by Leila James
I point at both of them as I back away. “Tell Xander to stay the hell away from me. I hope all of this helps you figure out how to deal with his sorry ass.”
Chapter 9
Xander
I wake in a cold, sticky sweat, my entire body tense. I’m awash with fear before I realize what’s happening. It’s as if I sense the terror beginning before I’m even aware that I can hear it.
I lie frozen on the little twin bed in my bedroom, blinking, straining to hear. Please no. Not again.
My room should feel like a safe place. Mom and Dad recently let me redecorate it how I wanted. I chose a football theme. I freaking love football. It’s all I want to do, every day.
But even the new sheets and posters and football player lamp don’t stop the horror rising within me as the sobs from my mother enter my ears, along with the sound of skin striking skin. My father’s low voice sounds angry. Really angry.
His words travel from their room. “Stupid bitch. Did you think you’d get away with seeing him?”
Then hers. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! Who?” More sickening noises.
No! My heart hammers in my chest. No! Not again! Shaking, I throw back the sheets and comforter, sit up, and edge my eight-year-old self out of the bed. The hardwood floor is cold on my feet but I don’t care. Mom needs me. I’m all she has.
I tiptoe across my room and turn the knob, opening the door. Creeping down the hallway toward my parents’ room, the sounds of their fight continues. I pause on the other side of their door, sucking in breath. I can’t not go in there. I have to stop him. I’m the only one who knows how he hurts her.
The last time he did this, Mom had bruises for weeks. A split lip. Two black eyes. She’d had to stay home and make up excuses for why she couldn’t attend any of the events she usually does—no book club, no shopping with her friends, no yoga class, no dinner at the club. Not even grocery shopping. The longer she had to hide the effects of the fight with Dad, the more questions people started to ask. Then they’d started to ask me, too. I never know what to say, so I said she’s sick and at home in bed.
Of course, Dad knows darn well I have to go to school, so he never hits me anywhere anyone can see it. That way he doesn’t have to deal with me having to stay home. He doesn’t want me here anyway. He couldn’t care less if I exist or not.
So many days at school, I had to sit there on the hard seat and keep quiet. If I ever said anything, it would only make things ten times worse.
My tummy hurts. I feel sick, like I’m going to puke up my dinner. But I know Mom needs me. She needs me to protect her. To save her. I turn the knob to their bedroom door, worried what I’ll find on the other side. What I’ll see.
His hand is raised, and her eyes are wild. She’s scared. Trembling. Crying.
Before I know what I’m doing, a scream rips from my throat. “No! No, Dad! Stop hitting her!” I rush forward and launch myself at him, clawing onto his back, grasping at the hinge of one of his elbows to hang onto him. Sometimes I can keep him from hitting her so hard if I can hang on. “Stop! You’re hurting her! You’re hurting her!”
He’s so big, he shakes me off as if I’m no more than a gnat. A small, inconvenient bug. Something he’ll squash if given the chance. He overpowers me, but sometimes I can at least slow him down.
I scream until my voice is raw, knowing no one is around to hear me, but doing it anyway, as it fuels my fire. I use my fists to pound on his back as he slaps her around. The more she cries, the harder he hits her.
“Do it again, Isabella, see him again, deny what you’re doing, and it’ll be worse. Do it again, and I swear to Christ I’ll fucking kill you.” His voice rasps from his throat like he’s chewed on a handful of nails. He’s so incredibly angry, he’s blinded by it.
Then he stops hitting her, and whirls to face me. And now I know my nightmare is just beginning.
“Get. Me. The. Belt.” He gestures at the worn leather belt with the big buckle that hangs on the wall. It supposedly belonged to my great grandfather. I don’t know if it was ever used on anyone else, but Dad’s been taking it to me for years. He displays it proudly in their room like it’s some sort of trophy. If anyone ever saw it, they’d know exactly what kind of monster he is.
The kind who hides in a fancy home, who wears an expensive suit by day and an evil mask at night.
