Glancing back, I take a little extra note of the men on the right side of the circle, slightly separated from René and Cat.
Jesus.
Except for Sin, they've all got to be at least in their thirties. Way too old for me but also … like, fucking hot as hell. I should probably get my head examined.
I ignore them.
“Boys, this is my youngest and the biggest pain in my ass—Gidge.”
“Gidget, actually,” I say, because I don't like people I don't know calling me Gidge. Pulling the fridge door open, I pause and bend down, searching for a soda. I find several six packs of beer and yank one of those off instead.
Cat doesn't give two shits.
“Fucking Christ, Gidge, get the fuck out of here. We're trying to have a conversation.”
I grit my teeth at Cat, popping the top on the beer and tipping it back. I finish it, crush it up, and then grab another.
“This rebellious shit is going to come back to haunt you,” Cat warns as I pad barefoot out of the kitchen, dressed in cutoff jean shorts and a white tank with no bra.
As I'm leaving the kitchen, I look back and notice that four sets of eyes are watching me.
All of them hungry.
I could feel intimidated, but I've grown up around the baddest of the bad, the biggest assholes known to man.
Instead … I could give a crap less.
I smirk, open the beer, and take another sip.
Deep down, I know that I could have them if I wanted them—all of them.
And that makes the darkest, most wicked parts of me grin.
Now …
Tugging the edges of my borrowed hot pink bikini top up (I fucking hate pink), I make my way down to the pebbled beach at the edge of the water, gazing out at the rich, blue surface of Dorena Lake. It stretches to the horizon, to a craggy shore lined with trees, the occasional house peeking out from the sea of green needles.
“You want to tell me why you came outta that church with your cheeks flushed and your jeans missing a button?” Reba asks, putting her hands on her hips and giving me a look. She is wearing a tasteful, vintage one-piece while I'm stuck in one of Dena's itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie slutty pink and gold bikinis (yes, there's a song reference there).
“I'm bloated; I think I'm starting my period soon.”
“Gidget,” Reba warns, but I'm already starting down the hill towards the water, joining the raucous of my classmates as they float in orange and green and yellow rings with beers stuffed in the cupholders.
Amiya's lounging on a towel on the small sandy stretch between the rocks and the water; I take the one next to her and hold out a hand for the small plastic bag she's clutching. In it, there's a brownie she's taking tiny nibbles of.
“How cliché,” I say, leaning back and enjoying the way she looks at me, with just a little bit of fear in those brown eyes of hers, “a pot brownie. Give it here.”
Amiya passes over the bag and grins at me as I dig in.
“Sure you want to do that?” she asks, a little bit of her usual snootiness creeping into her voice. “I saw you puking all over at the bonfire.”
“I'm pregnant,” I say and watch as her eyes widen in shock. I shove a piece of brownie in my mouth and grin. “Must be one of those burly bikers from my dad's club. If only I knew which one.”
Only part of that statement's a joke.
“Are you … are you fucking serious?” Amiya asks as I roll my eyes and toss the bag back at her.
“Um, no. I'm about to start my period, and if I am pregnant, it's the second coming of Jesus.”
I stand up as Amiya blinks stupidly at me, grabbing a spare ring off the shore and setting off into the water.
The sun is high and the air is warm, even if I can smell the faintest tinge of smoke in the air from all the fucking forest fires nearby. Sometimes I think about doing something reckless and random, like running off and becoming a volunteer firefighter. If I thought they'd take me at age seventeen, I'd go.
Floating off into the middle of the group, I join some stupid game that's like magical chairs only with loads more drinking. Basically, Johnny R. plays some music from shore and we all float around trying to get close to each other, when he turns it off, we all shove each other into the water. Once everyone's been dethroned, we all try to snag a new ring. Last person in has to paddle their way back to shore and watch.
After a few rounds, it's down to me and Trevone.
We knock each other into the lake at the same time and then both scramble for the nearest black ring so quickly that we end up sitting side by side and laughing our asses off.
