The Substitute (The Bros Series Book 1)

by Xavier Neal

  “Wanna talk about him?” Sloane offers quietly. When I turn my head her direction, she states, “You haven’t really…talked about him since you broke up.”

  I casually counter. “What’s there to talk about? He accused me of being a cheating bitch and ruining his life. It’s pretty cut and dry.”

  She shakes her head slowly. “How could he ever think that shit? It’s like uh…Hello? Have you fucking met, Ainsley? She wouldn’t fuck Josh with a ten-foot pole.”

  My head tilts to the side. “Don’t you mean I wouldn’t let him fuck me with a ten-foot pole?”

  Sloane shakes her head again. “No. I meant it my way.”

  The two of us exchange a giggle.

  I haven’t sought my revenge yet. The classic movie lover in me feels pig’s blood at the prom would be sufficient, but I know that’s unrealistic. Besides if I’m going that route, I’d rather have the telekinetic powers to do something like flip his Mustang over with my mind and watch him cry over the only thing he seems to give a fuck about besides dating me.

  She slips her arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer. “Don’t worry, Ainsley. Nate will come to his senses, realize what a giant dickhead he was being, and then beg mercilessly at your feet like they do in movies.”

  A small sigh escapes. “But this isn’t a movie, Sloane. It’s real life. And sadly….most of the time that shit doesn’t happen.”

  There’s a small pause before she says something unexpected, “It’ll happen to you. It’ll happen to you because out of all the people I’ve ever met in my entire life, it deserves to happen to you. And as much as I’m probably the worst Catholic alive, I still have my faith. And my faith believes that shit things happen to shit people and great things Ainsley Jacobson, happen to great people like you….”

  Her heartfelt speech lifts my eyes to hers. In all the years we’ve been friends, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sloane speak so sweetly. Hell, I didn’t even know she knew how. The fact she just made the effort for me makes the pain of the situation almost bearable.

  She gets the devious smile I’m more than acquainted with. “Well, and me. That’s why I’m gonna marry Zac Efron when I’m twenty-five. He’s God’s gift to me for not burning down the entire school during our time at Ollander.”

  Another fit of laughs fills my room but is quickly killed by the knocking on my bedroom door.

  My mother doesn’t wait for a response before entering.

  Our eyes connect and the entire demeanor in the room shifts. The air becomes so thick I can hardly take a breath.

  We haven’t seen each other since that night we caught her with Nate’s father. She’s gone out of her way to avoid being home when I am, which was impressive last week when I called in sick to work claiming I had some sort of stomach flu, so I could stay home and cry.

  “Hey, Ms. Jacobson,” Sloane cautiously states.

  “Sloane,” she greets, folding her arms across her tank top covered chest.

  “I was um…just heading home,” my best friend lies and scoots her body past mine.

  She’s never liked my mother, but who could blame her. She doesn’t even know half the shit she’s done to me, including how many marriages she’s helped destroy. Possibly now including my ex boyfriend’s parents.

  Sloane grabs her purse from my dresser and gives me one final look. “Send me a copy when you finally finish?”

  I nod, which she takes as her cue exit.

  Once we hear the front door close, I adjust my laptop in my lap, and snap, “What the hell do you want?”

  Her eyebrows lift in offense. “Is that anyway to talk to your mother?”

  Coldly, I counter, “You haven’t been anything remotely close to my mother in five fucking years.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Before Dad died, we weren’t exactly close, but I at least knew you cared about me because I was your child. But after Dad died… you stopped being my parent and started being a weird roommate who didn’t know if she wanted to be my sister or my shopping pal.”

  “I…I was distraught-”

  “And so was I,” I bite. “But because you….because you cared more about living some lifestyle you suddenly found yourself entitled to when you got a job working for The Dollhouse, I wasn’t allowed to be sad. I wasn’t allowed to need you. The only thing I was allowed to do was all the things a normal mother should do. Cook. Clean. Make sure I got to school on time. Make sure the bills were mailed and eventually paid. You stole the small amount of innocence I had left just like you stole the glimpse of a loving future I had.”

  She twitches her lips to get a word in but I continue.

  “You think everything you’ve ‘done’ for me is preventing me from turning into you. Well newsflash mom, it’s done more damage than protection. I go to a school where you’ve blown the Dean, the Headmaster, and some of my classmate’s fathers. I am ridiculed for it. Snubbed. Judged. I come home to a house I have to clean, wash, and buy food for or starve. And as if that isn’t enough…because of your job, the one thing you say you can’t live without, which should actually be me, I lost the only man I’ll probably ever love.”

