by Ella Fields
“Jude.”
I glanced up from my book to find my father standing in the doorway of my room.
Dressed in his usual suit pants and slate gray dress shirt, the top buttons undone for casual air, he gestured to the closed drapes that were blocking the only source of natural light. “Do you have some type of aversion to sunlight now?”
“Funny,” I said. “Not and no.” What I had was an aversion to the girl next door. I’d asked Rhiannon to wash the sheets yesterday after school on account of her scent still lingering upon my pillow. Strawberry yogurt and something toxic like floral shampoo.
Though I did sniff the place that had once been damp, courtesy of my fantastic tongue, before allowing her in.
I swore I could still smell her cunt, and it rushed to my head faster than any drug.
“It’s almost dinnertime,” I finally said when my father took it upon himself to enter my room and inspect my shelves.
He ran a finger over them, finding them dust-free, of course, and huffed. “I’m willing to bet that fact means nothing and that they’ve been shut for days. It’s stuffy as fuck in here.”
“Is there a point to this visit other than displaying your obvious envy of my den?”
He turned, lifting a brow. Like me, he had dark hair that was thicker at the top and slightly cropped on the sides. Unlike me, he combed his back. Unlike him, I preferred not to look like an obnoxious dick. My shining personality portrayed that just fine on its own.
His eyes were bright blue instead of green, just like Henry’s. I got my weapons from my mother. But I did have his dramatically square jaw and long straight nose.
“You’re getting more grays,” I said in explanation for staring at him too long, then returned my attention to my book.
“I thought I’d say hello, smart-ass. I just got in.”
“Hello,” I said, pretending to read. “Or should I say goodbye? Being that you’ll probably leave before sunrise.”
“Jude,” he clipped. “Cut it out. I have enough rubbish to deal with without adding your petulant attitude to the pile.”
I knew that was likely true. He was the mayor of Peridot Island, after all. Still, he’d managed to rule over our small rotund world just fine while still acknowledging his family before. There were other members to delegate tasks to, not to mention a legit building in town filled with secretaries, personal assistants, and the like.
“Petulant?” I said, bookmarking the page and swinging my legs over the chaise in the corner by the French doors. “I prefer to call it pissed off.” Yes, I might’ve peeked out the drapes a time or two. No, I didn’t care if she was crying her eyes out across the hedge. But she hadn’t been at school today. Disappointing, to say the least. I thought my Red had more mettle.
“You have everything you’ve ever wanted. You’re in. You can visit her anytime you please.” I heard him clicking away on his phone and glanced over to find him staring at it, one hand tucked in his pocket. “You simply choose not to.”
And I thought my heart was black.
It turned out that it was just gray in comparison. For if he opened his fucking eyes, he’d see why I couldn’t do that. “There’s nothing to see.”
His fingers paused, but he kept his gaze on his phone. “She’s made improvement.”
Emotion clogged my throat—slimy, dirty, and entirely unwelcome.
I swallowed it and coughed. “How wonderful.”
Dad sighed and walked to the door, but then he stopped. “Do I need to call in a favor?”
I frowned, lowering my book beside me to the velvet chaise. “What for?”
His eyes penetrated mine, waiting and assessing in that eerie way of his. “To find you someone to talk to. Discreetly.”
If anything was worse than failing an initiation you’d waited years for and fucking up your life, I’d yet to find out what the hell that could possibly be. Dad’s second and the other higher-ups still didn’t know about my botched attempt, and of course, my father would never let me say a word aloud about it.
I knew why, and my frosted spirit warmed a little at the way he was trying to protect me. Not from hurting anyone else, but from further damaging myself.
Belatedly, I shook my head.
I felt him watching me for long moments, and then I heard his Italian shoes clipping down the hall outside.
It wasn’t that I had an issue with talking to some therapist. It was that I knew I’d already shamed this family enough, and no amount of money could quiet someone with intel enough to take down the alpha of Peridot’s secret showrunners.
Nightingale.
We were but a rumor, but not once had any rumors came close to being facts.
I might not have liked my father, but he was still my father. Besides, I’d wanted this.
I’d wanted this enough to hand over half my soul for it.
Nothing, not even a therapist, could help me get that back.
Fern
“Clint’s an idiot,” I heard my mom tell Cory from the safety of my room. “So old-fashioned he’s already reached his expiration date. Just ignore him.”
Cory and January gossiped more than Cory and I did, and if there was someone my mother seemed to enjoy sharing her relationship woes with—if you could call them that—it was Coraline.
I’d once broached the subject with her, informing, “You totally don’t need to humor her; she’s crazy.”
“I happen to like crazy,” she’d said with a sharp look at me. “And I happen to find her interesting. You do know she owns two huge businesses, right? She’s an actual, legit badass, your mom.”
Three businesses, to be exact, the main source of income being the distillery on the fraying outskirts of the island that had once belonged to my grandparents. Their private plane had crashed on a return flight from New York when I was young, and they’d never found the bodies.
Mom had inherited it all.
