So weed makes Gabriel pensive, then. I should have guessed, him being a sensitive, brooding rockstar and all. I nod, blowing a trail of smoke. “All the fucking time. What if I told you I’m not who you think I am?”
“I know you’re not,” Gabriel says, and I choke on the sweet smoke. But Gabriel’s smiling. He wouldn’t be smiling if he truly knew. “I know all your secrets, Mac. I know that beneath your Ice Queen facade beats the heart of an even colder Ice Queen.”
I punch him in the arm. “You’re a dick. And I’m not all ice. I’ve got layers.”
“Like an onion?” he grins.
“More like a triple-chocolate-cherry layer cake.”
He nods. “We should stop talking about food. You’re making me hungry. But yeah, you wear a mask. We all do. I don’t think you’ve taken yours off in a long time. I get that. The only time I ever took my mask off was when I played music, or when I was hanging with Dylan. But now—” Gabriel shrugs.
I notice his past tense. “You’re not playing music anymore?”
“I can’t. I haven’t played since Dylan died. We’re already late with the new album. Everyone’s on my arse to finish writing the songs – the band, the manager, the label. But I can’t. All my life, all I’ve had to do is listen and the songs appear, fully formed. It’s as if they already exist, and all I have to do is pluck them out of the air. But now, when I listen all I hear is this deafening, apocalyptic silence.”
And I wonder if that silence has something to do with the waterfall outside. And if Gabriel’s silence is anything like the silence of being a ghost inside an empty house for four years. But I don’t say that, because I don’t want to talk about myself. I just want to fill my head with THC and listen to Gabriel talk forever. “Is it because of Dylan that you can’t play?”
Gabriel takes another long toke. “Dylan’s family works on our estate – we’ve been mates since we could crawl, raising hell everywhere we went. We spent so much time hanging out together, going hunting in our forest, that I didn’t notice the things that divided us. Like, Dylan couldn’t go to my posh school. As soon as he was old enough, he had to work on the estate. He and his family came on all our fancy holidays, but they were still expected to cook and serve and ferry us around. I never thought any of that mattered, because I’m a self-obsessed wanker. And then I read his suicide note. He spent his childhood watching my spoiled arse get everything I wanted, and then when my music – our music – took off, he was still in the background cleaning up after me, holding my hair while I threw up, dragging me away from bad situations. No wonder he hated me. I’m not surprised the music died with him.”
I study Gabriel as he talks. His flirty, happy mask slides away, revealing the dark edges of his soul. His fingers tremble as he brings the joint to his mouth, and I long to rest my hand on his leg, to pull him into my arms, to kiss away the horror of what he saw in that hotel room.
“Right.” He gives me this sad smile. “I’ve spilled my guts. Your turn. Why have you been a ghost all these years, Mackenzie Malloy?”
The words trip over my tongue, desperate to escape. For four years, Gabriel has been the moonlight shining through the bars of my prison window. He sings the stars and the blood and the rain. I’d give anything to give him back the stars to sing again, even reveal my darkest secrets.
Nope. Not happening.
I snap my mouth shut and glare at him. This is why I shouldn’t be here, why getting close to people is dangerous. Especially sexy British rockstar type-people.
Gabriel leans forward, his face inches from mine. The raw beauty of his pain slips away as quickly as it appeared, tucked back in its heart-shaped box inside him. His sugary, smoky scent mingles with the pot in the air, making the warnings in my head float away as soon as they appear. Gabriel’s flirty smile draws me deeper, and I sit on my hands to stop myself from reaching up and pulling him to me, taking that barbell between my teeth and tugging it until he begs for me—
“Come to a party with me on Saturday,” he says in that cocksure way. It’s not a question. Gabriel Fallen isn’t used to hearing no. “Normally, I’d say Stonehurst parties are bollocks, but I have a feeling with you on my arm, we’ll fuck shit up.”
“Whose party?” I can barely get the words out.
“Daphne Ballantyne. She’s Noah’s ex. He’ll be pissed I invited you, which is even more reason why you should be there.”
