He leans forward, bringing his lips to my ear. “I can already tell I’m going to have a lot of fun with you.”
I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. My cheeks burn red, caused a confusing blend of unfamiliar sensations. I push past him, my hands tightening around the straps of my bag, and rush out the door.
I have no idea what just happened in there. All I know is I met Jensen Mackey today, and my world tilted on its axis.
CHAPTER 3
“Waverly, would you mind passing me some of those gender rolls, please?” There’s a smirk on my face as I reach across the table at dinner Monday night. I’ve just been given an all-access, VIP backstage pass to the greatest fucking circus on earth. All these wives and kids and systems and checklists, and nobody wears a goddamned smile or shows a hint of rebellion. They go about their daily routines like micromanaged employees.
Waverly places a white bowl of warm, buttered rolls into my hand and pinches her face. I take a one and bite into it, chewing slowly like a kid in a crescent roll commercial.
“Mm, mm. These gender rolls are delicious.”
She kicks me under the table, hard, but I don’t flinch. I’m not sure how I ended up sitting across from her at the table again, but here I am. Mark is at the head of the table yammering on about some boring pharmaceutical legislation. Waverly flashes me a look as if to warn me not to mock him, but I won’t be ordered around by some angel-faced goody-two-shoes who lives and breathes to make Daddy happy.
“Gender rolls are the best kind of rolls,” I continue. “You should make these for me again sometime, you know, since I’m not allowed in the kitchen.”
“Stop,” she whispers, throwing me a sharp look. Her eyes are the lightest shade of baby blue, clear almost. They’re hardly threatening. Everything about her is prim and proper and mind-numbingly perfect. We are night and day, she and I, and I get the feeling we’re going to butt heads a lot.
But it could be fun.
“So, Jensen,” Mark calls from the head of the table. Summer and Kath rise from the table and start cleaning up as the little kids scatter. “Why don’t you head down here so we can have a little chat?”
I peel myself up from the chair, making a point to slide my dishes into Waverly’s place setting, and take the seat beside Mark. I sit up straight and look him in the eye, the way I used to when my father would give me one of his lectures. As long as I appeared to be listening I’d get off without being called a “worthless piece of shit.”
“You any good with fixing things?” Mark asks.
“What kinds of things, sir?” I throw a ‘sir’ in there for good measure. It always worked on my father.
“Cars, trucks, motorcycles,” Mark says. “Grease monkey type things.”
I repaired an old Toyota Celica back home. My father wouldn’t buy me a car when I turned sixteen, so I found one in the paper for $500 that didn’t run. A few minor parts and it got me where I needed to go.
“I am.”
“One of my friends is looking for a gofer for his shop. You probably want some walking-around money,” Mark says. He’s pretending to be cool, pretending to bring himself to my level as he tries to figure me out. I’m one step ahead of him though, and his attempt is laughable at best.
“Gofer?”
“Yeah, you’d go-for stuff. Parts. Errands. Maybe work yourself up to minor repairs.” Mark clears his throat and squares his shoulders with mine. It’s a manipulative technique he’s using—mirroring his body language with mine in an attempt to make me more comfortable around him. My father used it on people at church all the time and they’d walk away thinking Josiah Mackey was their best friend in the whole wide world. I swear to God, if Mark Miller is as cunning and manipulative as my father, I’ll…
“You done with this, Dad?” It’s Waverly. She reaches for Mark’s plate, happy to serve him, like he’s the fucking King of England.
“Sure am, sweetie,” he says with a warm, Leave It to Beaver smile that makes me my stomach churn. This can’t be real life.
“She sure is a great help in the kitchen,” I say, catching myself before make some snide remark about the convenience of breeding built-in help. I get it. Teaching kids to have chores and responsibilities is part of parenting. Using them to wait on you hand and foot because they weren’t born with the almighty cock and balls is disgusting. That’s some Josiah Mackey-level thinking right there.
