by Tijan
That was all I needed to see. Guilt. He did this on purpose.
A flame exploded in me.
I opened my mouth, but Cross beat me to it.
“You asshole,” he clipped out. “You know she doesn’t talk about her dad. Ever.”
Zellman kept looking from us to Jordan. His mouth opened, then closed.
“Come on.” Jordan scooted to the edge of the booth and held a hand out. “Look, I was just trying to do something nice for you. With all the shit that went down, I know you miss your mom a lot, and so I thought, Why not bring her to her other parent? That’s all. I swear.”
He was lying.
“You knew this would hurt me,” I shot back. “That’s why you did this. You didn’t want to fight Alex for me, but we forced you to do that. Then all that happened with Principal Neeon because of me, and I know you were pissed about that too.”
He didn’t know about my old house, and I never talked about my mom. He would’ve had no clue that I missed her. My stomach rolled like a sideways tornado. It wouldn’t stop twisting around.
“You’re a liar.”
I hadn’t itched for my knife in months. The judge had said I couldn’t have it, but I got a new one. I had it on me. I couldn’t go without it, no matter the consequences. That was one rule I couldn’t follow, but I hadn’t itched to use it.
Months.
I itched now.
I shook my head. “There’s a reason I don’t talk about him. There’s a reason I don’t see him. There’s a goddamn reason I don’t even let him into my nightmares.”
“Come on.” Cross took my arm and began pulling me toward the door.
“Where are you guys going?” Jordan stood, but he didn’t come after us.
I almost wanted him to. I wanted to take him down. I wanted to fight—the need to embed my knife in him was strong. I could taste it. The smell of blood rose up in my nostrils, but that was a memory, one I thought had been long buried.
“We’re leaving,” Cross threw over his shoulder, half-dragging me out. Again.
“I drove you here! How are you going to leave?”
“I’ll fucking think of something,” Cross clipped back, opening the door and guiding me past him. He fell in step behind me, his hand firmly planted at the small of my back. He knew I wanted to fight.
“Let me go back in there.”
“No.” He moved around me, taking my hand. I couldn’t break free from his hold even if I’d wanted to. He took me to the truck and reached into the open back. Finding the extra key Jordan always kept clipped there, hidden from sight, he opened the door. He grabbed some water, some cash from the stash in Jordan’s console, and closed it back up.
He was putting the extra key back when we heard the bells ringing from the restaurant door.
Zellman came toward us, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his skinny shoulders slouched forward.
Cross moved ahead of me and rolled his shoulders back. “Stop, Z. He crossed the line, and you know it.”
Zellman held his hands up, his palms toward us. “I know. I’m not here to defend him. I’m coming with you.”
Cross and I shared a look.
“Are you sure?” I breathed.
He was choosing us.
He nodded, his hands going back to his pockets. “Yeah. I’m not going to defend him, but I don’t think he really thought this through.”
I growled. “You just defended him!”
“No. I didn’t. I’m saying he’s an idiot. I’m not saying he didn’t have deeper reasons for this, but…” He paused, glancing back to the building. We could see Jordan standing in the entryway, watching us. He had a stark expression on his face, but he wasn’t frowning. He wasn’t smiling. He was just staring.
Zellman looked back to us. “I didn’t know we were going to the prison. He lined up a cabin for us to party at tonight. That’s all I thought we were doing, but he told me just now that he set everything up for you to see your dad tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe him.” I twisted my hands together. It was the only way I could keep from grabbing my knife.
“Dude, stop,” I heard Zellman say.
Jordan had come out from the fast food place. The wind was whipping his hair all around so a lock fell over his eyes, baring bleak anguish for a half second before he rammed his sunglasses back on. He looked harrowed, bags under his eyes, and in that second, his tan had a yellow tint to it. He was still pale underneath.
I registered all of that, and a part of my brain was telling me to slow down. Maybe he really was being a dumbass, but the other part held up the years of discord between us. He wanted me to do something, and I didn’t, and he was always disappointed. Like he was my father. He wasn’t. He was a friend. He was my equal. He was my crew. I didn’t have to do what he wanted, and today was another example.
He wanted me to see my dad. Well, fuck him, because who was he hurting? Me.
Knives sliced through my chest. The betrayal was real.
“Bren, I didn’t mean…” he called. “I wasn’t thinking—”
“Goddamn right you weren’t!” I started for him.
Forget feeling hurt. I was furious. That pushed the rest away.
Cross caught me, pulling me back.
I twisted my arm free. I wanted to fight. Fuck him. Honestly. Fuck him.
I pointed at him, using my middle finger. “You get on this kick, thinking you know best for us. You don’t! You’re a mouthpiece, Jordan. You’re an enforcer. You’re not the brains, and it’s insulting to the rest of us when you assume you have to make decisions for us. You fuck things up. Your leadership role is intact because the rest of us don’t care. But don’t think you can throw my father in my face.” I started to go for him again.
He backed up as Cross moved in front of me. Zellman moved to his side to form a wall between Jordan and me.