  Of course it wasn’t her who stole my phone and then fed Headmaster Wright insinuations that Nate was a predator who was secretly trying to rape me. Clearing those allegations up went swift and fierce and has him reconsidering the clause he put in the handbook that he was hoping would help protect students, not ruin lives… And while it was Josh who robbed Nate directly from me, had she not been at that hotel that night, had that small fraction in time never happened, I wouldn’t have been so distracted the next day. I would’ve known where my phone was. Nate wouldn’t have been compelled to stop and comfort me. Our lives would still be together rather than tattered.

  “You have made my life so…fucking…miserable,” I declare bravely. “And it stops now.”

  “Ainsley-”

  “No. Here’s what’s going to happen. Because my boyfriend dumped me, I have nowhere to move to the day I graduate, so I will stay here until my dorm is ready in the fall. I’ll pay for enough food for me to eat. My fraction of the phone bill. And just enough for the utilities I need. If you even consider trying to kick me out, I’ll call the landlord to come up to ‘fix’ something and leave your stash out for him to find getting us both kicked out.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she growls, body tempting to move closer.

  “Try me.”

  Nervousness coats her face and she steps back.

  “You wanted me to be independent, so that’s exactly what I’m going to be. When I leave for Ashwin, I’m not looking back. And if for some reason you decide to give up the drugs, give up selling yourself, and wanna be my mom again, the mom closer to the one I had for the first twelve years of my life, then you feel free to reach out. Other than that…I’ve got two dead parents.”

  The gasp out of her is unmistakable.

  “Now get out.”

  In a silent acceptance, she nods, spins on her heels and leaves, slamming the door shut behind her.

  I release the breath I was holding and let the tears finally fill my eyes as I stare at the screen waiting for my attention.

  My life may not be perfect and I know I have myself to blame for some of it. I also know the only way to change the circumstances I live in is to stop allowing bullshit to happen. To stand up for myself. Nate brought me a sense of security I desperately wanted, but he also gave me the courage to take responsibility for my own life that I desperately needed. Even if it means moving on without the people I love.

  NATE

  I tilt the beer up to my lips and nod my head in agreement with House. I completely understand why he’s a miserable old fuck. I actually respect it. Life is definitely easier when you only have to worry about yourself.

  Unexpectedly, the sound of my apartment door opening paralyzes my movements.

  It’s the middle of the fucking school day. It can’t
be Ainsley. I haven’t seen or spoken to her in three weeks. She didn’t text the first few days, but she reached out during the next week. As tempted as I was to reply back, I didn’t. Instead I shouted profanities and threw my phone against the wall. Took a couple days before I even decided to get it fixed. I almost had them change my number so I wouldn’t get any more messages from her or my parents.

  Holden strolls around the corner in his typical jeans and black t-shirt with his computer case slung over his shoulder. He gives me an immediate scowl. “You’re fucking day drinking now? Your liver not hate you enough already?”

  With a shrug, I have another sip. “It’s one beer.”

  He nods his head at the empty bottles crowding my coffee table.

  “Those aren’t from today.”

  He sarcastically nods. “Much better…”

  “I think it is.” Hitting the pause on the remote, I bite, “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be fucking working? Stalking bad guys and making the world a better place by putting away one perv at a time?”

  Holden drops down on the couch closer to me than I like.

  “Space, Bro.”

  “You’ve had plenty of space,” he clarifies, moving bottles out of his way on the coffee table. Once he’s cleared an acceptable area, he places his case down on it, but snaps, “I swear to the Cyber Gods, Bro, if a drop of beer lands on Beauty I will end you.”

  I give my head a scratch in discomfort. “Why the fuck are you bringing Beauty out?”

  “Because you’ve sat around moping like a bitch long enough,” he grouses as he pulls out his laptop. “You know after the incident back in college, you…you became a completely different guy. You were harder to talk to. Fuck, you were harder to enjoy being around, but we all swore you’d snap out of it eventually. That one day you’d be the old Nate, just a little smarter.” He turns the machine on and it begins to load. “Then years passed and it was like fuck, this is just who you are now. We couldn’t even blame you because you had almost died and we couldn’t blame you because we all carry fucked up shit from our past, so what give us the right to tell you how to fucking handle yours.” At that moment he looks up to meet my stare. “But then this bubbly little brown skinned hot piece of ass came along and brought you back to life, bro. You think it was just you whose life she changed? It was all of ours. For the first time in like eight years you were you again. We were…us again. We were the bros we used to be for longer than a Christmas celebration. And we made a pact at the beach house that no matter what happened we wouldn’t let you be the same boring as fuck zombie you had become. So here I am. Snapping you out of this shit.”

  His lecture makes me grunt my annoyance. “Who the fuck do you think you are? None of you get to fucking tell me how deal with my problems. My entire life is fucked up! My father’s fucking some escort in a hotel every couple of weeks, my mother has no fucking clue, my ex-girlfriend was playing me for some asshole who can barely grow his fucking pubes, and because I was too fucking stupid not to bang a student, I fucked up my teaching career and got fired from the top private school in the state.” I slam my beer bottle down on the edge of the table. “Don’t sit here and give me some well-rehearsed get your shit together speech. This isn’t just about a break up. This is my entire life falling apart.”

