by Mary Martel
“Asshole,” the clerk sneered nastily, and her face scrunched up in a way that made her a whole lot less pretty. “Get out of my store before I call mall security.”
Her store, rigggghhhhtttt.
I rolled my eyes as I plucked my bag off the counter by the handles. I waved my middle finger around in her general direction and headed toward the door.
The mall wasn’t packed by any means, but it was littered with groups of people here and there. Mostly high school kids like myself, only I wasn’t here to hang out with my friends and be seen on a Friday night before hitting up a party.
I was surprised I didn’t see Belinda and her crew lounging around in the food court or on a bench in the middle of the mall. I’d come here once or twice with Gin while she’d done the same thing. Not my scene, but I’d given it a shot for my girl. And then another one because she’d begged my ass to come back with her. After that, I pretended like I was dying whenever she even spoke the word mall in my presence.
Now I was wishing I’d gone to the mall with Gin every single time she’d asked me because I’d missed out on spending precious time with her.
I missed my friend like crazy. And I really wanted to find her sister so I could fuck her and maybe then I could think about something else for a damn change.
I avoided the food court like the plague, because I didn’t want to know if people were on the outs with Belinda like I’d wanted or if she’d somehow managed to worm her way back in there like the snake she was. I didn’t want to know, and I hoped I didn’t run into any of that crew until school started back up in a month.
I was focusing on work, my family, the girl who owned my mind, and my friends I grew up with who didn’t go to my school. They weren’t a part of that crew and hadn’t ever met Gin. They were a little too rough for a girl like that, so I never brought her around them. Somehow, it made it easier to be around them, because they didn’t talk about her or try to share stories about her with me. My mind was already stuffed full of my own memories with my girl, I didn’t need to hear theirs. That just made me feel shittier and shittier about missing her.
I didn’t need anything to make me feel any shittier than I already did.
Even the thought of returning to school, knowing I’d never see Gin walking through the halls again or waiting at my locker for me to walk her to class while she talks at me nonstop about her girlfriend and all the other shit she felt like she couldn’t talk about with anyone else, really messed with my head.
The guys I grew up with knew I was hurting, yes, but they didn’t press me on it. They let me be when I came around and hung out with them. Like real friends should. Like Gin would have done to any friend in need.
Did Gem have friends besides her psycho bodyguard?
Who had her back while she was hurting?
It should have been me, goddamn it. Me by her side. Me sitting beside her, holding her hand while her father’s casket was lowered into the ground. Fucking me.
It was crazy as fuck, made me feel crazy as fuck, and I absolutely didn’t care. I was all over being crazy at the moment if it got me everything I wanted.
Jesus fucking Christ.
With my freehand, I reached up, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and pulled on it. I grunted at the pain, but it kind of felt good. The pain almost grounded me, bringing me back down to earth and out of the fluffy white clouds my stupid, fucked up head was floating around in.
I released my hair and fished my phone out of my pocket. Shit, I had forty-five minutes to get to work, and I still needed to grab something to eat. I would be at the bar until two, maybe even three a.m., and there wouldn’t be any opportunity for me to eat anything again until then. So I for sure needed to eat again before I went into work.
But not at the food court here, because it was clearly a danger zone.
I went into Bed, Bath, & Beyond and my nose twitched immediately as I was assaulted by about seven thousand three hundred and eighty-four different scents.
The lady working here was older than the chick in the last store, but she still eye fucked me from the moment I walked in the door.
I wasn’t in the mood for it, and when she asked me if I needed help with anything, I glared at her until she held her hands up in front of her body and quickly backed away from me.
I was in a foul mood and clearly it showed on my face. I wasn’t even trying to hide it.
I grabbed a bunch of shit for my mom without even bothering to smell it. Candles, lotion, and body wash, and carried it all to the counter where I dumped it in a mess. This time she kept her mouth shut and didn’t even bother with small chitchat. She also kept her cougar eyes off of me, which I appreciated because I didn’t want to snap and go off any more today than I already had.
She rang my shit up, bagged it, and I paid for it before I got the fuck out of there. The whole thing took about ten minutes tops and was very, very uncomfortable.
That left me with options of hitting up a drive-thru and praying it didn’t take all damn day or doing a quick cruise through a gas station and grabbing whatever was hot. Neither sounded good to me.
I made it out of the mall without incident, but I did spot a few of the football players from school hanging around by the entrance to the theater. I waved them off and they thankfully didn’t approach and let me be. If I wasn’t careful, I’d have no friends when school started because they were all going to feel slighted by me.
It was in the parking lot where my luck finally changed. I caught sight of a girl with a very particular hair color that stuck out like a sore thumb.
Gem.
My heart stuttered inside my chest at the thought of seeing her again. That shit wasn’t normal, right?
What in the hell was she doing around these parts? I didn’t think she lived anywhere around here, or I would have run into her sometime. I would have remembered her if I had seen her before, I know it, and not just because she looked identical to my best friend. Because I was fucking crazy attracted to her, that was how I knew.
