Those Heartless Boys

by E. M. Moore

  Actually, I know what it is. I’ve just had the best kiss of my whole entire fucking life. And I let Lucas Govern play with my clit. In school. In front of people. Undetected. How could I not be riding a fucking high?

  “Whoa, whoa, Tits,” Wyatt shouts as I unlock his truck and jump in the front seat. Several students nearby turn toward us and snicker at my nickname. I just shrug it off because anything is better than Blue’s Clues. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I lean out, giving him a wink. “We’re talking treasure, right? There’s only one place to do that.”

  “No, I mean, what the fuck are you doing in my truck?”

  I settle back in the seat and push the button to start it, then rev the engine.

  Wyatt pales. “No. No fucking way.” Before I can lock the door to keep him out, he sprints forward, winging his door open and jumping up into the front seat with me. I let out a squeal and try to scramble away before he sits on me, but he doesn’t let me get too far. He sits the seat back a little and then pulls me onto his lap. “You want to drive my truck? Then we’re going country. You’re doing it in my lap.”

  I force out a breath as my body melts against his. “I know how to drive a truck, you know.”

  “Your piece of shit? How can you even put those two trucks in the same sentence?”

  I shift in his lap and gape at him. “That truck is a classic.”

  He smirks. “A classic?” He practically bites the word out like he doesn’t approve. “Your truck might as well be a giant ass paperweight.”

  “That’s because your friend is a giant ass douche.”

  “An ass douche?”

  I narrow my gaze. “I meant more giant ass with douche as the separate word, but ass douche works fine, too. It seems appropriate.”

  Wyatt shuts the door and then leans out the window to catcall Stone. “Hey, ass douche. I guess you’re riding by yourself.” Lucas gets into the truck beside us, and Stone gives us all the middle finger before getting into his car and slamming the door. His tiny tantrum just causes Wyatt to laugh louder. He gives his friend a salute. “Follow us.”

  Wyatt puts the car in drive. Instead of backing out of the parking spot, he drives over the landscaped divider in front of us, his arms caging me in. The few Saint Clary’s students who are still heading to their vehicles at the end of the day give us a wide berth.

  He wasn’t wrong on one thing. His truck and mine are way different. His is a monster. I could’ve driven it. I’ve been driving my dad’s truck since before I was legally allowed. However, I only recently got my license when I enrolled in college. I’m glad I did, considering what happened to Dad. At first, I only did it because of Marilyn, but it turns out it was a good idea for a whole different reason.

  Lucas reaches over, sliding his fingers over mine on the seat. I turn toward him, and he greets me with a smile. I start to get off Wyatt as he pulls out of the school, but Wyatt pins me to him with a strong arm around my waist. “Don’t even think about it,” he warns. “This is the toll for thinking you could drive my truck.”

  Lucas snickers. “You just want a sexy girl on your lap.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “Always,” Lucas says.

  My face flushes, and I press my lips together. I’m not used to guys saying those things to me. Insults, I can handle. Being called a freak. Even the whispers about incest I took without batting an eye. I guess townspeople tend to think lots of weird things when families stick to themselves.

  “What’s a matter?” Wyatt asks, clearly enjoying himself. “Never sat on a guy’s lap before?”

  I restrain myself from rolling my eyes. “I was actually just thinking how nice it was to be sitting up here instead of staring you down before you ran me off the road.”

  Wyatt stiffens. “I didn’t—”

  The rumble of his chest vibrates my back.

  Lucas hides a smile. “Don’t worry. Stone already made him pay for that.”

  “Fuck off, Govern.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Tits knows I didn’t try to run her over.” He pulls me back again, his hand catching my hip and staying there while he steers one-handed. “She’s just changing the subject because she doesn’t want us to know that she’s never sat on a guy’s lap before.”

  Now that he brings it up... I sift through my memories. Of the little experience I have with boys, um, no. There was no lap sitting.

  “Don’t pick on her,” Lucas says, his fingers stroking mine on the seat.