“I’m not sure I want to further incur the wrath of Noah, in addition to all the other enemies I made.” I tear my gaze from his and rub my arm, where the words ‘I AM MACKENZIE MALLOY’ were still visible on my skin. I’d be scrubbing myself raw tonight to get the rest of it off before cheerleading trials.
Worth it.
“I’ll protect you. I’m not Noah’s bitch.” Gabriel’s face lights up with that wicked grin – the one that promised all sorts of delightful and filthy shenanigans. “I do what I want, and I want us to go to this party together.”
“I’ll go on one condition.”
“Mmmm?” Gabriel tilts his head to the side. A lock of dark hair falls over his eye, and I think I might swoon.
“I’m not talking about where I’ve been the last four years. Don’t ask. Don’t ply me with alcohol or tell me sob stories about Dylan in an attempt to make me talk. Mention my past, and I’m gone. Got it?”
“Oh, phew.” Gabriel pretends to wipe sweat off his brow. “And here I was thinking you wanted me to do something taxing, but ignoring deep-rooted emotional trauma to clear the path for superficial fun? That’s my specialty. It would be an honor to have you as my never-talk-about-anything-serious-again date. Now, this is a costume party. You got any ideas?”
I rub my hands together. “Fallen, you and I are going to overthrow kings.”
22
Mackenzie
Rich people must go to a ton of fancy-dress parties, because my so-called mother has an entire bay of her extensive closet dedicated to glittering costumes. Not a single one of them contains enough fabric. I try on several different options before settling on a gold gladiator costume with a skirt so short an anime schoolgirl would raise her eyebrows.
I surprise myself by how annoyed I am at its lack of historical accuracy. I’m a gladiator, and I don’t even have a weapon. At least I could do something about that. I hunt through a closet behind the sauna filled with unused sports gear until I find a small fishing net. I pull the end of the handle off and hide my knife inside.
Outside, in the groundskeepers shed, I find an old gardening pitchfork. I wipe off the dust and spiders and spray-paint it and the net gold to match my outfit. It’s still not historically accurate, but when I add gold spike-heeled sandals that lace up my thighs, I know I look fierce.
Plus, if anyone says shit to me, I’ll stab ’em through with my trident.
I sneak out through the maintenance shed and wait on the corner of Santa Casilda Drive for Gabriel to pick me up in his Jaguar Mark 1. Such an obnoxious Brit. He’s dressed as Julius Caesar in a purple-edged toga, with stems of laurel twisted through his hair. Tattoos encircle every inch of his exposed skin, and I swallow a lump of desire as I take him in.
Gabriel’s eyes rake over my body as I slide into the seat next to him, propping my trident and net between my legs. “What’s the net for?”
“I’m a retiarius. It’s a type of Roman gladiator who fought in the ring using a trident and net.”
“I thought you were trying for a sexy Poseidon or something. Fishing ain’t hot.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “It is when I do it.”
Gabriel tosses his head back and laughs. When he pulls his chin in again, he looks kind of shocked, like he hasn’t laughed in so long he’s forgotten what it felt like. He pulls me close, his arm around me, his fingers dancing ghosts along my bare arm.
“Well, sexy Poseidon, are you ready to cast that net?”
I nod. Gabriel’s eyes linger on mine, his face close, some internal battle raging inside him. My breath hit
ches. Is he going to… but he draws back and, with a cheeky grin, guns the engine.
Gabriel drives exactly the way I expect – like speed limits don’t apply to him, like he’s forgotten which side of the road Americans drive on. We pull up at an impressive mansion on Beaumont Hill – spread over three levels with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out across the emerald water. Bodies crowd the downstairs rooms and spill out onto the balconies and gardens. There are more people here than go to our school, I’m sure of it.
Inside, it’s wall to wall people. I recognize classmates but also faces from magazines – Instagram influencers, teen movie stars, reality TV hosts. The party spills out through sliding glass panels around an infinity pool with views over a sprawling tropical garden.
I grip Gabriel’s arm as he leads me up a wide, floating staircase made of exposed steel to the second floor. Here, the entire wall of the house is glass that retracts into the wall. At one end of the balcony, a DJ spins hard house music while on the other, two bartenders shake cocktails. For a seventeen-year-old’s party.