Jordan’s face twisted, and he grabbed fistfuls of his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would be like this.” He let go, his arms falling back down. “I really am so sorry. I only told your brother we were heading to a cabin for the weekend. I wish I’d mentioned more now. I—” He turned away for a moment. His hands found his hips. His shoulders lifted in a deep breath, then he turned back. He tore off his sunglasses, and I again saw the agony there. “I know how much you miss your mom,” he said softly. “I know about the house.”
“What?” The wind was knocked out of me.
“I was worried about you one night, so I tracked you down. I saw Cross’ truck pulling onto a gravel road and couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing. Then I saw. I saw you, and I saw the house, and it made sense.”
“You did what?” The words came out strangled, like a whispered cry.
He was hand-delivering my nightmare to me.
That place was sacred.
My place. My sanctuary. My haunt. It held good memories, bad memories, nightmares, but hopes. I had hoped for something better, until I was forced away. He had no idea, no idea what that house meant to me.
It was mine.
Not his.
I made the decision who went there. I did. Not him. Not my brother. Not even Cross. He knew because I chose to take him there. And that’d been it. No goddamn one else.
“You’re going through something right now, and I just thought that if you couldn’t have one parent, you could see the other. That’s all I was thinking. I swear.” His hands fell from his hips. “I know I’m a douchebag, but I’m trying to be better. I’m trying, Bren.”
My insides felt like they were being ripped out, one organ at a time. “You fucked up, Jordan.”
“I know.”
“Bad.”
He sighed. “I know.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Bren.”
I could feel Cross’ gaze and looked over. There was a question in his eyes. He was asking what I wanted to do, but I only shrugged. I had no clue. My mind was already forgiving Jordan, but not my heart. God. It hurt to bring in air.
<
br /> He’d stabbed me, just in the front.
“What do you want to do now?” Jordan asked. “I still have that cabin…” He let his sentence hang.
It was my decision. Stay or go.
If we stayed, I was giving in. I was letting Jordan off the hook. Yes, yes. He’d said the words. He apologized. He looked the part, but I still burned with rage against him.
I saw how Zellman was holding his breath, his cheeks actually rounded and puffed out, and how he was chewing his bottom lip.
The little boy inside him was alive and well.
His eyes skirted between me and Jordan. It was clear what he wanted to do.
No prison, but he wanted to party.
“When you become one of us, you have to agree to three oaths.”
“Three?”
“Three. The first, will you treat us as family?”
“Yes.” Without hesitation, without regret, without a doubt—yes.
“Will you fight for us as you’d have us fight for you?”
Another yes—no question, thought, or fear.
“And the last, will you forgive as if we’re one person?”
I had said yes.
That was the one ritual we had to be part of this crew. Each question had been chosen for a reason, and each answer had to be true. I’d meant it when I said yes to the last, and remembering that now, I cursed under my breath.
He hadn’t asked for forgiveness. It wasn’t put in words, but he wasn’t the only one here. I wasn’t either.
Zellman wanted everyone to make up, and he wanted to party. If I made us all go back now, I’d be hurting Z. His love for the group, his desire for everyone to be happy—I couldn’t take that away from him, not for this.
I let out a sigh. “We can go to the cabin.”
“Yeah?” Jordan’s eyes went wide. He almost took a step backward.
I nodded, but just barely.
He let out a whoop and high-fived Zellman. “Holy fuck, Bren. Thank you.” He started for me, but I shook my head. “No.”
He lowered his arm, nodding instead. “Thank you, Bren. I mean it.”
He headed for the truck with Zellman and yelled, “I meant what I said, B. I’ll make it up to you. I will. I promise. I’ll show you.”
“Yeah.”
I loved this crew, so much, maybe too much. If he took that away, I would kill him.
My love for the crew outweighed my distrust for him. That’s all I had at the moment.
His head bobbed forward as he got in his truck. They could wait for hours. I didn’t give a shit, because I was going to take my time getting back into that vehicle. Jordan knew it too. He turned the engine on, and just blasted the music. I could see him and Zellman talking to each other.
Cross was looking too, and after a few seconds, his hand came to rest on my hip. He asked in a low voice, “You okay?”
No. Not even close. “I don’t trust him.”
He glanced back inside. “Yeah, but we’ll have to see his game to play.”
When he looked at me, I saw the same mistrust lurking in his eyes.
I frowned. “What are you thinking?”
“If it’s worth anything, I don’t think he wants to oust you or anything.” His hand flexed on my hip. “Not that it would work. We’d just splinter. He knows that.”
“He’s already our leader.”
Cross gave me a half-grin. “Which you kinda stripped from him just now.”
I hadn’t. Wait—I hadn’t meant to. “Nothing’s official.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. We hadn’t had nominations or voted. Jordan could be the leader today, but Cross could be it tomorrow. It could evolve, and maybe it should. Maybe Jordan wouldn’t have such a big ego then.
“We’re crew,” I added. “That’s all we are.”
“I know.” Cross’ hand fell away. “You’re not getting any arguing from me.”
They were still talking. We could hear laughter now. Their heads were bent together, looking at someone’s phone.
I sighed. “Let’s go to this cabin, then get home tomorrow.”
