“We’re not. Trust me. And there won’t be anyone else for me either. I’m doing the entire opposite gender a favor by stepping to the single sidelines—permanently. Jet means well, but I don’t think anybody is going to teach that old rabid dog new tricks. He’s no Owen. I saw the look in my brother’s eyes. He was ready to do prison time for me.” I wince over at Ava because her sister happens to be doing prison time. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me.” She stretches her leg out and kicks my foot. “Apologize to Lawson. After the beating that guy took for you last night? He didn’t fight back, Lucky. He was letting Jet do what he had to do, and he took it like a man.”
“He passed out. One more blow and he could have landed in a coma. He could have died.” I dive my face into my pillow and buck with tears, my hot breath my only comfort. Yes, Lawson is back at Beta house this morning, but he could have just as easily landed in the morgue. I can’t kill another person. I can’t let that weigh on me like this.
In my mind’s eye, it all plays out, each death directly a result of my unwitting madness, this curse that’s followed me around since my conception. I don’t know what happened to Jade, but I’ve always surmised I had something to do with it. Did I wrap the cord around her neck? Steal all of the oxygen? Knife her heart out with my fingernails? It’s all a possibility. And my father? I’ll never forget the day Jet sat me down and told me that he tripped over toys on the stairs. My slovenly behavior led straight to my father’s broken neck. Then there was my mother—the sweet angel of a woman I adored with all my heart. One day I asked her to slice an apple for me—an apple. She cut her finger, almost down to the bone. She refused to do more than rinse it under the sink. An infection set in, and she went into septic shock. She died in less than a week. Blood poisoning. I had done that to her. In all of these deaths, I was the common denominator. I was the poison.
A gentle knock comes over the door, and I shake my head at the two of my friends with a not-so veiled death threat in my eyes. Harper smiles and gives me the finger, opening the door wide enough to reveal Daisy and her patchy red face.
So she’s been crying—so what? She’ll get over it. It’s me who’ll be bawling for the rest of my life.
She swoops in and sits beside me, patting my back as if attempting to burp me, but I keep my eyes trained on the wall in front of me.
“Jet sends his love. He’s so sick. Lucky, I’ve never seen him this upset.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you come this close to committing a homicide.”
She clucks her tongue. “He’s sick about you, too. He’s convinced himself he’s ruined your relationship.”
“He has. Both my relationship with him and Lawson are forever lost. I’m not sure Jet and I will ever be close again.” I pull back and look her in the eye. “I know for a fact Lawson and I will never be close again. Jet made sure of that.”
“Lawson isn’t angry with you.” She’s shaking her head so hard it assures me that Daisy is here to plead both Jet’s and Lawson’s case. “Lawson feels terrible about this. Why don’t you give them both a call? I know it will make everyone involved feel better. Push aside the hurt and anger you feel toward your brother and move on, Lucky. Be happy that Lawson is all right—that Jet has cooled off.”
“For now.” I spear her with a look. “He’ll go off the rails again soon. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” We both know it’s true. Jet is a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.
“Lucky”—her voice trembles—“I know you’ll repair your relationship with Jet. It might take time, but this bond you have is too strong to ever be broken. But Lawson? I don’t want to see you push away a good thing just because things went a little haywire.”
“Haywire?” My eyes enlarge at her belittling slight. “They went far more than haywire, Daisy. They went fucking nuclear. Look, I appreciate all of your good advice. I really do, but, right now, I just want to pack my things and get lost for the next solid week.”
“Don’t you dare disappear on your brother.” Her eyes are wild with fear. Figures. Daisy knows Jet’s temperament with me just as well as I do. He’s beyond rabid. Jet sank his overprotective teeth into me years ago when our mother died, and he’ll be dead and buried himself before he ever lets go. And even then he’ll probably haunt all of my prospective suitors from the grave.
Nope, Jet will never change.
“Tell Jet not to worry.” I swing my legs over the side of the mattress and pull my suitcase out from underneath my bed. “Where I’m going, there isn’t a single thing that can happen to me.”
Lawson
“She wants nothing to do with me.” I push my plate aside as Grant and Rush stare back at me, stone-faced. They followed me over to campus, in the event I mysteriously toppled over, then convinced me to make a left and head to the Black Bear instead. My head feels as if a hammer crashed down over it, and that hammer’s name is Jet Madden. “Dude, you guys can head back. I promise I’m not storming up to her dorm.” That’s a lie, but I know if I try to make a run for it in my weakened state they could easily stop me. That’s the real reason they’re here. I confessed that I was headed over to speak with Lucky face to face, and when they couldn’t talk me out of it, they sat my ass down in this chair and shoved a burger in my face.
“She just needs space.” Grant’s face pinches with grief as if he knows that’s not entirely true. He’s been keeping a steady dialogue going with Ava, getting minute-by-minute updates on Lucky, and judging by that pained look on his face, it doesn’t bode well for me.
“She needs me,” I say it so convincingly I almost believe it myself.
“She doesn’t need you at the moment.” Rush looks pissed, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s on my side or he’s sticking up for Lucky and the embargo she’s placed on our budding relationship. “Look, if it’s meant to be, she’ll come around. A girl like Lucky doesn’t just gift her virginity to someone and not want anything to do with them. She’s into you. You said so yourself, she said she loved you.”
