“Whenever you want.” His head eased closer, his mouth inches from mine.
“Did you go into a tailspin?” I hugged my arms close to me, afraid to relinquish his touch if I reciprocated.
“Everything I knew was gone. I met you at the wake and you were a flare of sun in my crumbling darkness.”
“So you do write songs?” I giggled.
His grin lit up his face. “It’s ingrained, I guess. You make it easy.”
Chills galloped across my shoulders. “Why’d you disappear? At the wake.”
“Afraid I’d gone too far. My head was whacked.”
He lay flat on his back again and slung an arm over his face, covering the emotions flitting in his eyes. “Then CPS showed up. Told us about your family.” Silence expanded into the soft whoosh of the air conditioner. “You stood in the entryway, all light and beautiful in your ragged T-shirt. You smacked of hope and I fell into your pull of gravity.”
“You sure you don’t write poetry?” I traced the tattoo on his arm, circled a guitar, and rolled his sleeve up until I saw a healing red-rimmed tattoo I hadn’t noticed before.
“I write a few lyrics.” He chuckled.
Musical notes veined the ivy leaf tattoo. “This new?” I remembered what he’d said about adding tattoos when he lost control. He nodded. “What does it represent?” I zipped my pendants along the silver chain around my neck.
He fingered the leaf’s red-rimmed edge. “Death. Life. Hope.”
Hope for an end to his grief? Hope for me? “If CPS hadn’t shown up, would you have contacted me again?” I had to know his answer more than I needed to breathe.
“Hell yeah. You were stuck in my head.”
I flipped onto my back again.
“Tell me what you feel. Am I crazy?” His sincerity sliced and diced my heart. “I want to get to know you.” He rolled on his side again, his chest aligning with mine, his hand landing flat on my stomach, the barest touch searing through my thin T-shirt, branding his fingers onto my skin. “Not as a brother. Tell me to screw off if you don’t want more,” he made a small humming noise in his throat, “or if you want to be my sister.”
I touched his cheek, and he fell into my touch, his slight smile, his clean-shaven cheek pressing into my palm. I feathered my finger over his blade nose and his angled cheekbones. The sound of his breathing, the hiss of the air conditioner, the scents of his cologne and the room freshener all tapered into a world filled with just Jesse.
“The day of the funeral was horrible, not just for the obvious reason. I was holding up my drugged mother, dealing with my idiot sister and her half-fake hysterics.” My thoughts fled as he traced his fingers up and down my arm, leaving lightning strikes throughout my body. “I got stuck making all the funeral arrangements and organizing the wake. Kristen and I handled all the phone calls and drop-ins. Worst of all, I got stuck going to the morgue, and of course I found out about your mom and our dad. It wrecked me. I was numb and wanted an end to Leo Lynwood and his domineering assholeness. I’d had enough of celebrating him.”
Jesse stiffened and a muscle bulged in his forearm. “Was he that bad?”
Was he disgusted and angry at me? Or angry at Dad’s multiple faces and lies?
“The Leo Lynwood Mom, Kristen, and I knew wasn’t the man the Jeromes knew.” I told him about the night and day before the sailboat fire, how he’d treated Mom and me. “One of many similar incidents. Some much worse.”
A long beat of thick silence descended, and I closed my eyes. His lips touched each eyelid, a feather touch that dove toward the awakening parts of me, shooting more flickers of lightning to every nerve ending.
“I hate that you guys got the worst of him.” Sorrow clouded his eyes.
He didn’t seem mad at my outburst, my negativity, or my wanting my father gone. His fury stemmed from the darkness we’d endured while the Jeromes enjoyed the light side of our father. We were on the same side of the fence now, neither the light nor the dark side. We accepted the complete stranger who’d entered our lives and manipulated us like clueless pawns on his chessboard. Freedom came with a troubling and intricate price.
The Jeromes had invaded our freedom the way I wanted Jesse to invade me, even as I wanted no part of this freaky prohibited game we played. But we deserved a truce from the game. We deserved happiness in our wrecked lives.
“I don’t want to be your sister,” I whispered. Boneless and vulnerable, I was drawn to his heat, his scent, his soul. I want more. But I don’t know how to go about it. I don’t know how to get past the “brother” thing.
