“What about you, Elly? What do you wanna do with your life?” Gage asks.
The million-dollar question. The one thing I’ve not even told my parents about, even though they have asked, more than once. For some reason, I feel like I can tell The Hotshots. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling they won’t laugh at me for it.
Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for their reaction. Worst-case scenario is that they laugh at me. That’s actually an awful thing to experience, I realize, but it’s too late. They’re waiting for me to tell them.
“I actually want a political career,” I say. “Maybe start out as Mayor of Nowheresville, then work my way through Senate… then the big seat, someday.”
No one’s laughing. That’s odd.
“What made you choose this path?” Rhett asks, his green eyes drilling holes into my soul.
I shrug. “I’ve always wanted to do something meaningful. Frankly, given the state of the current political picture, some fresh blood is desperately needed. Plus, I’m really good at debates, apparently. I’ve won every argument at home, too.”
A shadow of a smile flutters across his face. “I knew you were special,” Rhett says, and I take it as the greatest compliment anyone has ever given me.
“Thank fuck you’re cool. Otherwise it would’ve been a waste of good whiskey,” Kellan adds, and I’m almost paralyzed by the intensity of his hazel gaze.
“You’re too kind,” I reply.
Gage laughs. “We’re anything but, Elly. We’re the worst people you could’ve hooked up with. That being said, we’re tons of fun, so that cancels the other out.”
I’m curious. What is it about them that warrants such a label? “Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on yourselves?” I ask. “I mean… worst people? Seriously?”
They look at each other for a brief moment. Rhett gets up from the ground and walks over to me, and my pulse goes on a rampage. He reaches out, and I give him the flask—it’s what he wants, I realize, a little too late. His fingers touch mine, and the electric current that suddenly flows through me is so powerful that I suck in a breath.
He notices, his eyes darkening to the shade of the forest behind us, as he takes a swig of whiskey without looking away from me. I dry-swallow, as my throat starts to close up. It’s getting way too hot for my own comfort.
“Why do you think we’re here at summer camp with the kiddies, instead of the Maldives or wherever?” Rhett says to me. “If we were model citizens, we’d be living it up on an island for the summer. Not on Lake Tahoe, drinking whiskey from a fucking flask.”
There’s a roughness to his tone which I didn’t notice before. It doesn’t scare me, though maybe it should. He’s trying to intimidate me, but I’m not easy to push back. I take the flask from his hand, take another sip and shudder as the whiskey punctures my esophagus—spirits are not my thing, but there’s nothing else to drink around here, anyway, besides lake water and strawberry Kool-Aid.
“So, who’s up for a bath?” I ask, ready to cool down before I lose all sense in my lower body. Rhett narrows his eyes at me.
“You’re a fearless little thing, aren’t you?”
“Well, I don’t know about little,” I say. “Why do you think I’m here at summer camp, instead of sunbathing in the Maldives?”
Kellan grins. “Oh, she’s good.”
“Still here, fellas. Third person’s a tad tacky,” I reply.
“You’re good,” Kellan says, crossing his arms. It makes his muscles bulge, and I’m stuck wondering what it would be like for him to hold me, crush me against his chest and—Eleanor Fox! Snap. Out. Of. It. Now!
It’s like I’m asking for trouble. But when trouble is so ripe and delicious and bare-chested, what’s a girl supposed to do? They’re smart. They’re funny. They’re hot as mid-July in Vegas. I have every reason to want to be around them.
Rhett slips out of his cargo shorts and I nearly shriek. He’s buck-naked, no underwear whatsoever. Looking at me, he smiles again. But it feels different, this time around. Playful. Naughty. Filled with all kinds of “what if” thoughts that I have to untangle. “Hope you’re not a prude, Elly,” he mutters, then dashes into the water.
With no regard for my presence whatsoever, Kellan and Gage strip down as well and jump in, laughing and splashing around like living storms. They’re hurricanes, and I’m a helpless little barn about to get swept up in something way over my head. I can’t look away, especially after I catch glimpses of their groins. Jesus fuck, they’re…whew!