It's all fun and goddamn games, until I hear the echo of a bike, bouncing off the water and chilling me to the core.
“One more round?” Trevone asks, raising his eyebrows at me.
“Next time,” I say, pushing off into the water and booking it for shore with long, graceful butterfly strokes. I used to be on the swim team. Before Queenie and Posey were dead and I stopped giving a crap about anything at all. I mean, I hadn't given a lot of crap before that, but after they were gone … life was a void.
I emerge from the water, stumbling and scrambling up the bank before he can get down here.
I just want a normal senior year; I do not need this shit.
“Grainger,” I start when I get into the dry grasses behind the trees, wet and dripping and wearing Dena's stupid suit.
The way he swings himself off his bike and storms toward me, I know I'm in deep shit.
“Don't make a scene,” I growl when he gets close to me, breathing hard, his inked hands curled into fists. His body's so warm, I can feel the heat radiating off of him and into me, twice as scalding as the rays of the sun from above. “Not here. Let me grab my stuff and we'll go.”
“Gave you that chance before, Gidge. Sorry. I'm not falling for it again. Where are your clothes?”
His blue eyes slide down to mine and catch me. Breath hitches, pulse thunders, heart pounds. I'm standing here wanting him at the same moment I'm wishing I could take a blade and plunge it through his chest. And I know—I just know—that all of my classmates are staring at me, watching this bullshit unfold. I’ll be the talk of the school come Monday: I always am.
Swallowing hard, I turn and point at the crumpled pile near the base of a tree. Grainge grabs my wrist, burning us both so badly that he curses and I jump. There’s too much heat for us to touch casually like this, just a stick of dynamite bobbing in a sea of flames. Something’s got to give, and energy like this only leads to one of two things: violence or passion.
With Grainger, it’s usually a little bit of both.
He yanks me over to the pile, bends down and grabs my stuff, shoving it against my chest. My silky red panties fall to the ground near our feet, and I see the man’s jaw clench. There’s a muscle in his tattooed neck that’s ticking with rage. I slip my clothes on as fast as I can, but before I can pick the underwear up, he’s already done it and shoved them into his pocket.
Grainger lifts his umber eyes and meets my red-brown ones.
“Get on the bike, Gidget. That is, if you don't want me to make a scene.”
I stare at him, tall and wide, with moons and stars and suns tattooed down both arms, trailing across his hands and fingers, climbing up his neck. He's thirty-two and about as fucking mature as a ten year old.
“Do you think Cat would make a scene if he knew you'd finger-fucked his seventeen year old daughter in a church today?”
“Bike. Now,” Grainger snarls, nostrils flaring, the smell of warm leather perfuming the air around us. His vest is hot to the touch when I put my fingers on it.
“Don't push me,” I say, stepping back and turning to go grab my shoes from Dena's convertible.
Grainger grabs me around the waist to, I think, toss me over his shoulder or some other stupid chest-pounding, machismo thing. But then he stops … and breathes in the scent of my hair … tightens
the circle of his arm.
“There's a war, Gidge.”
“There's always a war,” I whisper, remembering Posey's screams, Queenie's blood. My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them back, focusing on a family seated across the day use area at a picnic table. They look happy, seated over there, eating hamburgers and hot dogs. Like maybe their sister's blood didn't leak under the pantry door and stain their feet on an easy, breezy Saturday night in June.
“This is really bad. Worse than before. Gidge, it's them. They're back.”
My entire body goes cold, despite the sun, despite Grainger's warmth.
“Now get the fuck on the bike,” he tells me as he steps away and leaves me shaking in the middle of a ninety degree afternoon.
They. Them. Those people.
My sisters' killers.
The Grey Wolfe Mafia is back in town.
“Crown will be here in fifteen,” Grainger says, pausing in the doorway to my room and watching me smoke a cigarette on my bed. I glance over at him, and I don't know what to say. When I look at his face, all I can think about are his fingers inside of me, my hand wrapped around his cock.