He groaned in relief and hauled me against him, cracking more of the no blood, adopted half-brother foundation. We flowed together, arms embracing, hearts pounding in sync, legs entwined. He smelled of cinnamon musk, hope, and change. I breathed him in, saturating my all with Jesse Jerome. And I wasn’t dreaming.
His lips landed on mine, his bottom lip nudging mine apart. The graze of his mouth kindled the fire inside me. Reticent, his tongue slipped between my lips, then flitted in and out, waiting for me to chase. Hesitantly, I slid my tongue through his parted lips in response. Our kiss grew more urgent, awakening me from a lifelong prison, bringing me to our secret heaven. The hot-as-sin kiss ended all too soon, and I dreaded the consequences of it as much as I held onto his touch, never wanting to let him go.
“I’m starving,” he said against my mouth, his lips easing into a grin. Our moment erased his black expression, brightened the flecks in his eyes. I wanted to dive into the green lagoon of those flecks and swim away from our life together.
“I make killer sandwiches.” Smiling, he leaned back, happy and so sexy. “FYI.” He slipped my phone out of his back pocket. “Your friend Will texted you. Said he might stop by to make sure you’re okay.”
“You reading my texts now?” I skimmed Will’s message.
“No. Your Mom did. Apparently, she’s into Will.” He twisted a lock of my hair around his finger with a teasing tug.
I made an exaggerated cringing expression, ensuring he understood that Will fell more into the brother category than he did. “I think Will and I wanted more than we bargained for from our first and last date.”
“What about our first date?”
“The wake?” I laughed. “You call that a date?”
He slung a small toss pillow at me. “It counts. We had a drink together.”
“You’re delusional.” I slapped a bigger pillow over his head. He plowed me down on my back and tickled me until laughter overcame us. “I’m beginning to adore this fun side of you.” So unlike our father. My heartbeat slowed to a new normal.
“I adore all sides of you.” He touched his lips to my neck, leaving me a mass of tingles. “I plan to explore them all. Later. Definitely.”
We stood up, not touching any longer, having attained the slightly awkward stage I’d always hoped to experience one day. I wanted my hands all over him but held back, fighting my lack of instincts. His hooded eyes and curled lips told me he fought the same compulsions, unsure of how to react, or of what to say or do around me. Heat flared in me at the inferences, things between a boyfriend and girlfriend everyone else and their dogs had already experienced. Even fifteen-year-old Jade. I was so lame at playing the game of love. Cupid had zapped me with a stupidity arrow.
I trickled my fingers over his wrist and led him to the kitchen.
When he opened the fridge, his smoldering eyes landed on my face. “Thank you for being you, for seeing what I see in us.”
As simply as that we became more, more than strangers, more than nebulous half-siblings with not a drop of blood between us. I pinched my arm to ensure I wasn’t languishing in a fictional fantasyland. Nope. The red mark had my back.
“We need to keep this between us.” He broke the silence.
“Yeah, it might come across as creepy.”
“Specifically from your mom and Jade.”
I kinked my head to the left. “My mom knows you’re ado
pted, right?”
“Not sure what CPS told her.”
“Letting her believe Will and I are hooking up will help.” As long as I didn’t lead Will on and hurt him, let Mom think what she wanted.
“Not sure I’m down with that idea.” He growled like the alpha dudes in my fantasy romance novels. My lips begged to attack his pouty lips.
The doorbell gonged, saving us from teen hookup angst.
“Better make an extra sandwich for Will.” I sprinted out to answer the door, giggling on the way, mind-boggling pressure from the day’s events crimping my languid limbs.
When my gaze landed on Will, a frown turned my laughter upside down. He wore cargo shorts, a plain red T-shirt and flip-flops, and I did a double take. The dark circles under his eyes and his pale weariness encouraged me to hug him. He folded me into his arms, but I kept a slight distance between our bodies. I didn’t want to lead him on. Seriously, he wasn’t a hot guitar player, who lived in my house. Who’d just professed his undying… lust… for me, or something along those lines.
“What happened? You look lost.” I opened the door wider for him to enter. “We’re making sandwiches. Hungry?”