Downstairs, they were discussing Silas’s parents, a hot topic between them given Clint and Sandra’s dislike of their son’s girlfriend. No status, no pedigree, and no wealth meant they did not approve. Silas didn’t care, and being their only remaining child—his older brother had disowned them and fled right after graduation—they could do nothing about it in fear of scaring him off, too.
Silas had set his sights on my best friend when I had on our first day of high school, and the rest was history.
If there was any couple I expected to survive all rounds of education and their debuts into the real world, it was Silas and Coraline.
I groaned, rolling over to bury my face in the pillow. How like Cory to come over and check on me only to get distracted with my mother over coffee first.
Finally, she arrived some minutes later, bouncing on the end of my bed with the dregs of said coffee, and asked, “On a scale of one to ten, how obsessed are you now with the asshole?”
Funny that she knew I still was.
I rolled to my back, sighing. Ever the faithful idiot would probably be printed upon my headstone when I eventually let the boy next door officially destroy me.
Boy, pfft.
He was all man, his scent and the overbearing carnal presence of him imprinted upon me forevermore. The feel of sinew wrapped in silken skin was trapped within the skin of my fingertips, and the taste of me on his tongue burned into my taste buds.
What are you afraid of, pretty Red?
I’d walked right to him and handed him the torch to light my heart aflame.
“A solid eleven.”
Cory half laughed, half groaned. “Jesus, Fern.”
“It’s fine.” It totally wasn’t.
“It’s so not fine,” she practically yelled. “I was so close to telling your mom.”
I sat up then. “Over my dead body and even then, that’s a firm hell no.”
Her lips twisted, head tilting. “Get out of bed and get ready for school then.”
“For real?” I said, grinning now because she had to be kidding.
“You’re threatening me?”
“Damn right, I am.” She stood and crossed my room to my walk-in, expelling a sigh loud enough for me to hear as she entered. “Is that his cologne? I thought you’d at least stop adding to his shrine.”
Crinkling my nose, I threw off the comforter and stretched my arms above my head. “Let’s not get too carried away here.”
I’d had his cologne for a while now. She must have missed it upon her first inspection, but I decided not to point that out.
“Get in the shower,” she said, exiting with my school shirt and skirt in hand.
I winced, catching a whiff of last night’s dinner on my T-shirt. I hadn’t showered since Monday, and I’d only done so to rid the crawling, powdery sensation of those winged beasts from my skin. I had a few tiny cuts from scrubbing too hard under the scalding spray.
Cory laid my clothes over the green polka-dotted armchair beside my bookcase. “Seriously, we’re going to be late.”
“I don’t wanna go. I’ll shower, but I’m giving myself another day.”
“You’re coming. I didn’t pay twenty dollars for an Uber for nothing. I need a ride back.”
Damn it and shit.
“Fine,” I huffed and walked to the shower.
Cory waited for me, smiling down at her phone when I exited the steam in my panties and bra and pulled my damp hair into a messy, high ponytail.
“Ten minutes until the bell.”
“We’re not going to make it in time,” I needlessly told her.
“I know, and I also know it’ll help you to slip right into class without everyone leering at you in the hallways, but I don’t want to be too late. Let’s go.”
She stood, and half-dressed, I cursed. “I haven’t even put mascara on.”
“Do it in the car,” she called. “I’ll drive.”
“Only if we can stop by Ray’s.” I needed more than coffee to survive what was surely coming my way, but coffee would have to do.
Lipstick and mascara on, I felt a little better about the mess that was my hair.
Pulling it back accentuated my cheekbones anyway, so whatever. Not to mention, some might be curious about where I’d gotten the hickey from. It was faint, but a red mark remained.
I was all too happy to let them wonder.
In the dining hall, I waited for a cheese croissant, thankful that the whispers and laughter had died down after second period.
Headmaster Taurin hadn’t so much as looked at me when we’d gone to his office to request a late slip. He had to have heard about the asshole who’d broken into the school and vandalized my locker in order to fill it with deadly pests. I was sure of it.
Yet not a word had been said.
“He won’t do anything,” Cory had said, shoving her phone into the hidden pocket of her skirt. “And you don’t want him to.”
Her words had my mouth opening and closing. I clamped it shut when I acknowledged what she’d meant, and the fact that no, I didn’t really want Jude in trouble.
Not because I liked him, but because it would indeed only mean more trouble for me.
Also, he hadn’t vandalized my locker at all. I’d stared and stared at it after excusing myself to the bathroom during history. There was no sign of forced entry and no indication it’d been tampered with.
So it was then, Gale calling my name behind the counter with my croissant in hand, that I felt my face drain.
He knew the code to my locker.
Cory would never betray me like that, so he must have figured it out himself. I could almost imagine it. Him standing there, those deep green eyes narrowed upon the metal door.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t dare imagine what his expression had looked like once he’d guessed and guessed right.
“Sorry,” I said to Gale.
“Them fancy high heels and lipstick haven’t fixed that fairy dust brain of yours, I see,” she said, chewing on a skewer. She waved her hand, dismissing me. “You looked better before anyhow. Now be gone.”