“Back the train up.” I glance to Grant, who’s gone pale, his eyes wide as the sky. “Tell me he’s messing with me. Lucky was not a virgin.”
We were together once—against a fucking wall. That is not in any way, shape, or sexual form that I would hope Lucky lost her virginity. Although her losing it with some other idiot makes my blood boil, there’s no way she would let me rip it away from her like that.
Grant gives a silent nod before closing his eyes.
“Shit.” I smack my hand over my forehead, and my head rings out like a gong. “Fuck.” I slap my hand against the table so hard the sound crashes around the bar like a gunshot. “Why the hell would she let me do that?” All of the conversations we had, those heavily innuendo-laced conversations that rotated around how many people we were with. Lucky touted her prowess around as much as I did. She told me several times in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t as pure as the driven snow. “Do you think Ava is making that up?” That singular question is my only desperate attempt to save face. I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror if it were true.
Grant blinks back, affronted. “Ava doesn’t lie.”
I swallow hard because it can only mean one thing. “And Lucky does.”
Rush shakes his head. “Maybe you’re both wrong. Maybe Lucky told Ava she was a virgin until she was with you. She’s not up for yapping about any of the guys she’s been with. Girls don’t exactly wave that banner loud and proud.”
Grant shakes his head. “Lucky and Ava are tight. They’re not lying about anything to one another. It’s girl code. She probably just told you that she was with other guys so you wouldn’t freak out. Ava says she wanted it with you. She didn’t want you to feel like you had to coddle her.”
“So”—a dull huff rumbles through me—“she lied about that?”
Rush offers a pitiful look. “You think she lied about other things?”
All of the c
onversations we had shake out before me like an old junk drawer rife with a million receipts, each one with the ink already evaporated.
“I don’t know. It’s not like she confided in me any deep dark secrets.” Like a slap in the face that night we climbed up the old oak comes to mind. Lucky said she had a sister who died. No way. Nobody makes that up. She was tearful. That was real.
A heavy hand lands over my shoulder, and I glance up to find that ball of steel that sent my head splitting in two last night.
“Shit.” I glance across the table, and both Rush and Grant look guilty as hell. Rex probably talked them into it. “All right, what is it?” I push my plate farther away because the next thing I do will be walk right back to the bed I crawled out of.
“You mind talking for a minute?” Jet’s tone is quiet, docile in fact. It’s all an act, though. And I’m hoping with all my heart there’s not a thing that was an act with Lucky.
I follow Jet past the bar, into a dark corner that makes this entire scenario feel dreamlike—nightmarish to be exact. I spot Rex and Owen taking a seat at the table with Rush and Grant. Why does this suddenly feel like some friendship intervention? Jet and I were never buddies. Technically, he was my employer, and I was the fool who took a dollar from him.
“Look, man”—Jet squeezes his eyes shut a moment, a grieved look carves into his features—“I never meant to do that. It’s just—when I saw you with your junk hanging out and your face in her—I lost my mind. I wasn’t myself, dude. I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding?” I lean in, running the risk of getting my head bashed in once again. “You were completely yourself. You don’t want anyone to so much as blink at your sister.” I should apologize for disrespecting him that way, but at the moment I’m too hopped up on anger.
“Dude,” he barks so loud Owen and Rex Stand up. “I get that Lucky is beautiful. Yes, I know that guys are sniffing around. I get it.” His tone is back to hostile, his chest puffed up like a tank. “But you were getting ready to take her in my fucking shop.” He jabs his finger into my chest, hard. “My sister. My shop. You don’t get to fuck people in my shop, dude.” His eyes look backlit with some demonic force that’s about to take over. “You most certainly don’t get to fuck my sister period.”
“Okay.” I fold my arms across my chest and shrug. “If you’re waiting for some rambling apology, you’re not getting it.”
A dull laugh pumps through him, and just like that, he softens again. “Not necessary.” He exhales hard while scratching the back of his neck. “Lawson, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with you, but I do know that my sister has feelings for you.”
“So, you’re giving me your blessing?” Both my throbbing head and I are amused by this one-eighty.
“Yes.” He looks incredulous, and most likely because he was forced to say it out loud.
“Well, it’s too late.”
“She’ll come around.” He gives my shoulder a hard tap with that bionic mitt of his, and my head explodes in a vibrating fit of pain.
A thought comes to me. “I hope so. I’d hate to lose what we had. I know she has a hard time with loss. You know—with what happened to your sister.”
Jet narrows his gaze. “You mean Ava’s sister? Aubree?”
“No, your sister. Lucky’s twin that died at birth. I think she said her name was Jade?”
Jet inches back like I just threatened to knife his balls off with my keys, and my stomach sinks. It’s not true. Lucky has lied about something big, and I’m starting to believe she lied about her virginity, too. Shit. Nothing kills me more than the thought of having done that to her—stripped her of something precious in that barbaric environment. Why the hell would she let me? Didn’t she want that one moment in time to be special? Not that what we had wasn’t special, but it was a romp in nothing short of a landfill. It smelled of old sweat socks and moldy boxers.