This is insanity.
I’ll take two.
We stand in line for the bar. I have no idea what to order, but there seem to be only two options – a pink thing or a blood-red thing. Gabriel makes small talk with the bartender while he mixes us two pink things in highball glasses. Gabriel has this ease about him, finding conversation with anyone he comes across. I wonder again why he’s decided to fixate on me.
I don’t belong here.
On the surface, I appear to fit in – my golden gladiator costume looks like it came from the same store as the sexy devil in the corner or the slutty Tardis dancing with a masked Dr. Who. I even see a blonde in the corner striking a pose with a minor film star, her naked body painted gold, a crusader’s sword gripped between her fingers. An Academy Award. Gag me with a rusty fishhook.
I feel naked, too, like they can all read my past on my skin. The things I’ve survived etched into my flesh, setting me apart, marking me as other. They’re all far too comfortable, too sure of their future. Tomorrow they’ll wake up hungover and they will still own the world. For me, every day is a tightrope walk without a safety net, and one wrong move could see my neck snap.
Gabriel hands me a drink. I sip it gingerly. It tastes like a unicorn farted into a case of top-shelf gin.
Gabriel links my arm in his and yells over the music, “Let’s find Eli.”
We walk a circuit of the room. Eyes flicker over me, their judgments burrowing into my skin. Gabriel tries to talk to some guy from school, but the music’s too loud. The bass vibrates the bones right out of my body, or maybe that’s the warmth of Gabriel’s touch turning me to jelly.
Eli’s nowhere to be seen, but we do find Noah hidden in a dark corner with Cleo draped over his lap, her lipstick smeared across his sharp cheekbones. She’s dressed as Cleopatra, of course, with a gold lamé dress and a collar of glittering diamonds. Cleo must’ve decided Noah was a worthy new target. They both glare at us, but of course Gabriel ignores them and drags me over.
“Don’t you two look cozy together,” he yells.
“Get lost, Gabe.” Noah pulls Cleo onto his lap. She wraps her arms around him and presses her lips to his. Their kiss is hot, searing. His fingers drift up her spine to tangle in her hair. I wish for a cold shower or the floor to open up and swallow me.
Noah’s eyes never leave mine. He’s kissing another woman, and all he can do is burn his hate into my retinas. A shiver runs down my spine – the kind of shiver that grows an ache between my legs.
As we walk away, Noah’s eyes follow me across the room. I know better than anyone how hate can heat the blood, can stoke a fire of longing no amount of soft touches or kind words will ever quench. Does he feel it too? The all-consuming fire that draws us together? Is that why Noah looks at me as if he’s burrowing into my soul? Is that why he can’t forget me?
We head downstairs. A group of guys pass a crack pipe around. They offer it to Gabriel, but he declines. The music rattles in my chest, my bones, my brain. We move out to the pool. There’s space to breathe out here, small groups scattered around talking, couples lying in the grass or pressed up against the walls, lips, hands pawing. I go to sit on one of the loungers, but it’s occupied by a girl in an angel costume being fucked by two guys in devil horns. I jerk away.
Gabriel laughs, pulling me close. “You act as though you’ve never been to parties like this before.”
“Sure I have,” I shout back. “I just think this one’s lame. Where’s the petting zoo?”
“Nice try, but nope, I definitely don’t think you’ve been around, because I’d have remembered that glorious arse.” Gabriel’s eyes are heavy-lidded, dangerous – just the way I like him. “Where have you been hiding away, Mackenzie Malloy?”
I wag my finger at him. “Nope. We have an agreement. You can’t ask me about my past.”
“Mmmm.” Gabriel’s lips graze my neck. “Fair enough. I can think of much better things to be doing than talking.”
He kisses me. It happens so fast that all the things I expected to stress about during the moment of my first kiss don’t even register. There’s a flicker where my heart plunges into my throat, and then Gabriel’s lips are warm and sweet on mine. The pressure has me sinking into his body, like he’s melting my limbs into liquid and I’ll slip through his fingers and end up a puddle on the floor.