I shake my head, hate pouring out of my eyes at him. “No, Dad,” I cry raggedly. There’s snot running out of my nose, but I don’t care.
The heat of his gaze bores right through me, almost as if he’s not really seeing me—his son. Why can’t I have what Micah or Beau or Aria have? Nice, normal families where no one gets hurt and no one cries and no one has to lie about what’s happening right under everyone’s noses.
He growls, “It’ll be worse if you don’t do as I say, boy. Don’t make me go get it. You butted into business that isn’t yours. You’ll eventually learn not to do that.” His narrow gaze is unflinching, relentless, and downright terrifying—and every last bit of it is now focused on me.
Slowly, I drop my gaze to the ground in front of me, my shoulders drooping in defeat. One foot in front of the other, I make my way to the wall to fetch the belt.
“You’re not fucking crying are you?” he hisses.
I shake my head and swipe my hands at my cheeks. Oh no. I am crying. It’s always worse when I’m crying.
Why me? Why Mom? What did we ever do to deserve this?
The feel of smooth leather and the sound of the clanking belt buckle make me cringe as I pull the belt off the wall. I know what’s coming.
“Hurry up, boy. Don’t make me wait.”
When he calls me “boy” a lot, I know he’s been drinking. I wince as I hand it to him and assume the position, hands on the bed. He yanks my pajama pants down.
His swift intake of breath is followed by the slicing pain of the leather hitting me below my butt.
I scream.
For mercy.
For my mom.
For the nightmare to end.
Help never comes.
I bolt upright in my king-size bed with a strangled shout, breath heaving, sweat drenching the sheets beneath me. I haven’t had one of those dreams in a long, long time.
Fuck me, that’d felt real. Thank God that asshole is never coming near us again.
As I lie there, I can’t help but think about Scarlett and how pissed off she’s been every time I’ve seen her this week at school. I know she’s angry, but I don’t see another way. My girl is strong. Somehow this will eventually be okay. Somehow, I’ll figure out a way through this—my newest nightmare.
I can’t stop thinking about her. It’s forever before I settle enough to fall back to sleep.
Chapter 10
Scarlett
Early Thursday morning, my alarm goes off, blaring music from the new Halsey album. I hurriedly roll over, grabbing blindly at my phone to silence it. Bleary-eyed, I try to focus on a message notification from my Instagram account. I hardly ever look for messages there. With a mental shrug, I click on it.
XanderG: I’m guessing you saw the photos of me and Aria …
XanderG: I don’t know how she got the one of us in bed.
I immediately fire back a response.
Me: Don’t be an asshole about it.
Why he feels the need to wedge a blunt knife into my heart, I have no idea. Another message comes through.
XanderG: Can I talk to you sometime?
Me: You’ve said more than enough.
I turn off my phone, unable to handle a continued conversation with him. Not if it’s going to go like this. What more could he possibly want to talk to me about?
Determined that I’ll make it through this week—just two more days—I shower and dress quickly, heading downstairs. I smell bacon and pancakes, which means Uncle David must be cooking. He’s an early riser, like me.
He eyes me carefully from where he’s standing at the cookto
p flipping pancakes. “Good morning, Scarlett. Doing okay today?” When I don’t immediately answer, he shrugs. “You could stay home if you aren’t up to going today. If something’s going on at school, I mean. You know. Fu—” He jerks his head before he finishes swearing. “Sorry. I’m rambling. I mean, if some sort of shit is hitting the fan after everything with Xander, you could stay home.”
I feel terrible that they’re worried about me. With a tight smile, I say, “I’m okay. I have to be at school and at practice if I’m going to run in the meet this weekend. I also need to talk to Coach Lance, so I’ve got to get to school early.” I nod, determinedly. Nothing Xander says or does matters. Nope.
“Okay. If you’re sure. I didn’t want you to think you had to go if you weren’t feeling it today.” He blows out a breath. “Do you have time for a quick breakfast? Everything is ready.”
“I could eat.” I plaster a bigger smile on my face. It’s convincing. Fake as hell, but it has to be convincing. “Is Aunt Liz still asleep?”
