by Kai Juniper
Wait—what the hell? I'm not supposed to like this! It's Briggs! The guy I hate more than anyone!
But I love the way he's kissing me. It's soft, not forced, and the way he moves his mouth over mine is...perfect. I feel his tongue nudge open my lips, and although I know I shouldn't, I let him.
His tongue moves fluidly over mine. It's not sloppy or wet. It's the type of kiss I wish I'd had in the past but guys never do it right. Even if it's not a sloppy mess, it just doesn't feel right. But this? This feels all kinds of right, maybe because it's so damn wrong.
When he slowly pulls away, I open my eyes and see him looking back at me. "Is he gone?"
I glance to my left. "Yeah. He's gone."
"That should make him leave you alone."
I look back at Briggs. "So um, I guess I'll go."
He opens the door of my truck and it makes its usual screeching sound. "You should try oiling that."
"My dad keeps saying he will but he forgets." I get in the truck but don't close the door because Briggs is still holding onto it.
"What are you doing this weekend?"
"Working for my dad. How about you?"
"Same. He's making me go in the office on weekends now."
"Why?"
"I'm supposed to be learning the business." He shakes his head. "Anyway, I'll see you Monday." He shuts my door and walks back to his car.
I start my truck but sit there a moment, still reeling from that kiss and wondering how it even happened.
That was without a doubt the best kiss I've ever had. And it was from the person I hate the most.
Chapter Twenty
Briggs
What the hell did I just do? I told myself not to do it but the opportunity was right there, like it was handed to me on a silver platter. So I took it and went with it, and now I'm screwed. I just lost all my power with Ella. I showed my hands. Let her know I'm attracted to her. There's no way she couldn't know after that kiss. I should've kept it short. Then she'd know it was all an act for the guy watching us in the parking lot. But instead I kept it going, turning what should've been a simple kiss into something more. Something that told her I'm not repulsed by her, like I pretend to be, but that I want her like I want Aubrey, or one of the other hot girls at school. Honestly, I want Ella even more than those girls, especially after tonight.
Ella's the smartest fucking girl I've ever met, which turns me on more than Aubrey wearing her skimpy lingerie. And Ella's funny, which shocked the hell out of me. She always seems so serious, and she is, but then out of the blue she says something funny but in a way that it takes a moment before it hits you. She has a dry sense of humor that makes you work for the laugh, which I find really sexy. And she kept asking me questions, like she really wanted to get to know me.
I always thought Ella had her mind made up about me. I thought she'd decided I was nothing more than a shallow, dumb jock who bullied her because I'm an ass. That last part is true—I am an ass—but I'm not shallow and I'm not a dumb jock. But nobody sees that. People think I get good grades because I play sports and the teachers go easy on me. But that's not true at all. At Devonshore High, athletes aren't given any breaks. If they were, we'd lose our reputation as one of the best schools in the nation. Everyone has to work for their grades, including me, and yet people don't think I'm smart, except Ella.
I could tell she was impressed by what I said tonight. I wasn't trying to impress her. I was just doing the assignment, although I kept getting distracted by how she looked, and by the way her breath hitched when I touched her. I couldn't help but touch her when we were sitting that close at the coffee shop. It was dangerous to sit that close. My mind kept going to the thoughts I had of her, the fantasies of us together. It was almost too much so I was relieved when that woman at the coffee shop told us we had to go.
When we got to the restaurant, I made sure to sit across from Ella but it didn't help. I kept looking down at her tits bursting out of that tank top. I'd force myself to look up at her face but then I'd notice how full her lips are, how soft they looked, and I'd imagine what it'd be like to kiss her. I imagined what it'd be like to hold her face as I did it, to run my hands through her long, silky, dark hair. I tried to shut down those thoughts and remember how much I hate her but then she'd say something nice to me or show concern for me and I couldn't do it. I couldn't get myself back there.
We got to the parking lot and I should've just gone to my car but instead I walked her to her truck. And then this guy shows up and suddenly I feel all protective of her, almost territorial. It was the weirdest fucking thing. Then fate stepped in and handed me an opportunity. I could kiss her and pretend it was all for show. But from the moment her lips touched mine I knew it wasn't just any kiss. There was something there, and whatever it was, it kept me from pulling away. I thought for sure Ella would, but she didn't. Instead, she kissed me back, and damn, she's a good kisser.
I don't know if she did it for show or if she really was kissing me, but either way, that kiss got my mind spinning. I was hoping to stop these thoughts I've been having about Ella but I have a feeling that's not going to be happening, not after that kiss.
In the morning my father's knocking at my door, yelling at me to get up. "You better be dressed and downstairs in ten minutes!"
I check the clock by my bed. It's seven in the morning. He should be golfing right now, not banging on my door.
"I thought you were golfing!" I yell back.
"It's supposed to rain so I cancelled. Didn't you read my text?"
Grabbing my phone, I check and see a text he sent last night at eleven. I was already asleep. I never go to sleep that early on a Friday night but I haven't slept much all week because of the accident so I took some sleeping pills and knocked myself out.
"Briggs?" My dad bangs on my door.
"Yeah, I'll be down in ten minutes."