He hitched his backpack on his shoulder and shut the door behind him. “I could eat. Thanks.” He rattled a container of mints in his pocket. “My parents happened. My dad’s twenty-something girlfriend’s pregnant. My mom’s ready to slit his throat. I can’t deal.”
I gawked at him, closed my mouth, and smiled to lighten him up. “So you came over here to play on my sinking ship?”
“Your mom invited me over to swim. Didn’t she tell you?” He jiggled his mints again, keys rattling against the plastic container.
“She told me.” Jesse’s voice rose above my head from behind me.
Mom was so dead. Dad’s death had liberated her to butt into my first-ever love life. An Ivy Drugtini began to form in my arsenal of drink recipes.
“Hey, man, Jesse Jerome.” Jesse extended his hand and Will shook it.
“Yeah, dude, you’re the—” Will clamped his mouth shut as if unsure to bounce the bastard word.
“Orphan the dead mistress popped out.” Jesse shrugged.
A week ago, I had begged for a change. Had no clue I’d wished for the Crazy Train of change. On that freaky note, I ushered the new boyfriend crew to lunch on the patio. Our talk centered on music, the beach, our scarce summer plans, shying away from family talk or any other intimate details of our personal lives. After our short lunch, Jesse and I cleaned up as Will investigated the grounds on his way to the pool house to change his clothes.
“He seems decent.” Wariness tinged Jesse’s voice, as if testing my susceptibility to Will’s negligible charms.
I was firing blanks at how to respond to my new situation without pissing Jesse off or alerting Will to stuff he shouldn’t know. Digging deep, I said, “He’s a good guy from what I know. Tough knocks with his parental probs.” When Will returned, bug-eyed over the Lynwood Resort, I raced upstairs to change my clothes and escape the testosterone attacking me.
Heebie-jeebies crept like jade-colored ants across the nape of my neck as I entered my bedroom. Stale cigarette smoke hung in pockets in my room, and my bathroom door was ajar when I’d locked it earlier that morning. I hadn’t seen Jade return since Jesse and I had gone downstairs. Maybe I was off my meds. Shadow vaulted off my dresser, sending me hopping onto my bed, nearly scaring the pee out of me.
“Oh, kitty cat. You must be lonely stuck up here in that stinky old bedroom.” I swooped down and picked her up, cuddling her in my arms. I carried her through the bathroom to Kristen’s—Jade’s—room. Maybe one of Shadow’s nine lives was a picklock.
The moment I crossed the threshold, the cat growled and struggled out of my arms to the floor. I sneezed, almost blowing myself across the room. Jade had draped a black sheet over the window. The room resembled a florescent cave, three lava lamp lights in red, green, and blue dancing in random patterns on the walls. Rosemary incense lamely attempted to mask the scent of stale menthol cigarettes and a turd-filled, dome-covered cat litter box. I hated how Jade had decimated Kristen’s mark with her million posters and black sheets covering the walls. Bye-bye light and airy flowers and hello to dark and ominous demon’s den. The posters ranged from punk rock bands to vague celebrities. The witches, demons, and wizards fantasy posters intrigued me. How dare she harsh my mellow and like something I liked?
Half-empty boxes scattered the room. Black clothes and crap spilled off every surface, except the dresser, her voodoo shrine. The shrine included a new voodoo doll, sporting blonde hair, a pink T-shirt, and denim shorts. I picked up the wad of blonde hair that she’d pulled off my hair brush. My heart rate accelerated to DEFCON 10.
Chapter 16
With my fingertips, I picked up the voodoo doll. Jade hadn’t turned me into a pincushion, yet. I dropped the doll onto the dresser, needing to bleach my hands. I wanted to shred it into a million pieces, but feared the thing would kill me or tear me further apart. Who knew what curses plagued it, or me? Seething, I thrust the wad of hair in my pocket.
A rustle sounded by the bedroom door. I spun around thinking I’d find the cat scratching to escape its prison of horrors. No such luck.
“The hell? What’re you doing in my room, Vine?” Jade barreled toward me, the mysterious Ax on her heels. About my age, he was über pale, thin as a druggie toothpick, and towered over Jade, leering at me. His eyes were bloodshot, reminding me of Mom’s drugged haze. Another Goth dressed all in black, including eye makeup and black fingernail polish. Monkey see, monkey do.