  “I’m not,” Wyatt says innocently before his playful nature kicks in again. “I’m introducing her to amazing things. Do you know how many girls would kill to be sitting on this lap? Now Dakota can say she’s done it. Don’t forget that Google review afterward. I want everyone to know how amazing it is.”

  I shake my head. “You sure think a lot of yourself.”

  Wyatt takes his cowboy hat off, sitting it on the middle of the seat over mine and Lucas’s entwined hands. “Just showing you that though Lucas’s moody, brooding bullshit is a turn-on at first, it’ll get old. You might just want a nice, casual ride in the sack. No strings. No attachments. Just a good fuck.” He rolls his hips exaggeratingly, like he’s taken notes from a Chippendale dancer. I grab the steering wheel in front of me, so he doesn’t knock me into it, but also to plant myself back into reality because Jesus hell. He has that move down.

  “Wyatt,” Lucas warns.

  He shrugs behind me, and I can tell he’s loving this. “Just sayin’.”

  Though he sounds casual, there’s a thickening in his jeans. They don’t call me Blue’s Clues for nothing. I know what that means.

  I shift on his lap, and Wyatt stops breathing. It’s just to fuck with him at first. To let him know that I know he’s getting something out of this too, even though he tries to act like he’s a heartbreaker. A user. Hey, I’m not saying anything about no-strings attached sex. That’s basically what my first few encounters were, and all it did was make me hungry for experience.

  Like Lucas.

  Oh shit. My cheeks heat when I realize I’ve actually added Lucas to my sexual experiences list. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. It just kind of happened as I let my body take over for once, and I’m so glad I did.

  I squirm again, this time because of the images my head conjured up of Lucas and I in the classroom. “Christ,” Wyatt grinds out, expelling a breath. “Stop moving. If Stone sees me hard as a rock when I get out of this truck, his head is going to explode.”

  I stare daggers into the windshield as my body instantly cools. “Stone doesn’t have a say in anything that happens in my life. Fuck him and his father. Throw in his mother while you’re at it.”

  The cab fills with a weighted silence before Wyatt finally breaks it. “Um, are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “We’re headed the right way,” I say. Now that we’re on the way there, I don’t know if I feel right about this. A Jacobs has never been invited onto my family’s property for a reason. What if I give them information and they just drop me?

  I gaze at Lucas to find his jaw feathering as he stares ahead. He’s pulled his hand back, and I’m pretty sure I was too preoccupied with seething over the mention of Stone that I didn’t feel it when he had. I miss the feeling of his hand in mine though. As crazy as it sounds, it felt right, and now I’m wondering why he took it away. Is this just a ruse to get what they want out of me?

  I groan inwardly. It would be easy to dismiss what happened between Lucas and I if he hadn’t kissed me like that afterward. Like we were both suffocating and the only person who could give us life was the other. My life has been sheltered, but that—that is what always kept me going. All the books I read can’t be wrong. There are experiences like that out there.

  We drive past the Leaving Clary sign. I lean forward, and I definitely feel Wyatt’s hard-on against me now. He places his hand around me again and drags me back against it. Neither of us say anything, but my body goes hay
wire. I bet Wyatt would be a good fuck. Nice and casual, sure, but mind-blowing at the same time. There’s an aura about him that screams he’ll never settle down. From head-to-toe, he gives off that vibe of sex on a stick and nothing more. Wyatt Longhorn isn’t looking for anything more than just rough, dirty, sheet-twisting sex.

  Both men appeal to me in different ways. Lucas because there might be something there. Wyatt because my experiences are only just beginning and experimental. What he’s offering sounds like what my fantasies are made of.

  “Shit, right here,” I call out, pointing at my family’s house. Wyatt has to slam on the brakes and turn the wheel hard. Sand kicks up, leaving a cloud of brown that takes forever to settle.

  When it does, the differences between Jacobs Manor and the rustic Wilder cabin are obvious. The house has been neglected at best, abandoned at worst. When I say my father has no interests other than the treasure, I mean it. It’s not just something I say to show his devotion to finding his family’s legacy, it’s one hundred percent true.

