the open anyways.

  I gave him my full attention and a small, genuine smile. “I was telling her you’re not my type.”

  “Damn,” Callum chuckled. “I almost believe her.”

  Rhett tilted his head to the side and studied me a beat. “Nova and I both know I’m everyone’s type. Especially hers.” He followed this up with a smile brighter than the sun spreading across his face.

  There was an odd sensation in the pit of my stomach which to my abject horror I realized was fluttering. Rhett gave me those treacherous butterflies that people sang about in whimsical love songs.

  I refused to give him a reaction based off the way he was making my body betray me. Thankfully he was cocky and arrogant, still something I found wildly attractive, but I could use that.

  “And over-confident,” I replied coolly. “Also, I’m not everyone.”

  Like the night before, his phone interrupted our conv
ersation. He glanced at the screen and excused himself from the table, bringing it to his ear as he walked towards the back of the restaurant.

  I watched him move with that easy-going grace that came naturally, along with every other woman in the vicinity. One he vanished from sight none of them knew who to look at next. Callum, or the man with the hair casually leaning against the server podium, flirting with Mrs. Henry.

  A uniform flashed in my peripheral, summoning my attention to Sheriff Dean, Mickey’s dad. He stepped inside, scanning the room. When his eyes fell on me, the grim expression on his face had my butterflies dying and a knot of anxiety taking their place. He nodded to the parking lot and I excused myself, leaving Emery with Callum.

  The sun beat down on me the as soon as I stepped outside.

  Shading my eyes with one hand, I approached the moss and white colored cruiser he was leaning against. “Dean?” I greeted in question.

  “Hey, Hun. How you doing?”

  “I’m still breathing.”

  He gave me a worn smile, his greying mustache lifting towards his freckled nose. I relaxed a smidge. If he were here to arrest me, I don’t think this is quite how it’d go down. Then again, Dean had always been fond of me, even after his son and I split up.

  He was completely unaware who the girl that once sat at his dinner table was. It’s truly amazing the kind of people we let into our lives because we don’t know any better.

  “I wanted you to hear this news from me. I, uh, know how close your family was with the Reedsies.”

  My breath caught. This didn’t sound good.

  “Pamela never called her daughter when she got in last night. She’d flown out a few days ago to visit her grandchildren. She didn’t call this morning either. When the girl couldn’t reach her dad, she called us. I just left from out there. They’re both gone.”

  “I’m sorry. Gone?”

  “I mean, they’re with the good lord now, sweetheart. Got caught up in a home invasion.”