“She’s going to make a fine wife someday,” Mark says in a way that creeps me the fuck out. Is that what he was raising his daughter to be—a good wife for some polygamous asshole? “Anyway, as I was saying. The job at the shop. You interested?”
Whatever gets me out of this warped little universe for a while is cool with me. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
Mark proceeds to gloss over the house rules. I hear him use words like “curfew” and “quiet time” and “expectations.” I get it. He’s a control freak and he wants me to know he’s the man of the house. I listen just enough to get the gist, but every time Mark looks away, I find myself glancing in the kitchen toward Waverly. She’s towel-drying dishes and smiling as she chats with her sister. Our eyes meet, but she looks away instantly.
She probably doesn’t know what the fuck to make of me, and that’s exactly the way I prefer it.
“Oh, and I discussed this with Kath earlier today,” Mark says. “Since her house is the smallest of the three, and I doubt you want to share a room with a six-year-old, we’re going to move you into the main house. There’s an extra room next to Waverly’s. I think it’ll be a better fit for you. Give you a little privacy.”
I’m grateful for the privacy, but I know what’s going on here. He wants his little princess to keep an eye on me when he’s not around. That little snitch would rat me out in a heartbeat, too. Not that I plan on faltering from my straight line while I’m here, but I’ve already lived life under Josiah Mackey’s microscope. I was hoping for a break from the constant scrutiny, but I guess it was too much to expect the universe to throw me a fucking bone once in a while.
“Thank you, sir,” I say through gritted teeth and a phony smile. “I certainly appreciate it.”
“Waverly, show your brother to his room,” Mark commands, his voice acting like the snap of two fingers. She dries her hands on a dishrag and motions for me to follow her to the stairs. I wonder if she’s always this docile or if her obedience is only for him.
We climb the creaky stairs to the second level and turn down a long hallway. There are tons of doors. This house is huge. Must be why they keep calling it the “main” house.
She doesn’t speak until she stops short at the last door on the right. With her hand on the knob, she says, “Room’s a little stale. It’s a guest room, but we never use it.”
A cloud of musty air greets us as we walk in and she reaches over to flip on the light and ceiling fan. A double bed sits against the wall along with an oak nightstand and dresser with brass handles circa 1982.
I plop down on the bed and run my hands along the country blue quilt, which I definitely won’t be using. “This’ll do.”
“I’m right next door, if you need anything.” She points to the wall to her right.
“What would I need from you?” I’m fucking with her. I’m bored, and she seems easily excitable. “A bedtime story? A glass of warm milk?”
Her jaw slackens and she takes a step back. I wait for her to come at me with something, to put me in my place, but she doesn’t.
“Dad says you’re going to school with me tomorrow,” she says instead. “We leave at seven thirty. Don’t be late. Bathroom schedule is outside the door.”
Of course there would be a bathroom schedule. All these bedrooms and people and you’d think someone would’ve added a few extra bathrooms.
“You’re sharing the green bathroom with Bellamy and me,” she says. “Two doors down. I shower at six. She showers at six fifteen. You shower at six forty-five.”
“Six forty-five.
Got it.”
“Bellamy put a hamper in the bathroom for you,” she says. “You get your own.”
“Our clothes can’t touch?” I laugh. She doesn’t. “Okay.”
“Dad’s rules. You can take it up with him.” She sighs, like she doesn’t have time for my shenanigans a moment longer. I’m guessing she’s itching to get back to Bible study, or whatever she does at night.
Waverly nibbles on her bottom lip. Her innocence is sexy in the most inappropriate of ways. I’d find her utterly fuckable, if she didn’t have such a big stick shoved up her ass. She reminds me of the girls at church who’d stare at me like I was the world’s most eligible bachelor because I was the preacher’s son. In that world, my father was a king and I his princely heir. They looked at me like I was changeable, someone they could mold and shape into their perfect future husband. The joke was always on them. Many have tried, many have failed. No one has ever been able to change Jensen Mackey.