“Cool,” I say, and I like that he grits his teeth in anger.
“Cool? That's it. Nothing else?”
“I know you have a penis, Grainger, but if you want to talk to me, you have to actually, you know, talk.”
He steps into the room and stares at me like I'm both a treat and a treasure, a nightmare and an open wound. What am I supposed to make of that?
“Fuck. Fine,” he says, glancing over at Feminist when the dog stands up and raises his hackles in response. Fem's never liked any of the guys, not one of them. I should take that as a sign, right? Aren't animals supposed to be like compasses, guiding us to those with good hearts and warning us away from bad ones?
Then again, I've always known these guys were assholes.
I guess I'm just addicted to ruination …
“Now that I've told you what's going on, are you gonna stay put?”
“Probably not,” I say, blowing smoke out the window. “Honestly, you act like you did me a favor by tipping me off, but guess what? I know you must've gotten permission from Cat first. That means you've been holding onto that shit all day without telling me. Actually, I'm pissed.”
“Fucking A, Gidget! You really want to do this?”
Grainger takes a small step into the room, runs his tongue over his lower lip and then throws his hands in the air.
“I'm not playing games with a seventeen year old girl,” he murmurs, turning to leave.
“No, but you'll fuck one,” I say and he pauses, going completely still. Grainger's had more lovers than I have fingers and toes … and hair follicles and skin cells and drops of blood in my body. But I know that no matter what, he won't forget that night. Never. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Grainger stares at me for a long moment, squeezes his hands into fists and leaves.
A few minutes later, I hear Crown pull into the driveway … and Grainger pull out of it.
The first day of school is a welcome relief from the cage of Cat and Nellie's house—even though I know Crown is sitting on the ridge just above the school, waiting and watching. Doesn't matter. He can't see me in the courtyard.
“There's basically only two things I give a shit about this year,” Dena's saying, leaning back on a blanket outside the lunchroom. It's actually nice out here, full of flowers and trees, bird fountains and feeders, all maintained by one of the on-campus gardening clubs. It's the only green oasis in a sea of brown-yellow grass and dead things, killed by the summer heat. Somebody's been keeping it watered for the last few months. “Winning prom queen and getting laid by Trevone Hundley.”
“You'll have to fight Tina to the death,” Amiya says, her hair coiled on the top of her head like a glossy black snake. I can't believe I'm sitting here with them, but there's nowhere else to go. With the guys on my ass, I can't leave campus without being followed.
Or … with Grey Wolfe in town, without dying.
“How about you Gidget?” Dena asks, sitting in a black bikini top, her shirt tossed aside in a heap. She's sunbathing like she doesn't care who's looking; I imagine she cares a whole hell of a lot. “Anyone you plan on nailing before graduation?”
More like who I don't plan on nailing, I think, but I'm not about to tell Dena Muller that when I was a just-turned-sixteen year old, I screwed four bad boy bikers in one night. Four of them. I lost my virginity four times over in a hot, wild mess of heat and turmoil. And now, day in and day out, I have to deal with them watching me, following me … wanting me.
At least … Grainger and Sin do.
I dig my nails into my forearms until the pain pushes the memories away.
“Ryan Reynolds,” I say, even though I actually sort of hate his face.
Dena and Chardou laugh; Amiya stares at me as strangely as she did that day at the lake. Reba … she scoffs and glances away.
“What are you doing after school?” Dena asks me, lifting her chin in my direction, like a princess acknowledging a peasant.
“Going back to my place to get high,” I say, because I'm not sure that I can take another night sitting in my room with Crown outside in the hallway, leaning against the wall and trying to make conversation with me. “Why?”
“Aren't you going to invite us?” Dena asks with a sharp smirk, the cruelty in it highlighted by the bubbly pink color of her mouth.
“Sure,” I say, because screw Cat. He can keep me in, but he didn't say anything about keeping my friends out.
