by Tijan
I couldn't move so I remained there and stared at the sky. The sun had risen a few hours ago, but the sounds of the morning were just starting. I should've moved. I looked like a crazy woman, but I couldn't. My limbs had turned off and refused to listen to my brain. I knew to get up, but my heart said to stay still.
I kept breathing. My chest rose up and down. The sick panic in my gut never went away, but I gulped breath after breath and I tried to numb it down.
"Sam?"
Oh god.
My eyes closed as I recognized that voice. I couldn't face him, not like this.
The sound of his car hit me like a cold wave. His tires moved slowly over the gravel on the road as he pulled to the side. Then his engine turned off and I gulped. I knew what was happening. When his door opened and closed, I needed to face facts. He was coming over. He was going to see the near-hysteria on me and he was going to ask questions.
Everything clenched inside of me. Then, as my body lifted up by its own accord, I looked at him with grave eyes. At the sight of him, freshly showered, with a pair of jeans and a tight tee shirt, everything went dead inside of me.
He was everything I was not.
He was the golden boy of a rich private school. He was gorgeous. He had talent. He was the football quarterback, most popular and most wanted guy in our school. He had it all. I had none of it.
I took a gaping breath and tried to remember who I had become, but it didn't matter. In that moment there was no Mason, there was no Logan. Not even Nate. They'd been stripped from me, and I was the same as I always wanted to deny before. I was the unwanted child to a hustler. My mother. I never wanted to admit it, but it was the truth. She had loved someone else, became pregnant with me, and hustled a stand-up guy to marry her. Enter David Strattan. He raised me, loved me—or so I thought—and loved my mother. Then came the time when she found another con, another one that fell in love with her, a better one—wealthier one—than David Strattan.
It was hard to swallow.
Adam crossed the street now, but I couldn't stop the thoughts racing in my head.
I was nothing. I had always been nothing. My mother tolerated me because I came from her. I felt like her. I felt like I had conned Mason into loving me. I had conned Logan into protecting me, but it was all a lie. If they saw inside of me—how I was the dirty spawn from my mother—would they still stand by me?
Adam's foot stepped onto the lawn where I sat.
I swallowed everything down. All the gravity, all the deadness, all the truth. Down it went, and I blinked at him, back to the shell I projected to everyone.
"It is you." He blinked in confusion. "Are you okay?"
I pushed it down so fast that I could almost pretend it was never there. I grinned up at him and grimaced at the same time. "I'm a mess, but yeah. I'm fine."
He shared my grin. The corner of his lip curved up to his cheek and a dimple showed. "I'm not going to disagree with you. One of those mornings, huh?"
My stomach dropped. My smile stayed the same. "Where are you headed?"
"Uh." He scanned up and down the street, but then shrugged before he dropped down to sit next to me. He drew up his knees in the same way I sat. His arms hung from them as he looked casual and relaxed. "To tell you the truth, I was going on a date."
"A date?" On a Tuesday morning?
"Yeah." His head ducked down in a sheepish manner. "It's my mom's idea to help fix her marriage."
I blinked at him. "Come again?"
He grimaced and rolled his eyes. "I know. It's stupid." Then he groaned as his head fell between his knees. "I can't believe I'm even doing this."
"How is your date going to fix her marriage?"
"Gawd, I have no idea. I really have no idea, but it's my mom's latest project. She likes to focus on everybody else's life rather than her own."
His head shot up and bitterness flashed over him. I expected it to go away the next second, but it stayed. Then I sat farther up. This wasn't the Adam who was angry at me because I was dating Mason. This was the friend I once thought I had.
He added, "He didn't come home last night so, of course, when I got up for basketball practice this morning she had already called a friend of hers whose daughter just moved here. I'm supposed to meet this Felicia girl at the Country Club." A hollow laugh escaped him. "And she timed it as the perfect excuse so I could 'teach' the girl how to play tennis at the exact same time my dad always has a match. I bet we're even on the next court from him." He shook his head, raking a hand through his hair. "I'm supposed to spy for her."
