by J. L. Beck
Everything was great until Sasha realized Royal’s attention was no longer on her. You could see her trying to figure out where his eyes were looking. She must have figured it out because in a matter of seconds she was sending icy daggers at me from across the lunchroom. I stared at both of them as if they were a car accident waiting to happen. Sasha knew exactly what she was trying to execute. Leaning over and into the crook of his neck she whispered something, her eyes gleaming with hate toward me. Then she lifted herself up so she was even with Royal’s face and pressed her lips against his, wrapping her hand around his head and pulling him in even closer.
My stomach twisted in a knot. I felt like I was violating some type of code of conduct. Like Sasha owned him and I was looking in from the outside.
“Talk about PDA. Jesus, they need to get a room.” Jordan sounded like she was going to puke, and the sound alone cheered me up, a bubble of happiness building deep inside of me. At the very least, I wasn’t the only one who found their newly found love absolutely disgusting. I couldn’t force myself to eat any of the fries or hot dog that I had gotten for lunch, so I got up from the table telling Jordan my goodbyes and tossing my food into the nearest trashcan. I forced myself not to look over my shoulder at Royal just one last time, but instead headed straight toward the girls’ locker room, to get ready for my least favorite activity of the day: gym class.
I was a mess of emotions and nearly halfway down the hall when heavy footfalls sounded behind me. I anticipated his touch before his hand even landed against my shoulder, stopping me from going any further. Still I wasn’t happy that he was touching me after having just been rubbed up against that snotty, filthy bitch.
“Excuse you, asshole.” Anger entwined my words.
“You’re excused, Noelle.” Royal’s deep voice met my ears far too close to me. The smell of spicy men’s body wash and cigarette smoke invading my senses.
“Have you been smoking?” I accused, his scent fucking with my mind and body. I shouldn’t be feeling the things that I was, especially not for someone like him.
Three days at this school and he had already had sex with that whore, and was now apparently skipping classes for a smoke break. Bad boy wasn’t even a word I would use to describe Royal.
He craned further, his head tilting sideways as if he was trying to read me. My eyes dropped down to his lips where his tongue had darted out, wetting his bottom lip. He was in my space forcing me to take in a breath that was filled with nothing more than his scent. It was permeating, choking me. Everything on my body tingled as his breath fell against my cheek. If I turned even the slightest bit our lips would touch. My heart thudded against my rib cage, threatening to break free.
“Tell me, love, when did you become my mother again?” He spoke to me like my opinion of him didn’t matter, and honestly it didn’t. I wanted to punch him in the face, knee him in the balls— inflicting some type of pain upon him. I wanted to bring any other emotion but the present to the surface. I wanted to drown him in some him in his own feelings.
“I wasn’t trying to act like your mother, Royal. It just caught me off guard, that and I wasn’t aware that you had added smoking to your already long laundry list of shit you shouldn’t be doing.” I hated that he lumped me in with his mom. As if I was going to ground him or something. The choices he made were his, and he would have to deal with the consequences of them.
“I’m a criminal, baby, a bad man; far too naughty for a little miss perfect princess like yourself,” he spoke, using the nickname that he gave me. His eyes drifted up and down my body as if he was checking me out. His eyes on my exposed skin caused me to squirm.
I knew the effect he had on me was dangerous, but the danger of it was the thing that tempted me most. “You should remember that…” His voice was deep as he swiped his thumb across my bottom lip. His fingertips against my skin awakened a piece of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Our eyes clashed with one another’s. “Because next time you decide to stare at me with lust and desires in your eyes that you don’t understand, I just might have to take it as an invitation for far more than I know you can handle.” Royal’s voice dipped, and with it so did my heart, a shiver working its way down my spine.
I gulped in a deep breath of much needed air. The words he spoke were partially true and partially false. I may have looked at him with desires I didn’t understand, but I knew damn well I could handle the asshole and anything he dished out. The thought of him degrading me as he was, was enough to pull me from the lust-filled stupor he put me in.
I should’ve known he would try something like this. It was nothing but a way to cover up his pain. My mouth was dry, and words seemed to be missing from my vocabulary. I couldn’t speak, not after everything he just said to me. Not after he made me hot and bothered but angry all at the same time. How did he insult me and still manage to make me want him all within the same sentence?
“Cat got your tongue, sweet cheeks?” When he spoke this time his lips were a breath away from my own, his own hot breath fanning against my face. He was gorgeous, but he was also an asshole and I would learn well to remember that. I knew the type of game he was playing and exactly what his next move would be.
He’s your stepbrother, Noelle, nothing more, nothing less.
“Check mate, bitch,” I whispered the words just as I lifted my leg up into his groin. My knee made contact with his balls just as he realized what it was that I was going to do. There was, however, nothing that could be done to stop me at that point. My knee was already connecting with his groin when his eyes finally met mine, a fierce anger simmering in them. I slammed the top of my knee hard against his sack, making sure the impact was hard enough to put him out of commission for awhile. Then I slowly pulled away from him, all while his hands reached out to stop me from leaving, his fingers skimming across the front of my shirt.
