The feeling is familiar and the clean, citrusy scent tells me that Teague stopped my fall, before his breath fans my ear as he whispers in that low drawl of his.
“Are you all right, rally girl?”
I turn to look into his blue eyes and he has that constant little smile on his face, as if something only he's privy to was immensely amusing.
“I’m fine. Sorry, I didn't see ...”
“You're lucky I was standing here. You need to start watching where you go.”
I hear a shrill laugh from behind us.
“You were right, Devs, she's a little klutzy. But my brother seems to find her cute. Let’s go, we have Ms Webber first period and she gets really irked if by the second bell we aren't all in class.”
Devon follows her but before walking away, he throws an intense glance towards me and Teague.
AS I WALK OUT OF THE sports building at the end of cheer practice, I inwardly curse myself for having a chip on my shoulder and joining the team just to prove a point to Devon.
I’m absolutely exhausted.
I admit that I’m not one of those girls who loves sports: my idea of a good time is curling up on a lounger by the pool or on the couch with a good book and some good music in the background.
All this shaking my ass and jumping is already proving a bit too much but I hated the way Devon called me a klutz.
Even if he's perfectly right: I’ve always been a little accident prone but it's not because of general klutziness, I think for the most part I get distracted by thoughts and don't pay attention.
So maybe Teague is right.
And once again, I’m so lost in my musings, that I don't see a door opening and someone grabbing me until I’m being dragged inside the boys’ locker room.
Devon locks the door behind him and looks at me with a serious expression.
His green eyes are as gorgeous as I remember them, when I spent hours looking into them, in his arms during the summer.
But right now they seem veiled with a storm of emotions: anger, worry and something else.
He looks at me for a long moment and I’ve never been one for pregnant silences, so I huff, letting my frustration with his behaviour show.
“You know that you could ask me to talk like a normal person and quit behaving like a fucking caveman, right?”
His eyes darken in a stubborn expression.
“I didn't want anyone to see us.”
He’s so infuriating!
“Devon, this is getting fucking old, real fast! Whatever the fuck is wrong with you, I want no part in it. You made it quite clear that you don't want anyone at school to know that we know each other or that there was ever something between us. Obviously I thought that we had something, when in reality you just wanted to get laid. You got laid, and I’m ok with pretending that we don't know each other, since this is what you want. It sucks that we’re both in the A-Class but at least I’m not your rally girl. So you do whatever you want, win championships, fuck the rest of the cheer team, but just leave me alone!”
He doesn't look affected by my outburst but keeps his gaze unnervingly fixed onto mine.
“You don’t understand. It's not that I don't want people to know that we know each other, Aubrey.”
I cover my eyes with my hands: he’s fucking crazy!
“Then what?”
“I ... Please don't tell anyone what I was doing in South Carolina. That I was working at the resort.”
“Why? What does it matter what you were doing there? Is this why you pretended not to know me?”
“Why doesn't matter. Please can you do this for me? I know that I sound crazy but my life has just been crazy lately. I swear that as soon as things calm down, I’ll explain, baby. I wanted to accept your friend requests, and I wanted to talk to you, to tell you that I missed you. But things got so complicated at home that I—”
He stops talking to take me in his arms and crush his lips onto mine with sweet violence.
It feels as if he wanted to rein himself in but he can't.
And my body reacts on autopilot: my lips open to his kiss, my arms go around his neck while my fingers play with the short hair at the nape of his neck.
His tongue plunges into my mouth and one of his hands presses between my shoulder blades, to keep my body flush against his, while the other sneaks up the bottom of my skirt, grabbing the soft flesh of my buttocks.
I’m pressed against him and I feel him harden against my crotch and that's when I snap out of it.
“No! Get away from me!”
I push him away with all my might, breathing hard, not missing how excited he looks too.
“You don’t get to do this. I’m not a toy that you play with when the mood strikes and then discard when you're done. You haven't explained shit to me about why you’ve been such an asshole from the very minute you disposed of that condom on the beach. So, until you're willing to tell me what the fuck’s wrong with you, you don't get to pick up where we left off.”
“Aubrey, I can't. I need some time but I swear that I’ll explain. Baby, please ...”
“No, I deserve an explanation. You've ignored me since you set foot in school. I’m not gonna be the cliché cheerleader that can't wait to be fucked by the quarterback. For that, you have Margaux, Macy and possibly the rest of the squad. I’ve seen how they all look at you. I’m sorry, I’ve seen what a bad reputation can do to you in this school. So you get to kiss me when you explain yourself.”
My outburst doesn't have the desired effect: Devon's eyes harden and he grabs my wrist, holding tight.
“Really? Kissing me makes you a slut but letting Landon shove his tongue down your throat last Friday was ok?”
I scoff and shake my wrist free of his grasp.
“Landon didn't fuck me to ghost me straight after and then pretend that I was invisible.”