I’m kissing Gabriel Fallen.
I’m kissing the mouth that sings the stars.
Gabriel’s lips are hot velvet. He presses and parts and cajoles, and my mouth is falling open, and I’m falling into him. And then his tongue is in my mouth, tasting and touching, that stud a bite of ice against the heat of him. I want him to devour me from the inside out.
Gabriel pulls back, not a jerk, but slow and languid, his eyes sweeping over me, taking in the reaction in my body – the tremble in my hands, the heat pooling in my cheeks and in… other places. His eyes cloak with darkness, and the corner of his mouth twists up into his signature smirk.
Then he plants both hands on my shoulders and pushes me into the pool.
23
Mackenzie
The cold water hits me like a freight train, forcing the air from my lungs. Icicles puncture my skin, piercing my organs. My net flies out of my hand, and I flail under the water, twisting my body to avoid impaling myself on my trident.
I struggle, gulp in water. I break the surface, gasping.
Gabriel dives in beside me, dog-paddling toward me. He smiles. “That was brilliant.”
“What did you do that for?” I shriek. And in a moment, Gabriel has undone it all, the way being with him undoes me. He’s peeled off the makeup and the fancy haircut and the designer costume, and laid me bare for the whole party to see. And they see, and they point, and they laugh, and they remind me with every peal of laughter that I’m not one of them. Anger seethes through me, irrational but justified.
Gabriel reaches me and tries to embrace me. “You looked like you need cooling off.”
There’s that smirk again. I know he’s playing with me, keeping his promise to not get too deep. I raise my hand and slap it off his face.
“Fuck you, Gabriel.” I swim to the side, trying to push myself out of the pool. The dress clings to my body, weighing me down. I slip back into the water.
Cleo stands over me as I try to shove myself out again. She grinds her stiletto into my hand. I scream and fall back, spluttering as my head goes under.
“Cleo, you bitch.” Gabriel splashes her. Cleo shrieks and leaps back, but she’s giggling. Any attention is good attention.
My lips still tingle from Gabriel’s kiss, but the burn of humiliation in my cheeks overpowers it. Gabriel sends another wave of water over the side of the pool, but Cleo’s too far back now and all he manages to do is drench the waiter who’s offering drinks. He doesn’t even apologize.
“Mackenzie, wait.” Gabriel dog-paddles toward me. Behind him, the waves of laug
hter cascade over my head. It stings worse than the freezing water.
“Leave me alone.” I dive away from him, ducking between entwined couples. I swim to the steps at the other end, kicking a guy in the chest as he tries to grab me. He leers up at me, his eyes bloodshot from some cocktail of drugs.
It’s too much.
I see red.
The red of rage, the red of losing control.
The red of blood staining my reflection.
I run toward the house, the laughter following me. The logical part of me knows on some level they’re not laughing at me. They don’t know me. But logic can’t force its way through the blood—
SMACK.
I slam into something hard.
The impact sends me sprawling across the patio. A fresh wave of laughter ripples through the crowd. My head swims. At first, I think someone has closed the glass doors on me, trapping me outside. But then I focus on the shape looming over me.
Noah, his eyes blazing, his hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Get out,” he hisses. “You don’t belong here.”
You don’t belong here.
“I was invited,” I snap back. It takes all my self-preservation to keep the sob from my voice.
Someone’s behind me. Warm hands lift me under my shoulders, hauling me to my feet. It doesn’t feel comforting with Noah bearing down on me. It makes me feel weak.
I’m not weak.
“Fuck, Mackenzie, I’m so sorry.” Gabriel’s silky voice caresses my ear. A note of distress creeps into his words. But it’s an act. I know it’s a fucking act. Gabriel pulls pain out his ass on stage every night, and we all believe it’s real.
I believed it was real.
I shrug Gabriel off me. I realize too late that one of my heels broke in the fall. I pitch forward. I throw out my hands and steady myself on the only thing that will break my fall – Noah. I grab his shoulders, my wet body pressing against him. I feel the warmth of his skin through my sodden outfit.
My Stolen Life: a high school bully romance (Stonehurst Prep Book 1) Page 12