As I get out of bed, I hear his dress shoes thumping on the wood floor as he goes down the hall and then the stairs.
I have no time to shower so I go to my closet, grab my black suit and a shirt and get dressed. This is so damn stupid. Even if I wanted to run the company someday, I wouldn't need to learn everything right now. I still have four years of college, and two years of business school after that. He's just doing this because he knows how much I hate it.
I'm downstairs two minutes early, waiting at the front door, starving because I haven't had breakfast.
My father hurries down the hall to me. "Where's your tie?"
"I don't need one."
"You don't wear a suit without a tie. Go upstairs, and hurry up. You have one minute. I'll meet you outside at the car."
As I go up the stairs I feel a tightness in my chest as I try to breathe. My muscles feel tight too. I can never relax around him. All I feel is tension and anger, like I want to punch something.
Just a few more months. I can do this. I can make it through a few more months.
I start to doubt that an hour later when my father's yelling at me for screwing up a spreadsheet, telling me how stupid I am and how he wonders how he ended up with a son like me. I tune him out, wishing I was still in bed like every other person my age is at this hour on a Saturday, everyone except Ella. She's probably up by now, mowing someone's grass. I wish we could switch jobs. I'd rather be mowing lawns right now than listening to my dad rant about what a horrible son I am as he paces back and forth on the marble floor.
"Do you think this is funny?" he says, stopping in front of me.
"No." I sit up straight, noticing I was slouching, which my father equates with laziness. Lazy people slouch. Successful people sit up straight.
"Then why were you laughing?" he demands, glaring at me with his dark eyes. I got my mom's blue eyes, but that's about all I got from her. The rest of me looks identical to my dad, which is unfortunate since I hate him. Looking in the mirror is like looking at my enemy.
"I wasn't laughing," I say, but the anger on his face tells me I was, but what
I was laughing about? It must've been Ella. She was telling me this story last night about the first time she tried using her dad's riding lawnmower and drove over someone's flower garden. Her dad didn't even get mad about it, even though he had to pay to replace the flowers. My dad would've killed me if I'd done that. He doesn't tolerate mistakes.
"Get up!" my father yells.
"Why? Are we leaving?"
"We aren't leaving until you do the spreadsheet correctly." He points to the floor. "Fifty pushups."
"Are you serious?" I ask, thinking he must be kidding. He's never punished me with exercise.
"Hurry up!"
I take off my suit jacket and drop to the floor, doing the fifty pushups with almost no effort at all. If he were judging me on physical performance I'd win every time.
"Impressive," he says, raising his brows as I stand up.
Did he just give me a compliment? That's a first.
"If only your intelligence could be on par with your physical performance." He points to the conference table. "Now sit down and do the spreadsheet again, correctly this time."
Three hours later we're still sitting at the conference table and I can barely stay awake as he goes over client portfolios and trend data.
I hate this so much. It just proves I'm not right for this job and never will be. I have no interest in it. No passion for it. Maybe I would if I actually liked my father and respected him and what he did, but since I don't, I want no part of this. I want to do something completely different. I'm not sure what that is yet but I know it's not this.
My father's phone dings with a text. He checks it and smiles.
"Good news?" I ask.
"Very." His thumbs move over his phone as he texts. "I've been invited to an impromptu dinner party at the Hamilton's tonight."
"Do I know them?'"
"Not yet, but you will. Emmet Hamilton is a British businessman who recently moved here and is looking to invest with us. I met him at the club last week. It seems I impressed him enough to get an invitation to his house tonight." My father looks over at me. "You see, son, this is how it's done. You subtly work your way into someone's thoughts until they can't help but take action."
"You're saying you brainwashed him?"
"I'm saying I know how to sell people our services without them even knowing it's happening. It's a talent of all the Chadwick men. You're just not there yet but you will be if you stop focusing your efforts on girls and sports and actually take your life seriously." He closes the laptop and slips it into his work bag. "Let's go. I need to prepare for tonight."
I don't know who this Hamilton guy is but I'd like to call him and thank him for getting me the hell out of here. If he hadn't texted, we'd probably be here all afternoon.
"I need to study tomorrow," I tell my dad as we're driving home.
"I assumed so, which is why I already made plans. I'm golfing with Franklin in the morning and then meeting with my lawyer in the afternoon."
"About what?"
"It's none of your concern." He changes lanes and speeds down the road that goes to our neighborhood. We pass Ella's house and my mind goes back to that kiss we had. I wish I hadn't done that. I can't lose my power over her. She has to fear me or she'll never give me the valedictorian title.
"I've asked your advisor to keep me updated on your grades," my father says as he pulls up to the gate.
"You what?" I turn to him. "You called my advisor?"
"I need to stay updated on your progress." He drives through the gate toward the house. "If your progress doesn't improve, I'll have to take measures to ensure that it does."
"Meaning what?"
He looks over at me. "I suggest you improve your grades so you don't have to find out."
What the hell does that mean? That he'll cut off my allowance? Bruise my face again? I'm so fucking pissed he did that. Everyone keeps asking about that damn bruise and I have to keep making up excuses to explain it. Ella knew I was lying when I told her a different story than I told Drew but I don't care. She knows I lie. I just don't want her knowing the reason why.