Pain etched into his features, and his eyes started to water as he leaned against the brick wall like his life depended on it. I took another weary step away from him, afraid that if I got too close he would do something to hurt me.
“Bitch,” he growled, gripping himself as he tried to stand to his full height. There was a feral rage lingering in those pale blue eyes of his. Shit! He was going to kill me.
I took another step back as he righted himself, pain obviously overtaking him as he tried to take a step toward me.
“Don’t think this is over, Noelle. Don’t think that you can get away with doing something like this without facing my wrath.” Fear rooted me in place, but as I continued to stare at him, something else started to replace that fear.
Something that gave me the strength to finally speak.
“Don’t fuck with me, Royal. You may think that I’m just some spoiled little princess, but I’m tougher than you think, and I’m not afraid of you.”
A scary smile formed on his face as he slid against the brick wall slowly getting closer to me. “You aren’t right now, but then again I haven’t done anything to hurt you yet.” Air filtered into my lungs. I was done with this conversation. If I didn’t leave now, he would get his hands on me and the whole point I had just proven would be pointless.
“Try to hurt me. Do it. I’ll fight you tooth and nail, Royal. Unlike everyone, else I believe there is something halfway decent in that cold heart of yours.”
I skirted away from him and his coldness, running with all my might toward the locker rooms. I might have looked and sounded like a warrior, but I was scared as fuck of Royal and the repercussions that would follow from what I had done.
Chapter Seven
-Royal
Three long days and a bag of frozen peas later and I was finally getting past what Noelle had done. My ego wasn’t bruised but my balls were, and that was enough to piss me the fuck off for an eternity.
I was livid at first; you didn’t touch someone without the intention of having the same come back upon you. I wouldn’t lift a hand to her beautiful skin, bu
t I would retaliate in some form to get even with her. The nerve it took to knee me in the balls had to be immense. Somewhere in something that I said to her must have caused a switch to flip inside of her, pissing her right the fuck off. That was fine though, because if Noelle wanted a war, she was going to get one. I was darker. Meaner. Far worse than she could ever imagine.
If she wanted to see me in my most ruthless form, then she was going to get her wish.
“Royal. I need you to come into my study, please?” Mark asked but more so ordered right before he headed out of the kitchen. His voice startled me because he had been in the kitchen preparing his food without a single word said to me. Then suddenly he wanted me to listen to him. Yeah I didn’t know how I felt about that.
Still I scarfed the rest of my cereal down and placed the bowl in the kitchen sink. Before I got here, I considered this place to be a shit fucking hole, but now, now I was starting to wonder if this place was really all that bad. It seemed more like a lap of luxury, like a vacation that I never received growing up.
I marched up the stairs and toward the study stopping right before I hit the top of the landing. I could hear hushed voices down the hall.
“You need to stay away from that boy, Noelle.” A bubble of laughter filled my throat, threatening to escape. That boy. Like I was some bad habit or something.
“He’s my stepbrother, how can I stay away from him? We have almost every class together, and if we aren’t sharing classes he lives here, or have you forgotten that?” Noelle’s voice sounded broken and deflated. Was I really being that big of an asshole? If you ask me, it’s her that’s being the asshole.
“You need to stay focused on your grades, on your studies, and whomever Mark and I see fit for you to date. Do you understand me?” There was moment of silence. I was praying Noelle would say no and shove the words back at her mom with force, but instead I heard nothing. There were no further words said between them.
Was Noelle drowning in misery, just like I had been for the better part of my life? Maybe I misjudged her? Maybe she wasn’t some spoiled princess like I assumed she was? Perhaps, we were more alike than I realized.
Viviana, Noelle’s mother was the woman my father married after leaving my mother, and she was a total bitch. Thus more, it turned out she even treated her own daughter like scum of the earth.
I wasn’t going to hide from either of them anymore, so I continued my walk to the study, passing Viviana as I walked down the hall.
“Royal,” she said my name like it took her effort to do so. I wondered if there was more that she wanted to say but stopped herself.
“Bitch.” I tilted my head at her, signifying that I didn’t give a shit what her name was.
I would call her whatever the hell I wanted, when I wanted.
I watched her green eyes fill with murderous rage. Her anger toward me didn’t bother me one bit. It just added to the fire that was already blazing inside of me. Plus, I knew the type of woman she was— the money hungry, I take whatever I can to better myself kind of person. She was nothing but a piece of garbage in my eyes. Why he threw a precious stone away like my mother for a dirty piece of coal, I didn’t know. My thoughts trailed off as I stopped right in front of the door to the study. Lifting my fist, I beat it against the door, my father’s deep voice ringing out.
“Come in, Royal.” He sounded pleased that I finally listened to him.
“I still don’t like you. I probably never will, so don’t try and make an effort to be something we both know you’re not.” I wasn’t smug about anything I said, just truthful, because let’s face it, it took more than money and a few visits here and there to be a dad. Anyone, could be a dad if that were the case.
I was taken aback as his laughter filled the room. What the hell was he laughing about? I wasn’t making any kind of joke. He pursed his lips, slipping on a pair of thick, stylish glasses as he pulled out a thin stack of papers.