"She said that?"
"No, but she'll want to know everything about the 'date' and by date, I mean my dad's match." He glanced over and quirked an eyebrow up. "Did I tell you that my dad's been playing one of his executive assistants at matches? And she's got the boobs, the ass, the tan—everything for her to be a younger version of my mom?"
"You think he's trying to replace her?"
His arms dropped off his knees and he stood. His jaw clenched as he looked away from me. "I have no idea, but that's what my mom thinks. From the screaming she was doing on the phone earlier, I don't think she even cares who hears her anymore. Hell. She might already be playing the custody card. I wouldn't put it past her."
"What do you mean?" But I knew. This was something my mother would've done as well, but I had to admit that my mom was better. She would've been two steps ahead of Adam's dad.
"Playing the sympathy card so my little sis will take her side. I know my little brother already thinks my dad's an asshole."
"Isn't he?"
His shoulders slumped suddenly. A defeated breath left him. "Yeah, but I keep hoping he'll prove me wrong." He glanced down. "I'll never be like him, Sam."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I have to say it out loud. I have to say it to someone so that it's real to me. My dad won't ever change. I know he's having an affair, but it isn't with his tennis partner."
"Who then?"
He looked away. His mouth flattened. "Does it matter? He's going to leave her and she knows it. Do you know what that does to our family? What it's like to live in that? It's like a living in a warzone, but no one wants to admit that they could get shot any second. I hate it." The same bitterness came out again. "I hate him. I hate her. Who would put up with that?"
I shot to my feet. Unnerved at the honesty from him and how exposed he revealed himself to me, I burst out, "Why are you telling me this? You dropped our friendship two months ago."
His mouth curved into a frown. His voice grew soft. "Because I was the asshole to you that I see my dad being to my mom every day. I'm sorry. I know you wanted my friendship. Hell, you needed my friendship. I knew that and I hurt you because you hurt me."
"You knew about Mason—"
He shot back, "That didn't mean I wanted to. I waited so long for you, Sam, and then you got scooped up by him." An ugly laugh wrung out from him. "That was a hard thing to swallow. I hate that guy." I opened my mouth, but his hand shot up. "Let me finish."
I closed it.
"I always thought the Kades were assholes. I still do, but I can't deny what I've seen with my own two eyes. They're good to you. They care about you, and he loves you. I see it in his eyes. He watches you when you have no idea he's even in the room. It's sickening to watch at times, but it's there and I have to deal with it. I hurt you, and I'm sorry for that."
I closed my eyes. Mason watched me when I didn't know it? That same familiar flutter came back in my stomach but tripled. I tried to hold back the smile that wanted to come out. Mason did love me, despite who my mother was.
"And I'm sorry about Becky. I lied to her so she wouldn't be your friend again. I already told her the truth and she's pissed with me, but she's scared of reaching out to you. She's embarrassed."
"What did you lie about?"
"I told her that you were using her because you had no other friends. I told her that you laughed at her behind her back a few t
imes and that you looked down on her."
I gaped at him. Outrage was starting to boil inside of me.
He held up a hand in surrender. "I know. I know. I'm sorry. I really am and I'm going to make everything right. I will." His eyes held his promise. "I saw a counselor two weeks ago, and she said a few things that resonated. For me not to become like my dad, I actually have to not do the same things that he does. So I'm done lying. I won't lie to you anymore. I promise."
Why was he saying all these things? Not now, not when Mason had been taken from me and I was alone. But Becky—my heart sank at the lies he told her. If I was in her place, I might've done the same thing and gone away. Who wanted a friend who thought they were better than them?
"Can we be friends again, Sam?"
I expelled a ragged breath. A sense of doom started to settle, but I found myself nodding.
"You won't regret this."
I already did.
Adam visited with me a little bit more, but I had a hard time hearing his words. My mind was reeling as so much had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Mason and Logan had been ripped away. Adam and maybe Becky had come back in. And where was I?