“Why are you making a voodoo doll of me, Rock?”
She laughed, an evil, hateful sound that grated on my ears. “Suck it up, princess. You may not owe me shit, but you deserve everything coming to you.” Jade picked up the fallen voodoo doll and lit a candle with her cigarette lighter. She floated the doll close to the flame. My nose itched from the candle’s strong scent mixing with the incense-cigarette-turd haze. I fought down a couple sneezes.
“That didn’t even make sense.” I tweaked my nose. “Side-show freak.”
“Bite me.” She waved the doll over the flame again. “Trot your commentary out to someone who gives a rat’s ass.”
Ax emitted a dim bulb roar, bending him at the waist and slapping his thighs. His pea-brain probably didn’t know the definition of “commentary.” He leered over her shoulder, comically mocking the twisted mix of my wariness and disgust. “Good one, babe.”
Ten-pound sack of stupid. And stupid is as stupid does.
I grasped at the doll in Jade’s hands, and she jerked it away from me, jabbing her elbow in bozo’s stomach for another round of heehaw laughter.
Score one for Ivy. I blew out the candle, squeezing down another urge to sneeze. Dad had outlawed open flames in our bedrooms. With lighters in the hands of whacko, mental Morticia, I needed to align with him on that score. A first for me.
“Bitch. Get out. This is my room now.”
“Give me the doll.” I rammed into her to reach for the dangling doll. She was the same height as Kristen and my three extra inches towered over her. Smirking Forrest Ax Gump backed her up and protected his little black rock. “You have no right to take my hair.”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t shedding it all over the bathroom floor like a dog. Woof, woof.”
Ax barked out a snigger as if she’d bleated out an award-winning joke.
Was I shedding like a long-haired cat in summer? I sifted my hair to check its thickness, then jerked my hand away from my head. Reality check. She’s screwing with you. “Well, maybe if you weren’t scrounging on your hands and knees collecting my hair for your dipshit dolls you might find time to get a life.”
“I had a life, before I came to this shithole of indulgence.”
“Yeah? Me too, before your bastardhood killed it.”
In a flurry of black, Jade lunged, bowling me to the floor. My head missed conking me into a coma aga
inst the dresser by a shedding hair. Jade’s hands encircled my neck and it was on like Donkey Kong. I’d never used that lame phrase, but it fit our dumb sandbox fight.
I punched a knee up into her girly parts, giving her overworked hormones the right to abort her body for sunshine and happiness. The shudder up to my jaw was totally worth the price.
“Oww, princess bitch,” Jade screamed, her hands finding purchase on my neck. “You’ll pay for that, you scrawny sack of shit.”
Hey, I resembled my scrawniness. “Better than your twenty extra pounds of fat. How’s this for payment?” My fingers took aim for her eyes and someone caught my hands from behind, halting them in their goal of eyeball annihilation. Jesse’s familiar touch shook my brain cells back to their normal homes. I checked myself before I wrecked more than myself. Such as driving Jesse away if I hurt his real sister.
He tugged me up. “What the hell, Jade? What’re you doing?”
“Help me up, idiot.” Jade stretched out her hand to Ax. Scowling, he pulled her up and straightened her black skull T-shirt and leather jacket.
The discarded voodoo doll stuck out from under the bed skirt. I snatched it up and shoved it in Jesse’s face. “This.”
Jesse seized Jade’s arm and jerked her to the other side of the room. “You want to go to a foster home? Or group home? Get a fucking clue. Ivy hasn’t done a thing to you. Why are you being such a little shit disturber?”
“You’re taking her side?” Jade chest-butted him, waterworks dripping from whatever emotion she harvested in that moment.
“Side? Over what?” We’d barely said two words to each other since the orphan train dumped them on our doorstep.
Ax stretched out on the bed, propping his head on his hand, watching the Lynwood versus Jerome cage match. I wanted to hand him a bowl of burnt popcorn and a tepid, flat soda. Or in his case, a bottle of blood.
I tore apart the voodoo doll. Straw and stuffing puddled at my feet.
“Go ’head. Tear it up. I’ll just make another one.” Jade bellowed out an evil laugh. Ax’s Bozo the Clown rumble joined in since they shared the same lame-brain.
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