  From the street, it looks like a shack. At times, it was. At times, we didn’t even have running water or a toilet that would fully work. My father would grab buckets in the nearby stream, and I would take showers with them. One initial, ice-cold water bucket to lather up and then one to rinse off the shampoo/conditioner and soap.

  In commercials, I’d see these models on TV talking about how to tame their curly hair, and I’d long for it. Just something to make me feel a little normal. None of the women looked like they were taking ice-cold showers with rusty buckets. In fact, my shampoo and conditioner come from the dollar store, and I use them sparingly.

  However, the two times I’ve taken a shower in Jacobs Manor has already made my hair feel ten thousand times better.

  “Where the fuck are we?”

  Lucas smacks Wyatt.

  “We,” I say, throwing his door open and quickly shutting it again when Stone pulls in to shield us from the deluge of dirt his tires kicked up. “...are at my house.”

  “This piece of shit?”

  “Jesus, Wyatt. Shut the fuck up,” Lucas snarls.

  He’s not wrong, but I feel it all the same. The shame. Growing up, I tried not to let other people’s words get to me, but when they had a hint of truth, it was hard not to. I often wondered why the hell Marilyn would even look at my dad. Not when she had Lance. I rationalized it because I knew how much of a dick he was and that my father was just plain awesome, but now that I’ve seen the other side, I think I’d be willing to put up with a lot just to have consistent running water.

  Though, Marilyn came in at the right time. She didn’t have to deal with all the house issues I had to. We haven’t had plumbing issues in years.

  When the cloud of dust settles, I push the truck door open again and climb off Wyatt’s lap to jump to the ground. The four of us meet in front of the cars. I stare at the house for a moment, thinking of my dad. When I peek at the guys, they’re all wearing various levels of distaste. Confusion. Shock. Sneers.

  No one outside my father, Marilyn, and I—and of course my grandfather who built it—have ever been inside this house. I know it’s nothing like Stone’s place. It has the workings of a madman inside. I used to try to keep up with all the paperwork he had, organize it somehow, but he seemed to like it strewn about where he could pick it up at a moment’s notice and work on something on a whim. I just tried to keep it contained to one pile each on every flat surface.

  When Marilyn first came, she cleaned the place from top to bottom, but as time went on, she just gave up too. My dad’s stuck in his ways.

  I clear my throat, letting the memories hit me. They go back in time, getting more familiar but harder to bear. It reminds me of just how alone I am right now.

  Walking forward, I take out my own keys and unlock the front door. It isn’t as if it’s keeping anybody out. You could just put a hole in the side of the house to get in if you wanted to, but crime in Clary is practically nonexistent. The door creaks as it falls open, and I lead them into the big room that’s the kitchen, dining, and living area, filled with shabby furniture and open shelving that shows every out-of-place item.

  I swallow a lump in my throat. We’re miles away from Stone’s place. Not just in distance, but in quality of living.

  I turn abruptly to face them, hoping to take their attention off the mess. “My father has years of research in this house. I can show you where it is, but—”

  “This is a big step for you,” Stone says, voice low. Not like he’s trying to beat me to the punch line of my own sentence, but like he’s acknowledging that this shit is sacred to my family. It won’t give away the greatest secrets, but it gives a lot.

  I nod, thankful that he at least gets it on a surface level. “This is a leap of faith, and I’m imploring you to let it stay here. To not publicize what you find,” I say, staring at Stone whose discerning gaze keeps darting around the room. “This is years and years of my family’s work, and I’d rather it stay in the family.”

  He focuses back on me. “You have my word.”

  “Mine, too,” Lucas agrees.

  “Really, Tits?” Wyatt asks. He gives me a smirk. “Who am I going to tell?”

  Their assurances only give me a slight reprieve from my hesitation. When I lead them down the hallway, my feet feel like cement blocks trying to wade through mud, and I half-wonder if my father is sending me messages not to do what I’m about to. He would kill me. He would disown me.