I don’t know how to explain this entire moment, but I know it will forever stay with me. My lips are dry, and wet heat gathers between my legs. My breasts perk up, nipples pushing through the fabric of my tube top. It’s supposed to be like this, I think. It’s supposed to be erotic and funny and mischievous, all at once.
It feels right. I wouldn’t tell my parents or anyone else about this moment, but it feels right.
The Hotshots are definitely enjoying the water. Rhett’s hair is darker and curlier now, drippy and bouncy as hell, and I finally cave in and bite into my lower lip, just to ease off some of the pressure stiffening my limbs. They’re so damn hot…
“What are you waiting for?” Gage asks me.
“Oh, crap,” I mumble.
“You can keep your clothes on,” Rhett reassures me.
Kellan smiles. “You’re one of us, now, Elly. We respect our own.”
Wait, this isn’t going in the right direction. “One of you?” I reply, suddenly confused. “What do you mean, one of you?”
“We shared a single malt, we talked about all sorts of shit, we’re hiding from the camp managers on the other side of the lake,” Rhett explains. “We might’ve met yesterday, but you’re definitely one of ours. Now, come on, hop in. The water is fantastic.”
My heart is beating maniacally, and I’m enjoying every second of it. I need to know more about them. I need to be around them. To be with them. A part of them.
“Screw this,” I mutter, and take my shorts off.
I haven’t got the courage to go topless or pantyless, but it’s a sign I trust them, nonetheless, as I’m now stripped down to my bare essentials. Taking a couple of steps back, I prepare for a good ol’ fashioned dive. The water seems pretty deep.
Giggling nervously, I take off. The Hotshots are silent, their eyes wide with anticipation. I run as fast as my feet can carry me. Inches from the water, I jump, feeling weightless in their presence. My hands pierce the water first, then my head.
It’s cold. Delightfully cold. I hear the Hotshots cheering, their voices muffled by the water. Yeah, we’re off to a fantastic start to what might’ve been the worst summer camp experience ever had they not shown up. Deep in my soul, I know I’m never going to be the same again.
8
Rhett
As I sit with Kellan and Gage at our usual table, laughter bubbles around from the girls. They’re like the moons that nobody asked for, constantly orbiting around us, never going away, and yet an integral part of our world, of the image we’re trying to project for everyone else. I feel like shit for what we’ve been doing from the moment we saw that Elly enrolled in our school. But I can’t show it.
Weakness is not looked upon kindly. Not among our peers, and certainly not in our family. The latter has been on shaky ground, lately, and we can’t do anything that might disturb the already fragile balance we’re all desperately clinging to.
Elly’s gone now, probably in the bathroom, washing the strawberry milkshake from her hair and t-shirt and vest. Maybe she’s gone home, already, begging her parents to transfer her to another school. She’d be doing everyone a favor, especially herself. Kyle’s on his own, brooding over his lunch. I don’t like him, but I kind of appreciate the fact that he tries to be good to her. He’s always struck me as a goody two-shoes, and that’s the kind of people that really piss me off, because beneath that apparent perfection and righteousness, there is nothing but filth and dark s
ecrets.
He’s too young to have any of that, but there’s room for it to fester, later down the road.
“So, that’s done. What the fuck are we going to do next?” Kellan asks, dabbing a French fry into a small plastic cup, filled with ketchup. His appetite is almost non-existent, much like mine and Gage’s. The girls, whose names I can never remember, are on the other side of the table, still giggling and reminiscing about the glorious moment in which Kellan’s milkshake ended on Elly. They take great pleasure in making her suffer, simply because we said we don’t like her. Sadist little tarts.
My grandpa was right. These kinds of girls end up either married, with three kids and a stash of Percocet and chardonnay always available or stripping for cash in shady bars while navigating a plethora of venereal diseases. I’m trying to figure out which is going to be which. My money’s on the brunette sucking cocks in trailer parks by the time she hits twenty. There’s not much else going on in that pretty head of hers, and my brother has no intention of ever getting serious with her.
