“Don’t be,” I told her. Then, I sighed. “I’m sorry for whatever she said that pissed you off enough to lecture her that way.”
Max tensed beside me, and I knew I had it right. While I’d been gone, my grandmother had mouthed off.
“What did she say?” I queried.
“The usual bullshit,” Sam dismissed.
He didn’t know her, but he knew more about her than Jessa did, and I recognized, just as I had with her, his dislike for my grandmother was strong.
I rubbed a finger down my nose and murmured, “She’ll fight whatever help you give her, Jessa.”
“I’m sure she will. We Rothskinds have our ways,” she retorted, and her glee was real. I heard her determination, and even though it was ass backwards, I knew she’d get a kick out of giving my grandmother money simply because she didn’t want it.
My throat felt thick as I whispered, “Thank you for helping her.”
“She doesn’t deserve you,” was her reply, “but if you want to help her, then I want to help her too.”
“I know she’s crotchety,” I admitted, “but I just don’t want to lose her. Even if she isn’t talking to me at the minute—”
“She won’t talk to you until you’re back at church, Drew,” Sam pointed out dryly. “Do as she wants and she’ll talk to you again.”
“That isn’t going to happen. I can deal with a world where she’s ignoring me. I just can’t deal with a world she isn’t in.”
And that was that.
❖
Jessa
The atmosphere in the car was glum as we headed to the superstore just outside of Hawk Ridge’s border. God forbid anything so crass as a Walmart was allowed within its lines… that was what happened when you shoved a bunch of rich people into a small zip code. They overtook it and made it theirs.
Didn’t matter there were neighborhoods like Drew’s and his grandmother’s. Didn’t matter that people in the smallest tax bracket lived there too. Nope, the rich were the only ones who mattered, and if they wanted everyone to have to travel forty minutes to reach the nearest cheap food store, well, that was that.
I could have supported the store where Drew worked, and I did sometimes. They were an organic, free-range place that sold the best eggs, but their cereal was more like rabbit food, and they didn’t sell anything with sugar in it.
It was all agave nectar this and monk fruit that.
I mean, I was diabetic. I couldn’t eat sugar, so it should have been my haven, but I got a kick out of the candy aisles. It was like a weird kind of punishment. One that harmed no one other than myself as it was a reminder of how weird I was, of how my blood sugar was the one thing I couldn’t debate with and win, that no amount of money could cure.
Illness, the great leveler.
“You okay?” Sam asked, as we climbed out of the car once he’d parked.
I nodded. “I’m fine.” And I was. I’d been rude to Drew’s grandmother, probably ruder than I’d been to anyone in my entire life.
I knew that sounded crazy, but it was true. My family had raised me to be a certain way, and we were more fortunate than most. There was never a reason to be rude, not when you could inveigle what you wanted with a smile. Manipulative, maybe. Canny? That was how I preferred to think of it.
Still, Jenny had deserved it. Utterly.
I’d watched her treat Drew like he was a stranger, like he wasn’t even her grandson as she commanded him around like a slave master to a slave. He’d done it too, without question, and that told me more than anything he was used to being treated that way. Used to her just ordering him around and making him do shit for her.
Maybe that was normal for them.
Maybe that was normal for a lot of people.
But the lack of interaction between them? That had stung, and had only confirmed what Sam had told me before we left Drew’s home this morning—it had been months since Drew had managed to catch a glimpse of his grandmother, and even then, it was by accident. That was what had pissed me off the most.
Then, when she’d discounted all Drew’s hard work, that was when I’d started to get mad. And when she’d stated that it was his duty to help her? I’d just seen red.
Where was Chris’s duty to his son?
Where was Jenny’s duty to her grandson?
And the tone in which she’d spoken to him?
No.
Hell, no.
So, yeah, I’d lost my temper, but I’d still help the bitch because she was related to Drew, and by proxy, that mattered to me.
“You still look tense,” Sam murmured in my ear as he slipped his hand around my waist and hauled me into his side. I didn’t snuggle there like I would normally—he was right. I was tense.
I grunted. “I’m just mad.”
“Why?”
“Mad for him,” I clarified softly. With the background of over five hundred cars pulling in and out of spaces, and the chaos of the front doors opening and letting the crowds in and out of the store, I knew this wasn’t really the place to have this conversation.
He peered into the crowd, and I noticed he was looking for Drew and Max who’d gone ahead, their shorts-covered asses looking deliciously tight as they strode away. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve such hunks in my vicinity at all times, but shit, I wasn’t about to complain about my good luck where the view was concerned.
When he dragged me over to a little nook in the path, I let him, but I kept my face downturned and I was unsurprised when he didn’t let me pull that move, and nudged me under the chin to force me into looking up at him.
“What is it?”
I bit my bottom lip, feeling my eyes burn with tears as I whispered, “I’m sad for him.”
He sighed, then leaned over and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I know.”
I know?
Shit, things were bad if Sam knew, because that meant he agreed with me.