  But I have to find him. And it’s not just the creepy as fuck note that has me positive that if I find the treasure, I’ll find my dad. It’s because if I know anything about Clark Wilder, it’s that he wouldn’t dare die until he found the treasure. Or, he would’ve died trying.

  I nudge my father’s study door open with my shoe and come to a halt. Wyatt’s chest bumps against me, and I step into the study with a gasp.

  There’s shit everywhere. The desk is upended. All of the cupboards have been torn down. Paper litters the floor with my father’s distinct handwriting scribbled everywhere. The lamp is smashed on the floor, glass shards sparkle against the small rays of sun that peek in through the window.

  It’s been ransacked. In fact, it looks just like when these assholes went through my shit looking for stuff.

  I’m an idiot. Of course, they’ve already been here. Why wouldn’t they try here first?

  I turn, locking them all with a glare as my hands turn to fists. “You assholes!”

  20

  My nails bite into my palm as I stare daggers at them. I can’t believe I even half trusted them. A quarter trusted them. I can’t believe I would even soften to any of them at all. “I see you’ve already been here.”

  Stone matches my glare and gives it right back to me. “What?”

  I spread my arms out wide. My face heats like I’m going to explode. “You’ve already been through the room. Did you find everything you so desperately wanted? The one clue that was worth this?” What a violation of privacy. My dad always said they couldn’t be trusted. It’s a damn good thing he hides his most precious treasure information. If they only tore up this room like they did with my dorm, then there’s no way they found whatever they were looking for. “You can kiss my help goodbye.”

  I try to push between them, but Stone grabs me. He sure does love grabbing me a lot, doesn’t he? He hauls me back to his chest, his breath hitting my ear. “Is this not what this room usually looks like?”

  “Are you serious?” I grind out.

  I turn my head to stare at him but he only blinks.

  “Honestly, it’s not that much different from the other parts of the house,” Lucas says in a small voice, like he’s worried I’ll start swinging. I just might. My father and I had a hell of a lot of time on our hands, and one way we passed the time was to make sure I could hold my own if I ever needed to. No daughter of his was going to be someone’s punching dummy.

  He was wrong about that because sometimes word
s hurt more, especially when you have a muzzle on you.

  “Look at this,” Wyatt says. His sneakers crunch over the broken glass as he tiptoes toward the overturned desk. He pulls out a map of Clary that’s from the 1800s. On the blank side, STUPID GIRL is written in big, block letters just like the stylized note I got a few days ago.

  This time, I don’t shy away from Stone, I move back into him. His grip loosens, and instead of forcing me to be where I am, it’s as if he’s shielding me.

  “Same type of note from the apartment,” Lucas says in a hushed tone but with that same rich energy. It draws me to look at him. “We didn’t do this, Dakota.”

  I press my lips together. I’m beginning to think they’re right, but it’s not as if I don’t have reason to doubt them. “I guess you’ll have to excuse me if I still have lingering trust issues. I know you were looking for something that night in my dorm room. You broke my door down. You went through my stuff.”

  Lucas’s face flushes. Pink creeps up his neck and balloons over his cheeks. Wyatt and Stone are less inclined to feel remorse though. Wyatt shrugs, “You were the enemy.”

  I want to tell him I was never their enemy, but that’s not technically true, is it? That’s not how Dad brought me up. I hate these guys, I just don’t know why it’s so hard to hate them when he isn’t here. I’m being torn in two different directions, and I’m not sure which path I should go down. Should I trust my gut or my father’s?

  Thoughts collide, crashing into one another, and I yank my hair down with the start of a splitting headache.

  Stone leads me to Lucas in the corner of the room who pins me to his side and starts running his hands over my hair. He even rubs my temples like he knows what’s going on inside my head. This guy definitely plays the part of silent observer well if he knows about my headaches, hair-driven or not.

  Wyatt and Stone pick their way through the mess. There’s no rhyme or reason to my father’s research they’re finding even though they try to make sense of each paper they pick up. Stone’s practically having a stroke with how messy and unorganized my father’s writings are. He keeps twitching involuntarily.