When I'm back in my room I take a long, hot shower, then throw on jeans and a t-shirt, relieved to be out of that stupid suit. Around three, I hear my dad take off and immediately my chest loosens and I'm able to breathe again.
Parker calls and I pick up, assuming he's calling to see if I'll go to a party tonight. He thinks people will start to get suspicious if we keep skipping out on parties, which is probably true since we always show up at them. I don't feel like going out tonight but I will if I have to.
"Hey, Parker. What's going on?"
"Scarlett and I are done," he says.
"What happened this time?" I ask, referring to all the other times they've broken up. It usually only lasts a day or two and then they're back together.
"She fucked another guy."
"Seriously?" I say, pretending to be surprised but I'm really not. I assumed she was cheating on him. Scarlett demands constant attention, and if Parker doesn't give it to her, she'll get it from someone else. "Who was it?"
"Some college guy. She went to a frat party last night and met these guys and hooked up with one of them."
"How'd she get into a frat party?"
"I don't know, and I don't fucking care. I was done with her anyways. The bitch has probably been cheating on me for months. You know how many times I could've cheated on her? But I didn't because I was trying to be a decent guy. Fuck that. From here on out I'm using girls like Scarlett used me."
"If it makes you feel better, I never liked Scarlett. I always thought you could do better. So how'd you find out?"
"Finn's brother was at the party. He has a friend who lives in the frat house. He wasn't there long but it was long enough to see my girlfriend fucking another guy."
"He saw them?"
"They were doing it in the upstairs hallway. She must've been really drunk, which she'll use to try to get me back. She'll say she didn't know what she was doing."
"Would you take her back?"
"Hell, no. Not after she cheated on me." He pauses. "What do you think about Ella?"
"What about her?"
"You think she's hot?"
I feel myself tensing up. "Ella Quinn?"
"I know we hate her but the past year she's gotten kinda hot. Tight little tits. Round ass. And I like the way she's got her hair longer now."
"What the hell are you saying? You want go out with Ella?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I mean, we're all stuck with this fucking secret and it'd be a hell of a lot easier to be with someone who knows what's going on than to be with someone else. All last week Scarlett kept yelling at me for not listening to her and not texting her as much as I used to. If she knew why, she probably wouldn't have fucked some other guy. She only did it to get my attention."
"You are NOT dating Ella," I say, louder than I intended. I'm so fucking angry he's even considering this. If anyone's getting Ella, it's me, but I can't have her, and neither can Parker. "Pick someone else. There's plenty of girls at school who want to be with you and they won't fucking care how often you text them."
"Scarlett will turn them against me. You know how jealous she gets. If she can't have me, nobody can. She'll go after anyone who even shows interest in me. But Ella wouldn't care. She wouldn't let Scarlett tell her what to do."
"Ella would never go out with you. You call her Trailer Girl and give her shit as much as I do."
"Yeah, but now everything's changed. Now we're all in this together. She might see me differently."
"Why? Just because we were all in the car that night? That doesn't mean you've changed. You're still the same asshole that bullied her and made her an outcast."
"So are you, and you two haven't argued all week. You even spent last night with her. You spent a Friday night with Ella Quinn. If that doesn't prove things have changed, I don't know what will."
"I had to meet with her. It was an assignment. I didn't have a
choice."
"Yeah? So how'd it go? Was she a bitch?"
"She was okay. We just did the assignment and went home."
It was so much more than that. I actually had a good time, the best time I've had in I don't know how long. Ella was easy to talk to, which explains why I told her stuff I shouldn't have, like that stuff about my mom. I regret it now but at the time I wasn't even thinking. Maybe it's like Parker said and sharing this secret is somehow making us all feel closer.
I don't want to get close to Ella. I can't. She's the person I need to beat to be number one in our class, and if I can't do it the fair way, I'll have to force her out of my way, which won't be easy if I lose control over her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Briggs
"I'm going to ask her to hang out," Parker says. "See what happens."
"For the last time, she is NOT going out with you," I say, hearing the anger in my voice.
"She will if I tell her I want to talk about the accident. Girls love that shit. They love hearing that a guy wants to talk. It makes us sound all sensitive and shit."
"Ella's smarter than that. She'll see right through your bullshit."
"Why are you trying to talk me out of this? Why do you care?"
"I'm saving you from embarrassing yourself. There's no way Ella would ever go out with you, not after all we've done to her."
"Guess we'll find out."
My phone beeps and I see another calling coming in. "Finn's calling me. Hold on." I switch over to the call. "What's going on?"
"Insurance called. They want to know what happened to the Range Rover and why I didn't fill out a report."
"What'd you tell them?"
"My dad told them the story I gave him about hitting the concrete divider in the parking garage but they didn't buy it. They said it didn't fit with the damages they saw in the claim."
"Why did your dad file a claim? It couldn't have cost that much to fix. He could've just paid for it."
"Yeah, well, he didn't and now I've got the insurance guy wanting answers. He's calling on Monday to ask me questions and I don't know what to say."