I followed her through the parking lot to a huge, black, shiny Escalade. I rolled my eyes at the sight of it. Of course, she was a rich girl and would have a shiny new ride.
I fished my phone back out of my pocket and snapped a picture of the license plate. Finally, things were looking up for me, and I might actually be able to find her after this when she disappeared on me again. My boy would be able to track her ass down now for sure.
She popped open the back hatch and tossed a ton of bags I hadn’t even noticed her carrying into the SUV. My eyebrows shot up when I caught sight of all the bags she already had piled up in there.
Was this what rich girls did, shop all day? How sad.
I didn’t think Gin went to the mall to buy half the stores out, but instead to hang out and be seen. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but these girls couldn’t get more different if they tried.
She closed the back hatch and turned around. I was right up on her now, and she stopped short. Her pretty eyes widened in surprise, and she took a quick step back. Her back met with the SUV and she froze.
“Ri... Riley?”
The sound of her voice sent pain lancing through me. Fuck, Gin. I missed my girl so goddamn much. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I hadn’t thought about them having the same voice. I’d noticed at the funeral that it was exactly the same as Gin’s, so much so it was startling to hear Gin’s voice come out of Gem’s mouth.
I should have thought this through just a little bit more, but damn, I didn’t think I could stay away from her. I was drawn in like a moth to a flame, and you bet your ass I was going to be the one who got burned here. I couldn’t fucking wait for it. Anything, even the pain this was going to cause me, would surely feel better than the grief I felt loaded down with and the heartache the loss of Gin left me with.
I opened my eyes and pinned her down.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a quiet, hesitant voice that was very different th
an how she’d spoken to me during every encounter we’d had so far. It didn’t suit her. I liked her brashness from before.
“I could ask you the same thing. Do you live around here? Where are you from? You never told me before, and I’d really like to know more about you.”
Goddamn, I sounded desperate even to my own ears, but fuck if it wasn’t how I really felt, so I needed to own it. I winced though, because she’d caught it and her eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. There she was. That fire she’d been missing just seconds ago finally lit in her eyes, and my dick that had been dead since I’d seen her last finally woke the fuck up.
How inappropriate. I was ecstatic.
“No, I don’t live around here.” She frowned and her eyebrows pinched together adorably. “Well, I didn’t used to live around here. I moved today. I switched schools too, so I’m going to go to yours and Gin’s.” She winced when she said her sister’s name, and something worse than pain crossed her features. It changed her entire face, and she looked a whole lot less friendly when she smoothed her face out and the wince disappeared.
Great, we were back to her being hostile toward me, something I really didn’t understand. She claimed she knew shit about me, that Gin had told her all about myself and Belinda, but I didn’t think she knew jack about us and what little shit she did know she had twisted.
The rest of it though? Exactly what I wanted to hear. She’d be close, and goddamn, going to school with her was going to be torture for me but in the best kind of way. I couldn’t fucking wait. She’d have to go every day, and that meant I’d make sure I had my ass there every day just so I could get my next fix of her.
I was like a goddamn addict. She was standing right in front of me, and I already couldn’t wait for the next time. It was insane, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe hope and pray that next time came a whole lot sooner than it took for this time to happen?
Because I couldn’t help myself, I asked, “Where exactly did you move to?” Nosy motherfucker. Why did I always have to push things so far with her?
I reached up and grabbed hold of a long, thick lock of her colored hair. It was soft, and I had the insane urge to lean in and sniff it just to see what she smelled like. I bet she smelled sweet. Last time I caught a whiff of her expensive perfume, which wasn’t sweet but still packed a punch. I liked that too.
She swatted my hand away, and I unfortunately had to let go of her hair so I wouldn’t pull on it and maybe hurt her. I absolutely didn’t want to let her go, but I did. And I took a step back from her to give her some space so she didn’t feel caged in or uncomfortable in any way.
I wanted her to know she could trust me and that I’d never hurt her. It was the truth and I wanted her to feel it.
“You’re sounding like a stalker, Riley,” she snapped at me. “Did you do this with my twin too? If I tell you where I live, am I going to look out my window at night and see you parked on the street corner watching my house out your car window with binoculars pressed against your face? You do know that’s creepy, right?”
She wasn’t even funny, but she sure did have jokes. Or, at least, I was sure she thought she had jokes because with how crazy she made me feel I just might park my truck outside her house like the creeper she was calling me.
I never would have stalked Gin though. We weren’t even going to go there.
My stomach rumbled loudly, protesting at the lack of food I’d fed him since this morning. And I was reminded I needed to get my ass to work and this was cutting into my time to eat first.
Damn, I had to go because I was never late for work. I took my responsibilities seriously, and if I agreed to be somewhere at a certain time, I got my ass there on time no matter how small or insignificant the event was. It was a trait my mother instilled in me by watching her work her ass off for every little scrap she got in life.