  Holden smiles in response.

  The action irks me harder. “What the fuck are you smiling about?”

  “You know the secret satisfaction I get when I prove I’m really fucking good at what I do?”

  “Yeah.”

  He winks, turns back to his computer, and begins typing. “Let’s start at the beginning with your father.” It only takes a couple clicks before several surveillance photos appear on the screen. Each one has my father in the lobby of the hotel we found him in with a different woman. “Your father’s been fucking around on your mother for years, Nate. He’s been using The Dollhouse services for the last four-” He clicks something else and corrects himself, “Make that five years.”

  “How do you-”

  “Side job,” he casually answers. “I handle some of the security and ‘security’ knowledge for a beautiful price as well as for reports about any clients who have…’specific’ tastes.”

  Underage girls and boys. Those looking to buy women instead of just screw them.

  Unsure of what to say, I let my body sag against the couch cushion.

  “Your father’s far from a saint, Nate. He really doesn’t deserve the amount of anger you’re pumping into him. You’ve never liked him. He’s never done more than toss money at you to keep you from following in his steps. And I bet he was only doing that so you wouldn’t see how dirty and crooked his footsteps really were.” Holden swings his face to look at mine. “Now, you don’t wanna tell your mother? Understandable. He’s not gonna tell her willingly, so here’s what I’m going to do for you.” He reaches into a side pocket and pulls out a flash drive. “Copies of these photos. Tell him you have proof of his affairs. Tell him he tells her or an anonymous person,” his finger points to himself, “will be sending her photos along with a video recording that you should be thankful I didn’t show you. Your old man’s ass is hairy.”

  I gag at the description.

  “This puts everything on the table, gives you a clear conscience about holding onto this secret, and leaves you relatively clean in the possible disassembly of your parent’s marriage.”

  One word sticks out too strong to be ignored. “What do you mean possible disassembly? Once she finds out it’s over.”

  He gives me a sympathetic expression. “Sorry to be the one to break this to you bro, but I highly doubt it. I’ve seen this shit a million times. CEOs. Politicians. Lawyers. Doctors. Wives find out, but rather than give up a lifestyle they love, they learn to look the other way…”

  And my Stepford wife mother fits right alongside those women. Huh. What are the chances if she were to find out it would truly change anything? What if on some level she already knows? What if this is why she’s constantly altering her appearance and has mastered the art of agreement with everything he says? What if this is why she’s always so desperate to have me over for dinner? So, for just a few hours she can feel normal? Feel like he loves her as she plays the motherly role?

  “Do whatever you want with this information.” He hands the small object to me. “But stop holding onto guilt. It’s not your fucking marriage, bro. It’s theirs.”

  The valid point bounces around my brain like a lost basketball.

  “But that note brings me to your own relationship,” Holden sneers, attention back to his computer. With a few pushes of the keys the photos disappear and new ones appear in their place. The screen is overwhelmed with photos of Ainsley and I. Photos I remember taking. There are selfies from our few outings in Cliffsworth. Stolen moments from around the apartment. An overwhelming amount from my birthday weekend. The sight of them all clustered together chokes my vocals chords. Fuck, I miss her. “You see that Josh fuck head was telling the truth. None of these photos are on Ainsley’s phone. They’re on her personal laptop, in an encrypted file. Nothing fancy, obviously, but definitely more secure than her password protected phone, which can be cracked with the help of a simple website or two online.”

  Silently, I stare at the photos, the pain in my chest spreading.

  “She was smarter than you wanted to give her credit for.”

  “But not smart enough to keep that fucking video off of her phone.”

  “That video was pretty hot considering it had so much of your ugly mug in it,” he chuckles, but I don’t. “And she didn’t have that video on her phone. She had it in an email in her unemptied trash folder. That kid was bluffing. I’m assuming she sent it to herself from one of your email accounts, downloaded it at home, and then deleted the message, but didn’t bother emptying her trash.”

  As the realization Josh played me for a fool settles on my shoulders my so called best friend smiles w
ider.

  “Manipulative asshole, I give him that. He set you up, but Ainsley is innocent.” He doesn’t bother giving me a moment to retort. “And I read the texts between them. He has been hounding the fuck out of her, but all of her answers were short. Simple. And after a certain point, she politely even asked him to keep it to just about school crap. He’s apparently a moron. Pretty sure without Ainsley’s help he’d be flunking English Lit.” I wanna ask him did he really look up the guy’s grades, but I don’t. “You were wrong to lose your shit on her without giving her the chance to defend herself. That mistake is all on you.”