The Tycoon

by Molly O'Keefe

  Except now all the rumors were about her and Garrett, and how they liked to spend time under the home team bleachers when school was out.

  So here I was. And they were below me and I could hear them kissing.

  God, what a high that would be. Kissing Garrett. Feeling his lips on me, his hands on me. I didn’t know much about actual sex. Just everything I knew from my romance novels— which seemed like a lot, but it wasn’t real.

  It’s not like I could talk to my mother about it. I couldn’t talk to her about anything. Not when she was always so disgusted with me.

  Hank certainly wasn’t any better. There were times I wasn’t even sure if he knew who I was.

  It was very obvious to me my father had wanted sons.

  Hank had gotten three daughters. And Dylan.

  But Dylan was in the army now and no one had heard from him all year. After Christmas came and went without a word, I stopped thinking that maybe he still cared about us. That I truly did have a big brother in my life.

  Besides, who needed him when I had Garrett? Garrett, who at least knew me.

  I suppose I could talk to Ronnie about stuff. My oldest half sister was at least somewhat cool with me when she was around, but it was obvious she cared more about Bea than me. Maybe because Bea was always getting into trouble.

  So even though I was supposed to have a brother…he was gone.

  Even though I had a mother. I didn’t have a…mother.

  And even though I had two sisters…I never really felt like I had sisters.

  Sisters I could talk to about my feelings for Garrett. Sisters who would understand this complete and total longing I felt anytime I saw him. And the pain of watching him wrap his arms around another girl.

  He was playing with her hair now as I lay flat on the bleacher, keeping my limbs from dangling so I could just peek over the edge.

  Not that I was hidden from view. Too much of my body spilled over on either side. All they had to do was look up and they would know I was there. But why would they do that when they were too busy making out?

  He was cupping her jaw in his hand and brushing her bangs out of her eyes and looking at her…looking at her as if he saw everything about her. It wasn’t fair. That was my look.

  “Hey, Garrett, you know my parents are out of town. We could go back to my place,” Caroline said to him.

  Her place! No, not that. It was bad enough that they were making out. If they went back to her place, they would have sex.

  That would be one more person who was going to have sex with Garrett before I could. Because, while I knew I couldn’t have Garrett now, I had a long-term plan. A plan that involved growing up and becoming someone he would be interested in dating. Like, when I was eighteen.

  Realistically I knew that between now and then there were would be other girls in his life. Other women. But I wanted that number to be as small as it could be and I certainly didn’t want skanky Caroline to be one of them.

  I didn’t care that she was beautiful. I only cared that she wasn’t good enough for him.

  Because Garrett was perfect. Tall, built like the football quarterback he was, dark hair, crazy green eyes that made every girl in school swoon when they saw him. But he was more than hot. He was the best thing a person could be.

  He was kind.

  Kind and understanding and he didn’t deserve Caroline who would sleep with him and then might go back and sleep with the TWENTY-EIGHT-year-old guy.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds like a plan.”

  I don’t know what came over me. It was like I blanked out and forgot who I was. Forgot everything that made sense.

  “No! You can’t!” I shouted it down to them and then I quickly ran down the bleachers to stop them.

  I was out of breath by the time I got to the bottom and the two of them were standing there, holding hands, looking at me like I was crazy.

  I might have been a little crazy.

  “Were you spying on us?” Caroline demanded.

  “Garrett,” I panted. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Brin, what’s up?”

  Brin. My nickname. The one that made me feel special.

  “You can’t have sex with her,” I told him. Pleaded with him, really.

  “Brin…” he started to say, and I could see his face turn red. He didn’t feel comfortable with my talking like that. It was too personal. Too in his business. I got that, but it didn’t matter.

  “She’s not good enough for you.”

  “You fat little piece of shit. What did you just say?”

  I let the fat comment roll off me. I had been doing that ever since Garrett had encouraged me. Own your shit.

  That’s what he’d told me to do. It was in that moment I’d decided my weight was my issue and nobody else got to tell me how to feel about it. Not Hank, not my mother. Not the other kids in school. Certainly not Caroline.

  “She’s cheating on you. Everybody knows it.” It was a lie. I didn’t know if she was cheating on Garrett. I only knew she had cheated on other guys.

  “You bitch!” she screeched. “That’s a fucking lie. Garrett. She’s lying.”

  “Brin, what’s this about?” He walked up to me then and put his hand on my shoulder, and suddenly I wanted to cry. Because I was too young and too fat and not nearly good enough for him, either.

  Because I was lying to him.

  “She’s not good enough for you,” I muttered, my bottom lip trembling.

  “Oh, jeez, does the little fatty have a crush on Garrett? Is that what this is all about?”

  “Hey, cool it, Caroline. All right?” Garrett barked at her. “Brin, look at me.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t look at him. I knew that if I did I would seriously lose it.

  “It’s not cool to spy on people. Or to lie, for that matter.”

  I nodded. I knew that.

  “Garrett, let’s just leave.”

  I stood there while he made his way back to Caroline. Took her hand. She smirked at me as if to show that she’d won the battle.

  I suppose she had. They were going to go back to her parents’ place. They were probably going to have sex. She was going to get to have him. For a time.

  While I was going to have nothing.

  “You should run a few laps around the track while you’re out here…might do you some actual good,” Caroline said over her shoulder as they walked away.

  I saw Garrett tug her hand and heard him mutter. “Not cool.”

  She was a bitch. She wasn’t nice or kind, which meant she wasn’t good enough for him.

  Suddenly I felt this deep well of rage in my stomach. None of this was fair. Not the fact that my dad wanted me to be a boy, or that my mother thought I wasn’t good-looking enough to be her child, or that my one half sister hated me and my other half sister had too much going on in her life to really care about me.

  That Dylan had just left me.

  That Caroline got to have Garrett just because she was older and pretty.

  I looked at the track and suddenly the idea of running felt great. Felt freeing. Yes, that was exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to run. I wanted to run until all this anger and all this hurt went away.

  So I did. And I didn’t stop until I collapsed.

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  About the Author

  Molly O’Keefe is the USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author of over 40 romance novels. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband, two kids and the largest heap of dirty laundry in North America.

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