“Dude, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you hit your head.” He gives a little wink before that sober expression makes its way back. “Let’s get you back to your room. You need some serious rest.”
“Was Lucky ever a loner?” There. I may as well shake the closet and see how many skeletons are about to tumble out.
“Loner?” He ticks his head to the side, clearly confused. “Lucky was popular in high school. She had boys calling twenty-four seven. I had to kill the landline.”
I’m stumped. “I don’t get it.” I shake my head at him. “What’s going on? Why would she say those things?” I know I should keep my mouth shut. I know I shouldn’t be processing any of this out loud, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “Did something happen to her to make her believe all this? Is she okay?” God forbid she has a mental health history I know nothing about. I’d do anything to make her better.
Jet’s eyes darken as if a storm’s just moved in. “Lucky doesn’t have a sister, never did. And I don’t know what other things she’s told you, but she is not a liar.”
“I think she might be,” I say it low, mostly to myself.
“Take it back, dude. This is not going to end well.” His leg starts to shake. He taps his foot manically in an effort to keep himself in check.
“Is your sister a liar, Jet?” I give him a hard shove in the chest, and all four of our boys are front and center, but Jet holds his hand up, letting them know he’s got this.
“If you want to come at me, then do it. I’m not fighting you, dude. But do not, I repeat do fucking not call my baby sister a liar.”
“She’s a liar.” It comes out sad, like a fact. In an instant, all the hurt, the pain, the outrage, and rejection I’ve ever felt in my life comes bottle rocketing out of me, and I shove Jet Madden’s burly ass into the wall so hard I would bet he left an impression. “It’s your fucking fault!” My fist connects with his jaw, and I feel a satisfying pop under my knuckles. I pull him in close by the shirt because I need him to hear me. “You and your one-man protection league have her trained to live some undercover life, because if she lives her life out in the open like any normal human being, you come at her and everything around her like a fucking cyclone. She can’t get away from you, so she creates another reality—one that doesn’t include you.” I knock him hard against the wall one more time. “She lets you believe she’s Miss Congeniality while she eats her lunch alone. She makes up a sibling to replace you. She tells me that she’s slept around and lets me take her virginity like some fucking animal.” It occurs to me as I finish rioting those words over his face that perhaps that last piece of information would have served me better as something to ponder on my own.
“Fuck!” he shouts into my face and scoops me in by the collar.
Owen plucks me loose, leaving my shirt with a tear from my neck to my armpit.
Rex jumps in front of Jet and glowers at me. “We’re done here. Owen, you’d better make sure Jet gets home, and think about chaining his front door shut.” He looks to me with a tired blink. “Lawson, you’re coming with me.”
It turns out Rex’s great escape plan is to haul me into his truck and drive us up to the Witch’s Cauldron—WB’s first and foremost site for copulation.
“Swear to God, if you try to put the moves on me, I’ll throat punch you.”
Rex huffs a quiet laugh. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re into your stepsiblings.” I give an obstinate smile his way. “Last time I checked, I qualified.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, you’ll have to fish in another lake if you want that kind of attention.” He offers that disappointed look my way I’ve seen him give me a time or two. “Look, dude, I know that you don’t care for the fact I’m with your sister. But Scarlett and I are in it to win it. I’m proposing soon. This isn’t going away. So get used to it or hide the hell under a rock because we’re not holding our breath for your approval.”
The anger that’s been percolating inside me for the last solid year comes bubbling to the top. “It makes me insane to know you’re fucking my
sister!” I shout with such a marked aggression the windows vibrate.
His hands fly up. “Geez. You feel better?” He slumps in his seat, observing me as if waiting for me to finish my tantrum. “Look, I know you think that I’ve stepped in and ruined her life, but I promise you that’s the furthest thing from the truth. Scarlett is special. I thought that long before our parents ever got hitched. She’s my best friend. We’re in love. Are you in love with Lucky?”
Rex pins me with a dead serious look.
“Yes.” It comes out inaudible. “I am in love with Lucky.”
“Do you think you can stop caring about her just because her brother doesn’t approve?”
His words cut through me like a knife to the gut. “No.” And just like that, Rex Toberman proves his point. “I guess I owe you an apology.” Crap. “I’m sorry, man.” I hold out my fist, and he offers a quick bump.
“No problem. In all honesty, I think you wouldn’t have approved of me regardless of the fact our parents are together. I get it. There’s just something hardwired in us to want to protect our sisters. Don’t think for a minute that I won’t lose my mind when Trixy starts dating.”
“You know she’s dating.” I hate to burst his bubble. Trixy is beautiful and has a great personality to boot. Her dance card is filled for the next two years.
“Seriously dating. She’s having fun right now. Group events. Lots of friends are involved. But when someone comes along and she starts bringing him around, I’m going to keep my eyes open. I don’t want to see her hurt. Just like you don’t want to see Scarlett hurt. Were you this hard on Duncan?”
Duncan Wormier is the asshole Scarlett dated until Sabrina snatched him for herself. I hate Duncan twice as much for screwing over both of my sisters.
Lucky Kisses Page 16