I scowled, my painted lips falling open, then found Cory in the back of the long room. “You wouldn’t believe what Gale just—”
“There’s a party on Friday,” she said at the same time.
I gestured for her to continue when she paused.
She splayed her hands. “Now, I know you’re not a fan, but I want to go.”
A small laugh left me, and I tore a chunk of pastry, pointing it at her. “Since when does something I don’t like have to be your problem?” Cory didn’t party often, but when she did, she went with Silas, of course.
I’d attempted to show my face at some, but Cory was always busy with Silas somewhere private, and no one cared to so much as say hi to me, let alone hang out. So I’d see myself home and write about how I’d wished it’d been in my diary instead.
Lame, I know. But it was also kind of fun.
“Since I want you to come. I think it’ll be good for you to actually drink a little more this time and give it more of a chance.” She stabbed a piece of carrot with her fork. “Besides, everyone knows who you are now.”
It would seem they most certainly did. I’d never dreamed of being popular. I’d never really cared. I did care about a certain green-eyed devil, though, and he was as popular as one could get.
Really, I probably should’ve put more thought into what I’d wished for.
A thought that followed when school let out and I found Jude leaning against my car. “She returns.”
“Disappointed?”
“I was yesterday,” he said, straightening and tucking his hands into his pockets. “Where were you?”
I told myself to stand perfectly still and give nothing away, all the while knowing I’d eventually fail. “Home.”
He hummed, reaching out to drag a finger down the side of my cheek. I couldn’t read his eyes because they were shielded behind his sunglasses. But I could read the war within his touch when his thumb ghosted over my bottom lip.
I wanted to scream at him. To wail at him and demand he tell me why he did that to me.
But if I knew anything about Jude, it was that he kept every single one of his cards close to his chest, and that to keep his attention, I must do the same.
“Jude,” Silas called from farther in the trees at his truck by the fence. “You need to come watch this shit.” Laughter followed, but I kept looking at Jude, and he kept looking at me.
With my heart pounding in my ears, I stared at my own reflection in my tormentor’s sunglasses, wishing I could see his eyes when my lips wrapped around his thumb, my tongue flicking it.
I didn’t need to see them. The stilling of his body, with the exception of his jaw clenching, told me all I needed to know.
He wasn’t as done with me as he wanted himself to believe.
He stepped back, his voice gruff and low. “Have you had enough yet, Red?”
“Have you?” I dared ask, then dragged my fingers over the hickey he’d given me.
In answer, he laughed and walked away.
I’d been drunk before.
Cory and I had finished a bottle and a half of champagne on my kitchen floor the night of my eighteenth birthday. Mom had bought it for me, but we’d stolen the other from the fridge. We’d then proceeded to bake brownies and almost burned the house down.
It had been fun and all, but the next day was horrible.
I tried not to think about that as I sipped from my glass, an actual glass, of champagne.
The first of many pre-prom parties was underway, and if I planned to show up to any more, then I knew I should probably pace myself.
Gina’s house sat upon the cliff, a ten-minute drive from mine, and faced the woods that separated what most would call the rich side of the island from the commoners.
Her parents owned the power company. They also happened to be good friends with my mom. So whether she liked it or not, I was here, and she could sneer at me all night, but she couldn’t get rid of me, or her parents would skin her
alive.
“Ferrrn.” Silas slung a beefy arm around my shoulders.
Trying not to collapse under the weight of it, I faked a smile. “Silaaas.”
He laughed, almost sending us to the floor. “I see what you did there.”
Cory watched him, concern tightening her smile. I wasn’t sure what she was so worried about, but I was sure I’d find out later. For now, I drank and listened to him ramble about how good it was to finally see me having some fun.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Loads.”
He released me and grabbed a bottle of wine from Jeff Springs, our star mathlete, who balked.
“Easy, Jeffy,” Silas said, then belched, shaking his shoulder-length hair from his face. “Go see Gina and tell her I owe you one.”
Jeff shrugged and disappeared, likely to do just that. Willowy with breast implants and a killer smile, not many guys would pass up the chance to talk to Gina.
Taking the bottle from Silas after he’d popped the lid, I humored him by taking a huge sip.
I lowered it to find him grinning and giving me a dopey thumbs-up as he backed out of the room.
Cory made to follow, but she lost him in the crowd outside the living room and came back.
“He’s so wasted!” she shouted over the rising music.
“So?” I said, taking another sip and ditching my glass. I tried to make out the label but couldn’t see in the dim lighting coming from the lone chandelier above. “Isn’t that what you guys do at these things? Get wasted?”
She stole the bottle from me and drank.
I watched, my eyes bugging when she kept going. Swiping the back of her hand over her mouth, she shook her head. “Wow, that’s good.”
“Right.” I took it back and drank some more.
“He doesn’t usually get trashed,” she said, moving closer so I could hear. “He enjoys himself, sure, but he doesn’t take it too far.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Exams are coming, and his best friend’s a dick. Let him go.”
Cory seemed to ponder that for a minute, then took the bottle. “Speaking of Jude.” She made a show of looking around. “No sign of him.”