‘Landon didn't take my virginity to turn his back on me the very second he was done screwing me’
I think, but what I say out loud is:
“He's made it quite clear that he likes me. You on the other hand have been acting like you despise me. I’m not playing games, Devon.”
I don't give him time to say anything but open the locker room door and step into the hallway where I find myself face to face with Margaux.
The door is still open and the cheerleader captain’s eyes move from me to Devon, who's on the threshold with the doorknob in his hand.
Margaux’s eyes narrow but her tone isn't angry when she asks me what I was doing in the boys locker room.
“Uhm ... I forgot something and I went into the wrong room. I’m still new around here and I get confused. Devon was telling me I got the wrong room and being a total asshole about it.”
I throw Devon a standoffish glance and walk away.
I might not tell people what he doesn't want to make public knowledge but I don't have to be nice, he doesn't deserve it.
And I know that probably Abi would preach about forgiveness but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and Devon definitely makes me feel fucking scorned right now!
Devon
GETTING RID OF MARGAUX was hard work.
If Aubrey wanted to pay me back for how I’ve been acting, this is definitely the way to go.
As soon as Aubrey walked away, Margaux was hanging from my arm, raking her nails up my forearm and purring at me that she was hungry, probably trying to get me to take her somewhere to eat.
I honestly don't dislike Margaux but she isn't Aubrey.
I don't know if I’m in love with her, I’ve never been in love before but the way I feel when I see her, when I hear her voice ...
It was like that from the moment I kept her from falling on those slippery rocks, I couldn't think about anything else but when I could see her, touch her, kiss her.
I even googled ten signs you're in love at first sight and I think this might be the case.
So the fact that I fucking ruined everything, isn't lost on me.
/> At first I had no idea who Aubrey was and the way she acts is so far off from the typical spoiled rich girl, that I pushed aside any notion of social class difference.
And I thought that we’d have our fling and then move on.
Especially if I got to fuck her, I thought that then I’d lose interest, like it’d always been with any other girl I’d ever met, at school, on vacation or in a club.
Working as a lifeguard surely put me at an advantage with any pretty girl on the island and Aubrey wasn't the first hookup of the summer.
But from the moment I saw her, I never even looked at another girl.
I knew that she was from LA but when I saw where she was staying at Hilton Head and when I heard the few things she told me about her life between a hot kiss and a romantic walk on the beach, I tried to convince myself that all she wanted was a little summer adventure.
Probably she was bored with rich boys like her sister's friends and wanted to try a different flavour, so to speak.
This is why I didn't accept her friend requests straight away: I thought that she was just being nice and that anyway, even if she weren't, her parents would've never allowed her to date a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Having a mom who for a living cleans the houses of the same rich people Aubrey comes from, didn't exactly make me ideal boyfriend material for her.
I’ve been driving fast, lost in my thoughts and I press the button on the remote to open the gate to the mansion I now call home without noticing the old, rusty Honda Civic parked right outside.
My mother's car follows me inside the property and up the driveway, stopping right behind me.
Melania Whitbeck, my mom, exits the car and I look at her not seeing anymore the loving mom I thought she was until about a month ago.
I see one of the many people who betrayed me and put me in this fucking stupid situation to begin with.
“What are you doing here? I thought that Nick made it more than clear that you aren't welcome on his property. If you want me to live here, you need to call me when you wanna see me and meet me somewhere else.”
She moves her long, silky black hair away from her shoulders, and her dark green eyes harden when she talks next.
“I totally would if you were picking up the phone or texting me back. But we both know that you’ve been ignoring me for two whole weeks now.”
The whiny undertone of her voice, reveals the resentment that she’s been trying to hide the last few times we spoke.
“I do want you to live here, Devs. But that doesn't mean that you aren't my son anymore, I—”
“What? What the fuck did you expect, huh?”
Her long, manicured hands, with pink nails filed in sharp pointy ends grab my forearm and she scolds me, making me feel like a naughty six year-old boy again.
“Devon Adam Whitbeck, language! You might be mad at me but I’m still your mother and I won't tolerate being spoken to this way!”
I shake her hand off and snap:
“It's Devon Adam Archer now, thanks to you! This is what you wanted, right?”
She changes tactic: it's fucking crazy how I’d never noticed this cold, calculating side of her until she dropped the bombshell that completely changed my life about a month ago.
“What do you want? If Nick or Caroline see you here, they're getting a fucking restraining order. They made it clear that you aren't welcome here.”
“I need money, I can't make rent. I got fired from my job last week and ...”
I sigh and make no mystery of my frustration, rolling my eyes at her and opening my wallet.
I take out a few hundred-dollar bills and shove them in her hand.
“This is all I have on me. Why did you get fired this time?”
She averts her gaze, not looking at me and picking at the edge of her white tank top.
She's wearing it paired with grey leggings and the whole outfit is so tight than I can't even call what I see a camel toe, the clothes look almost as if they were painted on her.