He can’t. His heart is still stuffed with Elly, as is mine. And Gage’s. We are so fucked. So royally fucked, given what we’re up against.
“She’s not going to back down,” Gage mutters, too hungry to care about how old the pizza slice really is. You’d think a school like this would put something better on our plates. One more year, and we’re done with the shitty school lunches and shallow assholes and primped-up facades. To be quite frank, I’m already done with this crap, but I have to hold on for just a little while longer. We’re not out of the woods yet. Hell, we’re barely walking in, now, and there are hungry wolves out there, itching to tear us apart. “You think that was enough to get her to move to another school? You’re naïve.”
“What do we do, then?” Kellan replies, looking at me. “We can’t have her here.”
“Had we known that she would transfer to Trinity, we might’ve come up with a better plan than this sorry-ass bullshit we just pulled,” Gage says, shaking his head with disgust. “We’ve become the very thing we hate, you do realize that, don’t you?”
“What, bullies? Fuck that. Whatever it takes, Gage, remember? Whatever it takes. That was the promise we made to one another right before grandpa died. Whatever the fuck it takes,” I shoot back.
It’s easier said than done, though. Elly has no idea who we really are, what families we belong to… what we’ll be doing for a living shortly after graduation. I know, and my brother knows it, too. Gage is in the loop, as well. We’ve had time to prepare. We were raised into this, and we can handle ourselves. Elly? Not so much. She’s a precious little flower, despite her thorns.
None of us want her involved. Whenever we get close to someone, it all ends up in tears and blood. It’ll only get worse from now, because grandpa’s no longer around to reign in the psychos with whom we happen to share some of our DNA. The pack is in chaos, because the alpha is dead. A new alpha must rise, and Kellan and I know that the chances of it being our father are slim to none.
Quinn Flanagan was a tour de force. He kept the families in line and the businesses running from the moment he took over from his father, our great-grandfather. Quinn’s sons, however, are something else entirely. My dad, Harry, has handled the numbers since he learned to count, to add and subtract. He’s kept grandpa’s books since he was fifteen, and he is in no way a fighter or a killer. He’s also the oldest and first in the succession line, which raises a serious issue with his brother, our uncle, who wants the seat of power all to himself.
“If Kevin learns about Elly, he’ll use her against us,” Kellan says, feeling the need to remind me of the painfully obvious truth.
“He won’t. We literally spent today making sure he deems her as unimportant as everyone else. That’s what we do with bugs here, Kellan. We squish them, so nobody can see them,” I mutter, bile rising into my throat. I nab some of my brother’s fries, much to his silent ire, and stuff them in my mouth, barely chewing before I swallow, in an attempt to stop the burning sensation from spreading.
Kevin Flanagan, our uncle, is a real piece of work. A fucking psychopath who enjoys hurting people way too much. Grandpa thought he could get him and our dad working together in something that resembles harmony, so they would someday share the head of the table. Kevin with his brawns and bloody machination, our dad with his common sense and calculated reasoning. It seemed like a Yin and Yang kind of thing, a match made in mobster heaven, so to speak.
But grandpa overlooked one key aspect, and it could have very well been the end of him. Kevin doesn’t do partnerships. He doesn’t have friends. He has employees and people whom he blackmails in order to get what he wants. When money and lurid photos don’t work, he puts a bullet - or fifty - in various heads, until he finds someone who will do his bidding. He’s got cops and half of the Dominican cartel on his payroll, already. Unlike the rest of the family, our uncle does not care what color the skin of his associates is. Their obedience and loyalty are the only things that count.
Kellan and I both know he gives zero shits about blood ties, too, which is why we’re in this situation.