She drinks me in, a soft sigh leaving her lips.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I’ve never been one to beat around the bush, and I sure as hell won’t start now.
“Like what?” Her nose wrinkles like a bunny. Like a sexy, church-going bunny.
I smirk. “You can leave now, Waverly. Report to your daddy that all is good here.”
“What are you talking about?”
I lean back on the bed, folding my hands behind my head and staring up at the ceiling fan and the dust speckles that swirl in the dim light. “See you in the morning.”
“Breakfast is at seven,” she reminds me as she slinks out the door. “Please try to be on time.”
I cross my feet at the ankles. “Don’t usually eat breakfast. This morning was an exception.”
“It’s not an option here. We eat as a family.”
“Then save me a seat across from you.” Two can play this game. If she wants to keep tabs on me, then I’ll smother her so hard she won’t know what to do. It’s not like I have anything better going on.
She closes the door and I’m left alone in a boring room with bare, white walls and a single window with a view of the backyard. I pop up to inspect my surroundings. A white privacy fence connects the main house with another house. My mother’s colonial is two doors down. From the street, they look like three neighboring homes. From the backyard, they’re all connected. I’d say the fence is at least eight feet high. There’s a covered, in-ground pool behind Summer’s house as well as a whole host of children’s toys. The backyard reminds me of a daycare center, only with better landscaping.
A light rap on my door pulls my attention that way. I don’t get a chance to tell my visitor to come in before the door swings open. It’s Kath.
“Oh, good,” she says. “Found you. Just wanted to tell you goodnight before I head home.” She glances around, tilting her head. “We can spruce up the room, if you’d like. I know you’re only here a few months, but there’s no reason you can’t personalize your space a little. Just, you know, keep things appropriate.”
“No naked women. Got it.”
Her cheeks blush. “What kinds of things do you like?”
It’s odd to be standing across from my flesh-and-blood mother and realize we’re complete strangers.
“Do you like music?” she asks.
Do I like oxygen? “I doubt Mark would allow my kind of music in his home.”
“What do you like, Jense?”
Oh, now we’re on a nickname basis? I vaguely remember her calling me “Jense” as a kid, though I could never tell if those memories were real.
“I like to sketch. Give me some pencils and some sketchpads. I’ll do the rest.”
Her face lights up at the revelation that my hobby is something she can be proud of. Kath’s hand covers her heart. “You used to draw me pictures. I knew even as a small boy that you had talent.”
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to say that.”
She walks toward me and cups my cheek. “Swelling’s going down. You okay with going to school tomorrow? If you’re not ready, I can talk to Mark about waiting a bit longer.”
“I’m ready.”
Anything’s better than sitting in this boring-ass compound all day. No cable. No internet. No music. No transportation. I literally loafed on Kath’s sofa and stared at a wall for four hours today between naps. It’s not healthy for a man to be alone with his thoughts for too long. I may have rubbed one out too, thinking about this girl I used to fuck in Charter Springs. She was a raging bitch with perfect cantaloupe tits, and I was horny and bored.
“You can hardly see the bruising,” she says, squinting. “We can cover it up with a little makeup, if you’d like.”
“No. No makeup.” Juliette tried to do that shit to me once after my father beat me for coming home three minutes past curfew on a Friday night. He claimed he smelled alcohol on my breath. He was right. I’d just rinsed my mouth out with Scope before coming in to hide the menthol cigarette I’d smoked to calm my nerves.
“What do you think of Mark so far?” Kath asks. I straddle the line between giving her the truth and telling her what she wants to hear, but I’m not quite sure she’s the kind of person who ever wants to hear the truth.
I shrug. “Don’t know him yet.”
Her eyes shine. “He’s a good man, Jense. Give him a chance. He loves us, and he means well. Everything he does is for the greater good of our family.”