He nods. “Yep. She’s like her sister was in that regard.”
Fond memories wash over me from when I was younger of me crawling into bed with Mom on the weekends and watching cartoons next to her while she slept. “Yeah. Mom loved a good sleep-in.” I accept a fork and the plated pancakes and bacon and sit down on a stool at the kitchen island to eat. I slather butter on each fluffy pancake, then drizzle syrup over the whole thing, thinking all the while about something that I’ve been considering since everything went down Friday night. As I dig in, I peer at Uncle David’s back, trying to decide whether or not I should even ask. I suck in a breath, then let the question spill. “You’d tell me if my being here is too hard for her, wouldn’t you? I know she worries.”
He turns around, gaze narrowed on me. “Why are you asking me this, Scarlett?”
I shrug, finishing a bite of pancake. “I just—if it’s too much, I could ask if there are rooms in the dorm open.” I chew carefully on a piece of bacon dipped in syrup. Rosehaven Academy has a small building on campus that houses students who don’t have parents in the area. I’m sure it’s expensive as hell to stay there, but … maybe we’d be better off. I don’t know where I’d get the money. I’m sure working at Teri & Terry’s Ice Cream won’t come close to covering the expense of room and board. Maybe it would be easier on my aunt and uncle, though. Maybe I could take on extra hours. Or apply for a second job. Lost in thought, I take another bite of my pancakes.
I startle when Uncle David speaks again. “Why would you think that? Did she say something to give you that impression?” He calmly sets the spatula down after removing the remainder of the pancakes off the griddle and shuts the cooktop off.
“Well, no, but—”
“But nothing, Scarlett. She loves you and wouldn’t dream of you staying anywhere or with anyone else. Do us both a favor and don’t breathe a word of that nonsense to her. It’ll only hurt her feelings to know you were thinking about it.”
I rake my teeth over my lower lip, trying to read the expression on his face. He’s fiercely protective of his wife. Actually, if he thought having me here was a problem, he’d have brought it up himself. I shrug. “It was just a thought.” I shovel the last hunk of pancakes into my mouth.
“Well, don’t think about it further. She lost her sister. Do you really think she wants to lose you, too?”
I shake my head, a certain amount of shame creeping up and tingeing my cheeks pink. “I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I don’t want to be a burden. Not to either of you.” I slide my gaze off to the side, unable to look him in the face. “After I came home in the state I was in the other night … I understand it had to be unnerving for both of you. I never meant to—” My shoulders sag, remembering how shocked and worried they’d been.
He sighs, squirting dish soap into the sink and running enough water to clean up the dishes. “I get it. Look, I often think about it as if we are learning via trial by fire with you. We didn’t get to go through the baby, toddler, or preteen stages with you. You landed on our doorstep practically an adult. That’s bound to be infinitely more difficult. Trust me when I say we want the best for you and hope you’ll let us take care of you as long as possible. It’s what your mom wanted.” He catches my eye, his voice gruff. “That means no way in hell are you moving into the dorm.”
“Got it.” I shoot him a tiny smirk.
He grimaces good-naturedly at me. “Any more boy trouble we should know about?” Under his breath he mutters, “Still not sure I shouldn’t have gone and roughed that boy up a bit.”
“No. I’m fine. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Nothing I want you to know about. Ugh.
“Well, if there is, you tell me. You don’t hide this kind of bullshit from us, you hear me?” He shakes his head with a chuckle.
I grit my teeth. “You don’t have to worry—please don’t. That’s what started this whole conversation in the first place. Remember?”
“So it was.” He dives his hands into the dishwater, soaping up a plate. “We’re here if you need us, Scarlett. Remember that.”
The conversation with my uncle sticks with me the whole way to school. They’re behind me. Max and Daphne are, too. I’ll figure out how to continue on here at Rosehaven, even if I left part of my heart in Xander’s bedroom last weekend.