“We’ll have to do something really awful,” Gage says, after a while. He’s taken Elly’s appearance the worst. He’s still reeling in. “Something to make her leave for good. I told you, we haven’t scared her enough, yet. We haven’t pushed her away. It’ll take a hell of a lot more to sever the ties we wove during summer camp…”
“Leave it with me,” I sigh, my heart aching again. I fucking hate this shit more than anyone can begin to imagine, but I also know what the alternative is. “I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, we’ll have to keep an eye on her. She has no idea…”
“What about Kevin?” Kellan asks. “We know he’s got a spy here. Do we dig deeper, try to figure out which one of these lemmings is singing?” He motions around us, without discriminating. Even the brunette tart is a suspect, in his book. It won’t stop him from boning her, though. He’s got a lot of fire inside him that he needs to put out, and I blame Elly for it.
I move in my chair, a hard-on snaking its way down my jeans. Motherfucker. Every time I think about Elly in that white summer dress with red poppies, I get horny to the point where I have to excuse myself in order to rub one out and temporarily get her out of my head.
“We keep our heads down, for now,” I say. “Let’s see who takes over from grandpa first, before we start planning something against Kevin.”
Gage pinches the bridge of his nose. “My dad is loyal to the Flanagans, and that means Kevin, too. If Kevin makes a move against your dad, however… I’m not sure how that’ll turn out. We have to consider every goddamn possibility, here.”
“We can’t rely on your dad,” Kellan replies. “And ours is too weak to hold the seat on his own. Chances are Kevin will make a move, and he’ll make it soon.”
“You’re forgetting about us,” I tell my brother. “We’re ready to back him up, aren’t we?”
“You’ve got me, too,” Gage reminds us, willing to separate himself from his father, if push comes to shove. I don’t want him to do that, but I know he’ll end up dead if he follows Kevin. We’re stronger together, even if it means severing a few family ties.
The last thing we need is chaos in the Flanagan mansion. It’ll reverberate across the businesses, as well. The associates will smell blood, and, soon enough, the hyenas will be coming around, hungry for Flanagan carcasses. Whatever happens, the three of us will stay together. But we have to make sure Elly doesn’t get caught up in this vile shit. Until Kevin is out of the picture, that’s going to be quite the challenge.
At least we jumped her as soon as she got to the school. As terrible as that sounds, it’s for her own good. I should’ve never let her in. Kellan and Gage shouldn’t have either. We made a mistake, thinking our grandpa would live long enough for us to earn our own seats at the family table—enough to overpower Kevin. He died too soon, dammit. Uncle Psycho’s got too many of the Flanagan
“employees” in his pocket.
We’re like fucking lion cubs, our own Mufasa dead. The other lions are ruffling their manes, baring their teeth at us. We won’t stand a chance unless we play smart.
Dammit, Elly, you’re a liability…
Kyle leaves the dining hall, his head held high against the defeat he feels. I watch him carefully as he weaves through the crowd of students standing by the door. I wonder if he’s going to check on Elly, later. Maybe he has her phone number, already. I still have texts from her I haven’t read—not that I didn’t want to. On the contrary, I’m fucking itching all over just to drink in the words she sent me. But I know she’s upset and confused. We disappeared from her life without a trace, from the moment grandpa got sick. She doesn’t understand, and if we tell her, then she’s as fucked as we are.
What would be the point in putting her life at risk?
We all care too deeply about Elly to let anything happen to her. So, if we’re to make her hate us in order to keep her away from this hot mess, then so be it. I’ll be her worst nightmare, if I have to…
I’ll be her worst nightmare if that’s what it takes to protect her.
You’re better broken than dead, Elly. I wish you could understand that. I shake my head at nothing and everything and prepare to slap on another smile to fool the world.
9
Elly
I spent the rest of the school day with a spare t-shirt I got from the softball coach, so The Hotshots wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing me gone, already. They cannot win this; I won’t let them. Rhett, Kellan, and Gage seemed surprised to see me back in class after the strawberry milkshake stunt. I ignored them completely, and it gives me a single ounce of relief, to which I hold onto late into the evening.
Trinity High: High School Bully Romance Page 6