“He’s always had it rough with his family,” Sam admitted. “I’ve never liked it, but what can I do except be there for him?”
He was right.
“Was I wrong to talk to her that way?”
He pulled a face. “Not wrong, but not right, either.” He shrugged. “Look, she’s a bitch. She always treats him like he’s a servant and he just lets her. But that’s their dynamic, babe. You can’t change that.”
“I wouldn’t have minded if she’d have relented on something. If she’d talked to him with kindness. But she didn’t. She just ignored him except when it came time to boss him around.”
“She was trying to be polite with guests,” he reasoned. “Wanting to serve us drinks and food. You know what the South is like.”
“I thought the South was about compassion and kindness to family. Family reigns supreme, and all that. But she wasn’t like that.” When he didn’t reply, I urged, “Was she?”
His eyes shifted away from mine. “No. She wasn’t. But her priorities are different to ours. To her, the South is about church and being neighborly and hospitable. You know that’s how it is for some people.”
My lips curved. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.”
“That’s the New Englander in you coming out to party.”
Nose crinkling, I grumbled, “You guys are too hospitable for my liking.”
He grinned. “Well, we won’t be here for much longer. I don’t think things are like that in Cali.”
I bit my bottom lip at the thought.
“What is it?”
“Just going to miss my family, is all.”
And I was. My extended family were pains in the butt, but my mom and dad? Even my douche of a brother... they weren’t people I particularly wanted to leave behind, and that was what college felt like. I’d be leaving them behind as I took a huge step forward.
Was it strange that the huge step forward was just the move to the West Coast?
It wasn’t a huge step to imagine a life with the three of us living together. It was just the pr
ospect of yet another move, one of several that we’d endured as a family over the past ten years, when the next one would be on my own.
That was something I’d need a long time to get used to.
He blew out a breath. “I figure we all will.”
I nodded and shot him a smile that, if it came across as ‘brave,’ well, that’s because it was.
I was trying to be brave when I was feeling anything but.
With a sigh, I pressed my forehead to his chest and murmured, “I liked waking up that way this morning.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. “You did, huh?”
I hummed. “Best wakeup call ever. Going to miss falling asleep that way tomorrow night too.”
He tensed. “You think your mom will let you stay over again?”
“Don’t see why not.” I winced, thought about our call from yesterday afternoon. “She might still be thinking I’m staying at yours, after all.” She hadn’t blown up my phone, at any rate. So she wasn’t mad at me. That was something.
A snort escaped him. “Wise not to tell her, even if it’s unlike you.”
“I’m willing to stretch the rules to have what we had last night again and again.”
He cleared his throat. “Fuck. Now I have a boner.”
My mouth curved and I pulled back so I could look into his face. Licking my lips, I murmured, “Will you and Drew...” I blinked at him, amused at the redness on his cheeks. “I want to watch you two together.”
His brow furrowed. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I reached up and rubbed my fingers over his forehead. “What is it? Why are you frowning?”
“I just...” He blew out a breath. “Trust us to be having this conversation in the Walmart parking lot.”
I shrugged. “You dragged me here. We could have talked about it later.”
“We have other things to talk about then,” he discounted, and like his words were a catalyst, his phone buzzed.
When he reached for it, I grabbed his wrist and insisted, “Will you touch each other…soon?”
A sigh escaped him. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
My lips curved. “I think I was born ready to see such a beautiful thing as the two of you together.”
Eyes narrowing, he grated out, “You’re probably always going to get me hot, Jessa—”
“No ‘probably’ about it,” I interrupted. “It’s my duty to always make you lose your mind.” At his laugh, I winked. “So, what do you say?”
“If you’re sure?”
Ignoring his hesitation, I murmured, “I’m beyond sure.”
His chin dropped in a weak parody of a nod. “Okay then.”
I let go of his wrist so he could grab his cell. I wasn’t interested in the text, but I watched his face, loving every line, every inch of him, because it belonged to me.
My body tightened up, every part of me set alight with need for him. A need that wasn’t going anywhere. I knew that like I knew my face in the mirror.
His face had been tense from embarrassment and, I figured, lust. A complex cocktail I’d inadvertently crafted. But now? As he read the text? The tension changed, morphed, his face turning bright red as he stared at his phone.
“What is it?” I demanded, concerned now at the complete change in his expression.
He gritted his teeth. “Derick Petersen says he wants to meet.”
My eyes widened. “Why the hell would we want to meet him?”
“He says Sarah Dunham blackmailed him into planting those drugs in your locker, babe.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.
“He could be lying.”
“Maybe.” His nostrils flared. “Maybe not.”
“You want to meet up with him,” I concluded, hazarding a guess.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Why? It’s probably bullshit. You know he’s a liar.”
“He wasn’t always like that,” Sam rasped.
I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to think badly of me,” he mumbled, dipping his chin so it was tucked into his chest.
“I won’t.” I reached up and pressed my hand to his shoulder, confused by his meaning. “What is it?”