She's wearing no bra, so her nipples are standing to attention and her huge hoop earrings and the three necklaces, the longest of which is attached to a bejewelled cross that nestles between her tits, would be more appropriate for a trashy sixteen year old, not a thirty-eight year old woman.
Funny how I’d never noticed how white trash my mom was.
For a second, I feel a pang of guilt thinking this harshly about her but then I clench my fists and take a step towards her.
“Mom, you seriously need to leave.”
“Oh, come on, I miss you, baby. Can’t I come in and spend some time with my son?”
“You. Need. To. Leave. Nick made it more than clear that you aren't welcome here. So, now that thanks to you I lost my spot on the starting team at my old school, I can't afford to get kicked out of BHPA if I wanna get into a decent college.”
She changes her tune when she sees that I won't budge.
“You ungrateful little bastard! If it weren't for me suing your birth father, you’d still work part time as an apprentice mechanic every day after school! The least you can do is help me, since your wage isn't coming in anymore and that backpay child support doesn't look like a sure thing anymore!”
“Ungrateful? What should I be grateful for? Let's see, screwing your married boss when you were twenty and getting knocked up? Lying to me about who my father was my whole life?”
I grew up thinking that my dad was a sailor on leave Mom met in a bar and that when she found out that she was pregnant after a careless night of passion, the guy was gone and she didn't even have his last name.
This is the story I’d been told for years when the truth is that Mom had an affair with her rich, married boss.
She was fired when his wife discovered the affair and paid off by my now stepmother to disappear forever.
My mom has lived for the past eighteen years off that money and then off her rich lovers.
Apparently screwing the rich men she works for as a housemaid is a habit of hers.
This is also why she keeps getting fired or quitting her jobs: it isn't bad luck.
It's the fact that these men are always married and not every wife is as nice as Caroline, who paid her off.
Most times she’s been unceremoniously kicked out of the house and nowadays it's standard to have to sign all sorts of non-disclosure agreements, so unless she wanted to resort to blackmail, she has no recourse when she gets caught in bed with the boss.
After she was fired the last time, while I was in South Carolina for the summer, she needed money so she decided to play the ace she'd been keeping up her sleeve for all these years: me.
She sued my father, who hadn't even known that I existed, until he got served papers that summoned him to court.
My mother demanded eighteen years of backpay child support.
DNA tests confirmed that Nicholas Archer, a very famous, filthy rich real estate tycoon is my bio-dad.
The scandal has been kept under wraps somehow but instead of getting the money, she thought she was entitled to, Mom got threatened to be counter sued for an array of things: from the emotional distress she caused my dad by denying him access to his son to all sorts of felony charges if she tried to blackmail the Archers for money.
However my dad was happy to know about me: he has two older daughters and he’d always wanted a son.
I know that Caroline isn't happy that I moved in with them but Nick made it clear that if she wants to be forgiven for paying Mom off all those years ago without telling him what was going on, she’ll make me feel welcome.
Nick enrolled me into BHPA and bought me a car, gave me a platinum credit card and told me that he’d pay for any college I get accepted into.
Including my dream school: Harvard.
He set up a trust fund for me and this is where my mom got ‘screwed over’: I can't access my trust fund until I turn twenty-one and since I’m already eighteen, he got the judge to award all the child support
he owed to me and not my mom.
That money has been added to my trust fund so I can't touch it.
Nick made it clear that he wants a relationship with me and that he’ll support me until I finish my studies.
The only condition is that my mom isn't welcome in his house, ever.
He told me clearly that it would've been different if she'd told him about me when I was little.
He's basically getting revenge for being denied seeing me grow up.
Caroline, his wife, is livid but apparently they have an open marriage, so she’s actually the one in the dog house for not telling Dad about my mom's pregnancy.
These rich people are fucking weird, that's for sure.
I know that cutting my mom off seems heartless but I’m fucking mad at her for lying to me my whole life, for denying me the chance to grow up with a father and for scheming and lying to try and exploit my father for money.
And also because she's the reason why I’ve been staying away from Aubrey.
I can't let anyone at school know what a fucking mess my life is, that I’ve been a dirty secret my whole life.
That I grew up poor and where I come from.
I wouldn't be ashamed of Mom, had she been a hard working, honest woman.
But the lying, cheating, gold digging woman I discovered that she is?
I’m really ashamed of her and I know that not only people at school would laugh and gossip about me if they knew, but can you imagine what would Aubrey's family say?
My only chance to survive BHPA is to keep my real story a secret and the only weak link in the vague stuff I’ve been saying about my family is Aubrey.
If she told people how we met, people like Knox and Margaux would see that I’m a fraud and that I don't belong.
5.
Team Spirit
Aubrey
IT'S FRIDAY MORNING and everyone at school is super excited about the first game of the season tonight.
Which also means my first cheer performance, like ... ever!
Last night we had a meeting after our cheer practice to decide what each of us would do as a rally girl for our football player.
The Retribution: A High School Light Bully Romance (Beverly Hills Prep Academy Book 3) Page 6