“Ahhh. Look, son, I know I screwed up big time as a father, and I am sorry,” my father said with a look of genuine regret on his aged but still handsome face. “There are a lot of things I know we need to talk about and work through. Unfortunately, there really isn’t anything I can do to turn back the clock and change how things ended between your mother and I.” I rolled my eyes at him, getting tired of this conversation already. Mark shrugged his shoulders as if telling me it is what it is. That just annoyed me even further.
It’s like he felt no guilt or responsibility for the role he played in me being fucked up. Didn’t he realize what it felt like to be abandoned and what a toll that took on a person?
“Listen, Royal, I didn’t call you in to talk about the past; we’ll get to it sooner or later, but right now there is something else we need to discuss.” He paused, before continuing on.
“I wanted to tell you that I spoke with your mother before you came out here.”
The mere mention of my mother pierced my heart like a dagger was being shoved into it. I hurt her in so many ways, disappointed her, and made her feel guilty for things she shouldn’t. All because of the man in front of me.
Truthfully, I never meant to be the cause of any more pain or stress for her. Guilt ripped through me, seizing me in a vice of pain. The feeling was so strong I felt like it would consume me if I allowed it to.
I was slowly working through all the emotions I felt. Everyone that got too close to me ended up getting hurt. If you thought you could dig deeper, find out what made me tick, you were wrong. I was a cobra ready to strike at the first hand that tried to reach me. A failure stuck in my own emotional abyss, and I didn’t need any fucking rescuing.
“Yeah, that much is obvious. Did she tell you how bad I was? That I broke her heart by being a piece of shit son?” I spoke, trying to sound bored with the topic, even though I was furious that they went behind my back and talked. “I guess I’m sorta like you in that way, Dad.” My father stared at me, clearly ignoring my anger toward the two of them.
“We devised a plan together. You know how much we love you, and we want to see you become an individual that society can look up to, not one they can throw in a prison cell. All the fights you have been in are causing a lot of damage to your record. You act like you don’t care about anything, but I know that’s a lie. There has to be something you care about.” I narrowed my eyes at him. If he for one second thought he could lecture me or act like he knew me, he had another thing coming.
I cleared my throat, my face a blank canvas as I stared him straight in the eyes. “I don’t really see how anything that you just said is of any of your concern?” It was apparent that I was getting on his nerves I could see the tension in his face and in the way he held his pen. I knew anger. It was a permanent fixture in my life, the only thing that stayed.
“Firstly, I am your father, the DNA says so, even if you hate the very thought of it there is no changing it. Secondly, a record keeps you from getting a job, from attending college. Do you have any idea what fighting does to a person? Do you even care? What about how much it hurts your mother and me?” The words sputtered from his throat. It was the first time he showed me any other type of emotion other than anger. I clenched my fists at my sides, shoving up from the chair that I was sitting in. The force of my movement caused the chair to scrape across the floor. Do I even care? That was a rich question coming from him. He must be joking.
I lifted my fist in a fit of rage, slamming it onto the top of his desk; pain radiating from my fingertips to my wrist, but I didn’t care. If shock made a sound it would be the deep breaths filtering in through my father’s mouth. I watched with an intense stare as papers scattered and the other shit on his desk rattled some of the shit clattering to the floor.
I leaned into him, my elbows resting on the edge of the desk, my eyes filled with hollowed-out pain, and my voice menacing as I spoke.
“Do I even care? What kind of fucking question is that? That’s something you should be asking yourself, wouldn’t you think?” I g
rowled out the words. This fucker had balls questioning me on shit that he should be questioning himself about.
“Clearly one that you never thought out, because your mother had to send you to come and live with me, and the shit that lies in the past needs to stay there. You should be worried about you and not me. Worried about a future that is just within reach. You’re going to put yourself in a world of hurt if you keep down this road.” I couldn’t help the anger that exploded from deep inside of me. It was like a timer on a ticking time bomb, the time slipping to zero and the bomb exploding. I beat my fist against the wooden desk once more, the pain of the blow just adding fuel to the ever-growing fire inside of me. The pain didn’t faze me as much as what this asshole had to say.
“I wouldn’t have to have been sent here if you were an actual father! And for the love of God stop trying to pretend you give a shit about me when we both know you don’t.” My voice rattled with anger, the harshness of my words making me wonder when I dove off the deep end into the black waters below.
I didn’t care if anyone heard me. I hoped they did. I hoped they heard all about the piece of shit known as my father, and I hoped that when they saw me they questioned every good thing he ever did. I wasn’t good, and I was nothing to show off. I was lost and damaged. A piece of debris floating out in open water.
“Sit down, Royal.” Why the fuck didn’t he seem the least bit fazed that I was ready to knock his old ass out?
“Your temper is the same as mine. Fire burns in your veins where blood should. I know the pain you’re feeling, and I understand how unhappy you are with me.” My teeth gnashed together. He looked at me like he had me figured out, like he knew what I had been through the in last seventeen years.