And if they're there with me … then I won't be tempted by Crown … by Beast … Sin … Grainger. I won't be tempted to take a dip in that hot, awful well of sin. That toe-curling, sin searing, burning ache. One man with his hands wrapped around my heart, that's painful enough. But four? How am I supposed to survive fucking four?
Maybe … I'm not.
Supposed to survive, I mean.
Maybe I was never supposed to.
Crown doesn't look too happy when I climb in the back of Dena's convertible, but as promised, I go straight home and lead the girls out to the back deck, to the pool I barely use.
“This is a really nice place,” Dena says, pretty grudgingly. “I thought your dad was …”
“A criminal?” I ask and hear Crown grunt from behind me. The girls all jump—except for Reba—but I just pretend he's not there. “He is. What do you think pays for all this shit?”
“Gidget,” the vice president warns from behind me.
“Who the fuck is that?” Chardou asks, looking back at Crown like she wishes he were naked and lying out in the sun on one of Nellie's wooden Adirondack chairs.
Honestly, I kind of wish the same damn thing.
“Him?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder like Crown isn't one of the hottest men I've ever seen in my life. If he were any less hot then maybe I wouldn't have gotten myself into trouble with him. Maybe I wouldn't have lost my virginity to four fucking bikers on the same night. “That's Crown. He's a dick; ignore him.”
I move over to the edge of the pool, reach my fingers under the tattered Misfits shirt I'm wearing (yes, I actually do listen to them) and pull it off. As soon as I do, I swear, I can feel Crown's eyes boring into my back, running over my body like spotlights.
“That's the introduction I get?” he says, sauntering over to the edge of the pool and making me grit my teeth. I sort of want to punch him in the nuts, but I'm not sure that touching him below the belt in any capacity would be a good thing. Beyond that, he could definitely kick my ass if he wanted to. His arms are as wide as my fucking waist. “Oh, but I'm so much more than that.”
Crown looks me in the face, those mossy green eyes of his sparkling with mischief, and then slowly, agonizingly, he takes his cut off, setting the leather vest on one of my mother's chairs. His chocolate brown hair glistens with auburn highlights in the sun, gently tousled and lightly
curled against his forehead. It’s the hair of a model, not an outlaw biker. The asshole could star in a shampoo commercial.
“Don't,” I whisper, but my heart is beating like crazy in my throat and my skin is pebbled with goose bumps. My nipples are like rocks, and down below, a fire is being stoked by long lashes and a strong jaw, a face stubbled with dark hair and a smile that could kill a girl, stop her heart right in her chest.
Good thing I'm more than just a girl.
Crown reaches his fingers down and takes hold of his shirt.
“Take it off!” Dena shouts, heading over to the diving board and climbing the stairs. With a whooping shout, she dives in and splashes water across the fancy brick surround.
“Oh, I intend to,” he says, that manic grin of his making me seriously reconsider punching him in the junk.
“What's your game?” I whisper, but Crown just tears his shirt off and … well, just like I said. Heart, officially stopped.
This time, it's me looking at him like I want to jump his bones.
Shit.
“If Cat comes back and sees you swimming—” I start, but Crown doesn't care. He continues stripping, kicking off his boots, tearing his belt out of the loops, peeling tight denim down his muscular legs. They're sprinkled with dark hair and blanketed with tattoos. I swear, there's not a guy in the whole damn club that isn't covered in ink. Even my mom has a full sleeve. Sort of clashes with her new pretend Betty Crocker/trophy wife mentality.
Crown steps up to the edge of the water in boxers with skulls on them.
Everything about him, I find attractive.
I feign indifference; that's sort of my thing. I might be an apathetic bitch, but remember: it was beaten into me by the harsh hand of life. Joy is … just too fragile. It breaks like glass. For a while, it's pretty to look at. It's waterproof; it holds all the tears, lets them collect in a wet and salty pool. But one drop, one fall, one tumble, and it shatters to pieces, cuts and makes you bleed.
I Was Born Ruined Page 5