Wandering to the locker room after speaking to Coach Lance, I decide to stop off and leave my gym bag for practice since I’m already here. My gym locker is almost as tricky to open as my regular locker, and I’m about to thwack my forehead against it in frustration when I sense someone behind me. I spin on my heel to find Xander, only a bench between us.
All the blood drains from my already pale face. “What do you want, Xander?” I glance around nervously. “This is the girls locker room.”
He shoots me one of his sexiest smiles, complete with his dimple. “No one else appears to be here, so what does it matter?”
My palms sweat. I can’t believe he followed me in here. “I thought I was clear in my message this morning. I don’t want to talk to you. I have nothing to say to you.”
His dark gaze travels over my face, then down my body, setting off little sparks of heat wherever it lands. It’s like he’s touching me, only not. An angry swarm of butterflies flit around in my stomach. “I’ve missed you.” He wets his lips as his eyes travel my body. “You’re really beautiful all the time but especially now.”
I press my lips together, letting my eyes fall shut for a moment. When I open them again, I cross my arms in front of me, faintly clearing my throat. “Is that so? And why now?”
“Your eyes, they glitter at me like sunlight hitting the bright blue of the Caribbean Sea. Your lips pursed like that”—he juts his chin at them—“tells me you’re mad, but it makes them so fucking kissable, it’s like a shot straight to my dick.”
My lips part involuntarily. It’s always been like this. He says dirty things to me, and I can’t seem to help myself. I respond. My body reacts. This is all kinds of bad. My eyes lower to his groin, where I can see evidence of what he’s referring to. His dress pants have a tent pitched in them and it’s increasing in size by the second.
I swallow hard. I don’t know what the right move is here, and I haven’t forgotten everything that happened over the weekend.
He steps over the bench, his body now disturbingly close to mine, forcing me to back up. I hit the locker behind me with a metallic thump. My heart stutters.
He tucks his finger under my chin, tilting my face up to his before he cups my cheek, skimming his thumb over my cheekbone. “So fucking soft,” he breathes. “So pale. So perfect. Reminds me of the bonfire when you let me come all over the creamy skin of your tits.” He dips his head down next to mine, murmuring next to my ear, “You’re so fucking perfect.”
I let out a ragged sigh. “Xander, don’t.” I wet my lips. “Please stop.” Goose bumps raise all over my skin.
His breath is hot on my neck and doing crazy
things to my insides. His lips graze my jaw when he asks, “Why, Red?”
I push against his chest, anything to give myself room to breathe and think—to convince myself that having anything to do with Xander is so fucking stupid. “Because, asshole, that photo of you and Aria is everywhere. Even if Friday night had never happened, if you hadn’t set fire to what we had, I wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to be with you after you’ve slept with someone else.” I shift to the side, glaring at him defiantly. “Not my style.” My ragged breathing betrays how much my body disagrees with me.
He catches my arm in his hand, tugging me back to him. “It’s not what you think. I didn’t hook up with her.”
I shake my head at him, and my eyes bore into his. “Why should I blindly trust you?”
He makes a show of considering for a few seconds and sidesteps the issue altogether. “How about this? Tell me you don’t want me.” He glances down at my chest, and I know he can tell my nipples are puckered beneath my shirt.
I’m so distracted by his gaze on my breasts and the gush of desire moving through me that I don’t see what’s coming. His hand grasps the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair as he covers my mouth, lips slanting over mine. I gasp and his tongue plunges deep inside my mouth, stroking, licking, claiming again what he’d thrown away. Every move he makes is possessive. Like he still wants me. I grip the front of his blazer, and instead of pushing him away, I yank him against me.
I must be insane. And the worst part is, it’s only him who makes me this way.
His hand roughly palms my breast, and my traitorous nipple tightens further from the contact through my shirt, sending heat shooting down to my core. He continues his relentless assault on my mouth, and I’m mentally unable to stop him, unable to pull away. My body only wants him closer. Somewhere in the back of my head, I know this is so bad. Such a bad idea. I have to be out of my mind. Lust surges through me. Fuck, this is so, so wrong, but so good. I moan.