I slid into the back seat, all the way over until I was right behind Jordan. Cross got in behind me, and as he shut the door, Jordan caught my gaze in the rearview mirror.
I saw the unease there. That gave me a small piece of satisfaction. He could sweat, knowing exactly where I was.
He could worry about his backside.
“Hey.” Cross approached me in the cabin and handed me a beer. “Here.”
I took it, leaning forward from my seat in the screened-in porch. My legs were up on a footrest. “Thanks.”
He sat in the chair beside me, and we looked out to the bonfire where Jordan and Zellman were sitting, watching something on Jordan’s phone.
“They’re watching cat videos,” Cross said, and I heard the laughter in his voice. “We’re the fiercest in Roussou, and half our crew are giggling like schoolgirls over cat videos.”
“The booze helps.” I reached mine out without looking, and we clinked our bottles together.
“Jordan’s downed ten beers on his own.”
The cabin Jordan got for us was owned by one of his uncle’s friends. It was small and quaint: two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a living room with a patio that opened to an outdoor deck. The bonfire pit was right behind it, with a river behind that. As soon as we arrived, everyone went swimming. The guys did a lot of dunking and wrestling. I just swam. Jordan glanced at me once, and I caught a slight gleam there. He had considered dunking me, but I gave him a warning look. The gleam vanished, and he grabbed Zellman, throwing him over his shoulder instead.
Now, after a grilled steak dinner, it was a little after ten.
My anger had thawed a bit. I still felt it, but it wasn’t so much on the surface. I glanced at my beer and knew the booze was helping. This was my sixth.
“Jordan doesn’t understand.”
“What?” I looked over at Cross.
He wasn’t watching me, but focusing on Jordan right now. The bonfire cast his face into shadows, and I watched them play across his features. His cheekbones and jaw were more pronounced. His face more angular. It gave him a more mysterious aura—and alluring at the same time.
“He loves his dad. He almost worships him.”
I looked back to study Jordan. Cross was right. Jordan spoke with pride whenever he talked about his father. He provided for the family. He’d bought their home and helped build the warehouse and so many of the other buildings around their estate.
Cross was right.
“But I don’t talk about my dad.” I never had, particularly not since he left.
“He might’ve assumed that’s because you were missing him, not the other way around.”
Cross’ words mixed with the booze and the way Jordan suddenly sat up, laughing at those stupid cat videos—and it all clicked into place.
Cross was right, so fucking right.
“Shit.” I sank down in my chair. “I was livid.”
“Yeah.”
“I wanted to cut him.”
“I know.”
I’d jumped to conclusions. “I owe him an apology.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do.” I looked to Cross. Our eyes met and held before he sat back in his chair, shadow covering the top half of his face again.
“You don’t. I don’t care if this was a mistake. You don’t owe him an apology.”
“Cross—”
He shot forward, his eyes flaring again. The bonfire outside and full moon cast him in enough light so I could see how fierce he felt. “You’ll owe him. And he’ll use that to hurt you.”
“We’re crew.”
“Not in this situation. In this situation, you’re you and he’s him. His intentions might’ve been good this time, but we both know there’s a power struggle. He was knocked down. He’s equal to us now. That won’t last. He’ll go back up, and we’ll let him because he cares more about power
than we do. Don’t give him leverage. Keep quiet on this.” He added softly, “Trust me.”
It felt wrong not to own up to my mistake, but I trusted Cross. So I nodded.
“Okay.” I sat back in my chair, lifting my beer again.
Cross looked back out at them. “You’re my best friend.”
My mouth opened, but words didn’t come right away. My chest tightened, and it wasn’t the flutters in there this time. I was past that. It was straight-up flooding now. I was overloaded by feelings, but there was a thread of confusion too.
Cross didn’t speak like this. This wasn’t normal. This, like so much else lately, was new.
“In every situation, against every person, it’s you. Your first loyalty is to the crew, but mine is to you. It’s always been like that.” He finally turned to look at me, and my mouth dried.
God. “Why are you saying this?”
My voice was a hoarse whisper. I felt raw.
“Because I can feel it coming. Your first instinct, like just now, will be to own up to something. My first instinct is to protect you, even if you don’t want it.”
He was warning me against something.
“What are you saying, Cross?” I leaned forward, feeling my insides twisting up. “Be straight with me.”
“It’s just a feeling right now. Something’s going to happen.” He turned back to Jordan and Zellman. “I don’t know if they’ll be on our side or against us, but you have to know…” He swung those piercing eyes my way. “Everything I do is for you.”
I couldn’t talk.
I was excited. I was terrified. I was confused. I was still angry, and I was aroused. Lust flowed through my veins, and that throbbing only intensified between my legs.
I breathed out, just wanting him.
He saw it, and his own want flared to the forefront. The hazel in his eyes had morphed into a molten green, with specks of smoldering brown lining the outside. I’d never seen his eyes like that, and I couldn’t speak. If he asked me a question, if a fire lit behind us, I wouldn’t have been able to move, much less yell for help.
Neither of us held back. We let the other see. There was no hiding.
We stared at each other, both needing, not touching. Neither of us moved. Neither reached out.
The cabin was small. There were crew rules. We couldn’t be together, not here.