When he left for his date, he was late but had a bright grin on his face. I finished my run back home. I felt raw. I felt exposed and vulnerable to anyone at that moment, but then I stopped in my tracks when I came to the house.
A security van was parked in our driveway. A man was kneeling at the door as I walked past him to the kitchen. There were two more focused on something on the wall. Analise stood with another who must've been their boss. He held the clipboard and was nodding as she gestured around the room.
Then she saw me. A dark smile came to her face. "Good morning, honey. I saw your sneakers were gone so I guessed you had gone on a run."
I gulped against the gloating in her eye. "What are they doing?"
She lifted a shoulder. "Oh, nothing much, honey. Nothing for you to worry about." Then her smile turned into a triumphant smirk. "They're installing a new security system."
My heart dropped. The cold sweat was back.
"We'll have security cameras in the house now."
CHAPTER EIGHT
I couldn't email Mason.
I couldn't call Mason.
I definitely couldn't see Mason.
By the afternoon, I was a caged animal: prowling my room, pacing back and forth, walking in circles, and snarling to myself.
So I did what I always did, I went running for the second time that day. Except this time my body was sluggish, my legs felt like lead, and I had a hard time pushing my demons at bay. After an hour of forcing myself to move faster than a crawl, I gave up and walked. And then I walked some more. After the second hour of walking, I realized that I was in a part of Fallen Crest that I was not familiar. It wasn't the 'bad' section, but it was definitely further than any of the hangouts I frequented.
"Screw you, Brandon! If you sleep with one more girl, there won't be anyone left to help out." A screen door banged shut and a rail-thin girl stood in front of it. She flung her arms back, one with a cigarette, and screamed inside, "I can't do it all alone, you know!"
Her response was a low curse, but she threw her head back in disgust before extending him the middle finger. Then she threw herself onto a metal chair behind the door. Another sat beside it with a bowl of cigarette butts between them. When the girl lit up, she exhaled dramatically and leaned back in the chair. A long pale leg braced on the wire rim that looked like a mini-bonfire container, and she pushed up so her chair rested on the back legs. As she sent out another puff, her eyes opened and then locked on me.
Shit.
I'd been staring the whole time, but I couldn't look away. That would be ridiculous now, like she'd caught me doing a bad thing.
Her hair was a dirty blonde mess. It was greasy, but for some reason it worked on her. It gave her a just-had-the-best-sex look. Her eyes were heavily made up to give her a smoky image, and her lips pursed together as she blew out some more smoke. "Hey, you."
"Yeah?"
"Come here." She waved her little fingers to me, beckoning me over. As I did, she gestured to the chair beside her. "Pop a squat." Then she leaned back again and studied me. After another drag, she narrowed her eyes. "Do I know you? You look familiar."
Everything was tense inside of me. I should've been exhausted. I ran for four hours earlier, followed by a two hour walk. Albeit that it was a slow as molasses walk, but it was still walking. It was movement, anything to keep me from doing something I couldn't do. When I had started out, I almost took my car, but I didn't trust myself in any vehicle. I would turn it around and go to Mason, I'd do it without a thought, and it wouldn't be until after both of us climaxed that I would realize the consequences. He didn't take my mother seriously, but I did. I had to for him or I would lose him.
A stabbing sensation seared through me. No one knew the lengths my mother would go to if she was pushed into a corner. Something had happened to make her feel boxed in. I had no idea what it was, but her true craziness was about to be unleashed.
"Hey!" The girl snapped her fingers in front of my face.
"Oh." I blinked rapidly. "Sorry."
She leaned back again on her chair after she flicked the butt onto the bowl between us. A second one was lit immediately, and she took another drag. "I know I know you. How do I know you?"
I swallowed a knot in my throat. "Do you go to Fallen Crest Academy?"
She snorted before a full-hearted laugh came from her throat. It was a low and raspy laugh. "God no. Thank god. Why? Do you?"
I nodded. "My dad's the football coach."