She calls it “our” family like I’m a part of it. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just biding my time until August comes, and then I’m gone. Goodbye, Kath. Goodbye, Mark. Goodbye, wives one and two. Goodbye, Children of the Corn. Goodbye, suburban compound.
And goodbye, Waverly, with your weird stares and those fuck-me-all-night-long lips.
God, she has the most fuckable mouth I’ve ever seen. I wait until Kath leaves before hitting the lights and shutting the door behind her. I fall back on the bed and unzip my jeans, my cock instantly swelling in my hands at the thought of Waverly’s full lips wrapping around it. I grab at the country blue quilt, imagining I’m grabbing fistfuls of her long, sandy hair as her tongue runs the length of my shaft. Shit, I bet she’s never seen a grown man in his fully-erected form before. I concentrate on my Waverly fantasy, my eyes scrunched and my cock hardening so fast it aches.
I’m all kinds of fucked up. I know that. Wrongs and rights have never made sense in my world, and I’m a product of that.
None of it matters, though, because I don’t give a flying fuck about any-damn-thing.
Never have.
Never will.
CHAPTER 4
I push my breakfast around on my plate, staring at the empty seat across from me where Jensen is supposed to be. Water whooshes through the pipes above. By the sounds of it, I’d say he’s just now finishing his shower.
We need to leave in five minutes. If he’s not down here by seven-thirty, I’m leaving without him. I’ve never had a tardy in my life, and I’m not about to get one for him. Summer can drop him off in the freshman lane, for all I care.
Loud thumps coming from the stairs a minute later direct my gaze to where Jensen is running down two steps at a time. His finger combs his dark hair into place as he rushes through the kitchen. He grabs an apple from the fruit bowl and slips a backpack over one shoulder.
“Ready?” The green apple fills his palm, and he takes one giant, crisp bite. The juices run down his chin, but he wipes them away with the back of his hand.
“I thought you didn’t eat breakfast.” I rise up and grab my bags.
“Jensen,” Dad says from the head of the table. “Missed breakfast, buddy.”
My dad calls him “buddy” like they’re a couple of old pals. He’s trying to make an effort. I just wish Jensen would try, too. It’s not like my dad to give people multiple chances or to tolerate flippant attitudes, but he’s doing it for Kath’s sake.
“My alarm didn’t go off.” I know he’s lying. “My bad.”
I
t’s seven thirty-one now. My heart sprints. I hate being late. I hate risking losing my favorite parking spot in the front row of the senior lot. It’s the entire reason behind why I need to arrive at school at precisely seven forty-eight each morning. I get my spot, head to my locker, grab my things, drop off my jacket, and head to my first period class where I find my favorite seat by the window in the third row with a little extra time to spare. If I’m a minute late, it throws off my entire morning.
What makes matters worse is that today, I have to find time to show Jensen to the counselor’s office to grab his schedule, and I’m sure I’ll get roped into showing him to class, too.
I pull in a deep breath as we head to my pearly white Jetta. I’m trying so hard to be positive. Good AUB girls don’t have opinions or complain or get upset. We “keep sweet,” as my father always instructs.
I’m a good AUB daughter. At least, on the outside.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jensen snorts as he plops into my passenger seat.
“We’re going to be late because of you.” I start the car and let it run for a few seconds before checking my mirrors, buckling up, and shifting into drive. He reaches for my radio, messing with the stations. “Hey. Don’t do that.”
“God, are there any decent radio stations out here?” He twists knobs until some classic rock song blares from my speakers. The singer’s screechy voice and wailing guitar hurts my ears.
“The polite thing to do would be to ask if you could turn my station.” I place my hands at ten and two after adjusting the volume using the steering wheel.
“Sometimes you have to forgo politeness when you’re trying to save somebody.”
“Save me from what?”
“From yourself. You need to loosen up. I’ve never met anyone so tightly wound.”
“What are you talking about? I’m a good person. I don’t need to be saved.” My blood boils. I can’t go to school all worked up like this.
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