I didn’t want to walk away from this girl now that I finally had her in my sights.
“I gotta go. I need to get to work,” I shared reluctantly.
“Where do you work?” she asked. I liked that she was curious enough to allow herself to ask questions about me. I liked it a whole hell of a lot.
Instead of answering her question, because I wasn’t ready to get into that yet, I grabbed her purse strap on her shoulder and dragged it down her arm. She squeaked in outrage as I tugged her purse off her arm and started digging through it.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Give that back to me right now. Do you have any idea how much that bag cost?”
I snorted, like I gave a shit how much her stupid bag cost. If I damaged it, she could obviously afford to get herself a new one. Not on my dime though.
I dug through her bag and found her phone. I pulled the phone out and handed her purse back over to her. Of course the stupid fucking thing required a password or a thumbprint. Ignoring Gem’s mouth hanging open and the purse now clutched to her chest, I grabbed hold of her hand and pressed her thumb to the reader on her phone. Bingo, baby.
“Riley, I’m not fucking around with you. Give me my phone back right now.”
That made two of us, and dammmnnnnn did I like it when she said my name. It gave me the best kind of chills, and I couldn’t wait to hear her say it in her husky voice with my dick deep inside her heat or with her lips wrapped around my dick she could try to mutter my name and not choke.
My dick was already at half-mast, and I didn’t have any time to take care of it before going in to work and that sucked. I barely even knew the girl, and I couldn’t stop myself from fantasizing about her mouth on my dick.
I pulled up her contacts and added my name and number to it. I called myself, and my phone rang twice in my pocket before I ended the call. I handed her phone back to her and watched in amusement as she tossed it inside her purse without bothering to check out what all I’d done with it.
“You don’t know this, Gem” —her name rolled off my tongue with heat I couldn’t hide— “and you don’t really know me, but you will in time, I can promise you that. But I’m in your life now, and I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. I wouldn’t even bother trying to fight it if I were you, because it’s happening whether you want it to or not. And that’s not about me being a stalker.” It definitely was, but she didn’t need to know that, and no way would I be admitting it out loud. “It’s about the fact that I loved your sister very much and she meant something to me. It’s obvious to me that you loved her too and she meant everything to you. We’ve got that in common, and I want to know why she hid you from me and I want to know you. I want that more than I’ve wanted anything else in a long time, and I’m going to get it. You don’t know this about me, though you claim you know shit about me, we’ll get into that later, but my life hasn’t been all about getting what I want. With Gin being gone, I’ve realized life’s too short, so fuck it. I’m getting what I want for once, and you’re just going to have to get over it.”
Ignoring her wide eyes and parted lips, I leaned in and pressed a short, chaste kiss to her rosy cheek. I backed away from her before she could do any damage and walked away without looking back.
On my way to work, I phoned to let them know I was going to be a few minutes late. Nobody cared, though I knew they wouldn’t. That still didn’t make me feel good about doing it.
I swung through a drive-thru and drove one handed while eating on the way to the bar. All the while I grinned like a fool because I’d finally gotten to see Gem and she hadn’t even really been mean to me.
An improvement. Things were looking up for me.
And now I even had her phone number.
Chapter Eight
A Gross Invasion Of Her Privacy
Gem
I plopped my ass down on the wooden deck that juts out over the hill. I set my bottle of Grey Goose down beside me and the bright pink notebook down beside the bottle. All the lights from inside my house blazed brightly behind me. I had every outdoor light on as well so it would help me see
enough to read.
I absolutely would not be hitting up the internet for deck furniture like the rest of the crap I needed for my house, unless it would come the same exact day I ordered it. I’d rather sit outside than inside any day, and I planned on spending all of my time out here until the weather made it hard for me to do that.
First stop tomorrow morning would be to hit up some place that had a decent selection of outdoor furniture. I’d have to Google where to find that, and if it was at the mall, I’d happily go, but only to a mall that was farther away in the opposite direction of home, so I really didn’t have to worry about running into anyone I knew. Boy, had I had enough of that hairy business.
Maybe I’d even call Franklin and invite him to ride along with me. He’d been blowing up my phone and I’d been selfishly ignoring him.
Fuck, I sucked.
After everything he’d done for me, I had no business ignoring him in such a way.
Fuck, indeed. I couldn’t let this go on any longer. He probably thought I’d thrown myself down a flight of stairs so I could follow my twin into the great unknown.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and pressed my thumb against the little circle reader thingy. I pulled up Franks’ texts and scanned through the unread ones. They got colder and colder as they went along unanswered and ended up being downright frosty.
Man, he was really pissed. Now I’d gone and done it.
Ugh, I hated having to apologize when I messed up, but I had to boss-up and do it. A wrong didn’t get made right without an apology to start things off. I might not know where I wanted things to go with Franks, but I did know one thing for sure, and that was that I absolutely couldn’t lose him for any reason whatsoever.