“When Drew rejected me, I went through a bad patch. Got into stupid situations, like screwing around with Sarah Dunham.” He blew out a breath, and as the stress of the moment hit him, I could feel him pretty much vibrating with whatever he was trying to deal with.
“I’ll bet. Nobody wants to be rejected, but for a reason like Drew’s?” I shook my head. “That had to hurt.”
“It fucking killed me,” he rasped. “I did some stupid stuff. Went into the city, went to some places.” He cringed. “I didn’t do anything, but...”
“But, what?” I asked cautiously, unsure as to what he was talking about.
“I saw Derick there too.”
“Saw Derick where?” I was trying to be patient, but seriously, what the hell was he talking about?
“In a gay bar. The second I saw him, I got the fuck out of there. I knew he didn’t see me because if he had, I’d never have heard the end of it. Or,” he amended, “he’d have come to me and discussed it with me... You know what he’s like. But, when I saw him there, it resonated.”
“Why?” I queried softly, hearing the pain in his voice that came from his memories of that time.
“Because he’d always been kind of a jackass. I’d never really liked him, but I remembered he’d changed around that time. Before, he got detention one or two times every couple of weeks, but then he was getting it every couple of days.”
“You think he was acting out because he was having to hide his true self?” I guessed.
He shrugged. “Made sense at the time considering I was doing the exact same thing.” A sharp, gusty breath escaped him. “My parents love you because you’re wonderful, babe, don’t get me wrong. But it was only when you came into my life that I seemed to get back on track. Before then, I was a nightmare too.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” I told him earnestly.
Sam reached up and rubbed the line of my jaw with his thumb. “I know you are, but you don’t have to be. You’ve brought us all together, and that’s something I will always be grateful to you for.”
“You don’t need to be grateful. I don’t want that from you.”
His lips twitched at my irritable tone. “No? What do you want?”
“Your dick.”
“My dick, huh?” He snorted.
“And Drew’s.” I shrugged. “I’m greedy.”
His eyes darkened. “I’m glad you are,” he said, his voice close to a growl as he bent his head forward so he could press his forehead to mine. “We need to speak with him, Jessa.”
“He’s a liar. He’ll say whatever he thinks we want to hear. He’s just trying to start shit again,” I reasoned.
But Sam shook his head, his forehead rocking against mine with the move before he pulled back and murmured, “Read it.”
And when I did, I saw exactly what he meant and understood his logic.
6
Max
Meeting the little punk who thought he was a big dick because he was the ‘bad boy’ of HawkRidge High didn’t sit well with me. I knew what a big dick was, and Derick Petersen wasn’t it. I’d been around gangbangers and dealers all my life. I knew who to be afraid of, knew who to avoid... Petersen wasn’t it.
But I understood the others’ reasoning. Whether or not he was an untrustworthy source, we had to take into account the fact he said Sarah was blackmailing him. I didn’t have to know the bitch for years to know that was something she was capable of, and that the others were on the same page said a lot for Sarah’s character.
Still, we made the little punk wait. Jessa bounced around the store like she was on a sugar high—an impossibility, but the right analogy nonetheless—grabbing things she said we needed, loading up three carts full of food for the four o
f us, and pulling a Kansas City Hustle by paying before any of us could argue or get our cards to the cashier.
Her smug smile at winning the race to pay made us all laugh, but we stopped when we were faced with trying to get all the food into the small trunk of Sam’s car. We managed to get half of the bags in there. The rest went on Drew’s and my knees, the footwell by our feet, and Jessa’s too.
It was a relief, in fact, to get back to Drew’s, and when we did, Derick was sitting on the curb with a lighter in his hand as he flicked it on and off, his focus on the flame.
“Turning to arson next?” Drew called out, his voice loaded with scorn. His dislike for the other kid was evident, and I couldn’t blame him. I was furious with the fucker too.
Jessa could have gotten in serious trouble for possession the other day.
While I wanted to know what the hell Sarah’s game was, more than anything, I just wanted this conversation over with. I had a bad feeling about all this. It felt like...
I sighed.
When I started thinking about ‘harbingers of doom’ and ‘omens,’ it was time to cut back on my reading. I loved gothic literature as much as Jessa did, so it would pain me to read less, but still, harbingers weren’t a thing.
No matter that this felt exactly like one.
“Fuck off, Drew,” Derick retorted, his tone listless and with none of the bite I’d come to expect from him.
I didn’t know the brat well, but he was in some of Jessa’s and my classes, so I saw his interactions with the teachers—he was rude, inconsiderate, and ungrateful for the opportunities his education was giving him.
“Come on. We need to get the ice cream into the freezer,” Jessa pointed out, ignoring Derick as she sailed toward the door, loaded down with bags.
That she had a key was a given, I guessed, but when the door pulled open before she had to juggle with the bags to open it, we all froze.
Who the fuck was in Drew’s house?
Jessa tensed, but murmured, “Hi, Chris.”
Drew’s father?
Dare You To Keep Me: HawkRidge High II Page 14