"No way." Her eyes snapped to attention. "My brother used to play football against them, that was three years ago. He ain't done nothing since—"
"I own this bar, Heather!" A roar came from inside. "I do too do crap."
She rolled her eyes. "Like I said, he hasn't done anything except screw my friends and run off ALL MY HELP." Her voice rose so he would hear inside.
She was awarded with another curse, but she chuckled softly as she took another drag from her cigarette. "Anyways, what's your name? Mine's Heather Jax. Idiot inside is Brandon, and my pops owns the diner side of our humble abode inside."
"Humble abode?" It was a run-down dive, and the customers gave me the feeling most had come straight from being incarcerated. The sign out front had the name Manny's scrawled over it in big white lettering on a black background with a green arrow pointed downwards. I'd never seen the place before, but what caught my attention had been Heather's screaming. The longer I sat there, the more a possible scenario played in my head.
She blew out the rest of her second cigarette. As she ground it into the bowl, I expected her to light up a third, but she merely folded back in her chair. Then she frowned and shot forward. "Hold on. Be right back." She was inside in the blink of an eye but back just as quickly with two Coronas. As she sat down and handed one over, she laughed. It was such a deep-throated sound that I knew Logan would've been all about her within seconds of meeting.
"Yeah, I guess you could call this place our humble abode." She shook her head as a wry grin curved a corner of her lip upwards. She tilted the bottle back and took a long drag. "It's ours and ours alone, no goddamn corporation owns it. We run it. Hell, we breathe this place. My mom bought it when I was three, but she took off when I was six. My dad raised us, the three of us, and we help out as much as we can. Brad's off playing football now. He got scouted to play for some big college across the country, but Brandon stayed. He does school online and runs the bar side of things. Dad does the books and I run the diner."
I had yet to take a sip from my beer.
She eyed me, half done with her own. "You sure I don't know you?"
Of course, she knew me. It didn't take a genius for me to realize this girl went to Fallen Crest Public. If she went there, she knew Mason and Logan, and chances were high that she had seen me at a party with them. Everyone went
to those parties.
But a sixth sense nagged me. This girl didn't seem to give two cents about who Mason and Logan were. I wondered, no—I worried that she would hold it against me, and I didn't want that. I really didn't want that because as soon as I heard her yelling at her brother I already knew I wanted a job there. I wanted a place to hide from my mother as I tried to stay away from Mason for the month and this would be perfect.
"Are your customers dangerous?" The question slipped out before I realized how stupid that sounded, and offensive. God, what was my problem? "I'm sorry—"
Another deep-throated laugh sounded from her as she threw her head back. Then she finished the rest of her beer and tossed it into the bonfire. "Nah. No, they'd like you to think that, but they're all harmless. The most dangerous is Gus, but it's only because his farts are lethal. He lets them rip all the time."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Fondness lit up her eyes, but they grew serious after a moment. She focused back on me. "Come on, tell me straight. How do I know you?"
I hesitated. But then I went with my gut. She would be more pissed when she found out later, and I knew she would. It was inevitable. "I'm dating Mason Kade." Then I waited. The reaction would vary. She might want to use me, she might kick me out, or …I wasn't sure.
"Well damn then." She shot inside for another beer and clinked it against mine. "You got balls dating that one."
My mouth almost fell down. There was nothing, just…nothing. "I had a feeling you'd for sure send me off after I told you that."
Heather grinned and chuckled as she shook her head. She brushed back a bunch of her hair and yawned a full body yawn as she stretched. Her arms went wide, her chest went out, and her back arched against the metal chair. That's when I knew for sure Logan would've been salivating for the girl. She wore a tight red shirt, ripped at her waist to show off her midriff with a tight pair of washed-out jeans, torn at her knees and the ends. The girl looked like sex on a stick, or that's what Logan would've said.
"Nah." She gave me lopsided grin. "Something tells me you're a smart one and you picked me for a reason, just like I called you over. You want a job here, don't you?"