Our Cracked Pieces (The Pieces Series Book 2)

by M. E. Clayton

  Blake flipped him off. “Fuck you, dude.”

  Thad grinned. “Nah, dude. Haven’t you heard? I’m a virgin.” At that, Josh and I joined in on the laughter.

  “Well, not all of us have steady pussy,” Blake smirked, looking my way.

  “It’s because you’re ugly as fuck,” I shot back, but of course, it was a lie. While I had black hair and grey eyes, Blake was your perfect blonde, blue-eyed, All-American guy. If he weren’t such a good dude, I could see people hating on his classic looks. Josh was blonde, too, but his was more of a cross between dark blond and light brown, and he came with hazel eyes.

  “You’re all ugly as fuck,” Thad snorted, but we all knew better.

  We were a good-looking group, if I did say so myself, but I could be objective enough to say that Thad was probably the best-looking out of us all. Having reached our growing potential, Thad was already six-foot-six, on his way to play professional basketball or football. He was equally good at both. And the guy didn’t know the meaning of regular cornrows. No. He always had his hair braided up in some elaborate pattern that had to be hell on his mother’s fingers. But his look always had the girls running after him like he was a god, and I guess he was. He was on his way to being a sports superstar.

  “On a serious note, have you decided what you and Vanessa are going to do about college yet?” Josh asked, and the question made me feel uncomfortable.

  Vanessa Beasley and I have been dating since the summer before our junior year, and as cliché as it might sound, she really was the perfect girlfriend. A knockout redhead with a body curved in all the right places, Vanessa had it all. She was beautiful, popular, positive, and a sizzling fuck. While we hadn’t been each other’s first, we’d had plenty of firsts during our relationship, and the girl never failed to make my dick hard with just one look. And during all those firsts that we had explored together, our experimenting had turned Vanessa into an anal freak, and she took my cock in her ass like a hot slut whenever we ended up in bed together.

  Vanessa Beasley was every teenage boy’s wet fucking dream.

  But lately, she’s been distant, and every time I tried to talk to her about it, she’d brush it off as nerves. We were going to separate colleges, and her excuse was that she was anxious about all the new changes coming our way. And though plausible, did I buy it?

  Not a bit.

  Whatever was going on with Vanessa, it wasn’t college. We already agreed to do the long-distance thing, so I wasn’t buying the so-called nerves excuse. Truth be told, I had some suspicions that she was cheating on me, but no proof.

  The problem with Vanessa was that she thought I was like every other teenage boy across America. She thought I didn’t pay attention. She thought I was all about my friends, my future, and making sure my dick got enough action. And while she wasn’t entirely wrong about that, that’s not all I was about. If I cared about someone, I paid attention. And I sure as fuck paid attention to the girl who I thought I was in love with for the past two years.

  So, when her behavior and routine started to change, I paid extra attention because I wasn’t fucking stupid. Plus, her excuses for this or that could use some work.

  However, I didn’t have any proof, only a gut feeling, and I wasn’t going to throw away a two-year relationship without proof.

  “We’re going to do long-distance,” I answered, and every guy at the table visibly winced.

  “Good luck with that, man,” Blake said, and I knew he genuinely meant it, even if he thought it was going to be impossible.

  I shrugged. “It’ll work out, or it won’t,” I said. “It’s not that complicated.”

  “Damn, that’s cold,” Thad remarked.

  I looked over at him. “It’s not cold. It’s just fact,” I argued. “I’m not going to complicate it with shit that’s beyond our control. She’ll miss me, and I’ll miss her, but since there’s nothing we can do about it, we’ll either suck it up, or we won’t.”

  “Well, I won’t be mad at you if you spend this last school break spending it inside your girl before you guys head in different directions,” Josh said, an understanding smile spreading across his face.

  “Even if I wanted to spend every night with Vanessa, it’s getting harder and harder to find places to be alone,” I replied. Like every teenager who lived with their parents, it was hard to find the time and place for all-nighters.

  There was also the fact that she’s been keeping the shop closed more often than not lately. And that was another reason that had me suspecting she might be cheating. Vanessa’s never been timid about sex, and her sex-drive rivaled that of most guys. She was always ready for it. But lately, she was tired, or not feeling well, or busy.

  Sure, she was.

  The only positive thing I could say about my suspicions was that, if she was cheating, I could count myself lucky that I was a firm believer in condoms. We’ve never had sex without one, and if she was cheating, thank fucking God. Even though I knew condoms weren’t one-hundred percent effective, knowing I used them without fail sure did help me sleep at night.

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Two months isn’t that far away, guys. We all have a lot of shit we need to get in order.”

  “Amen,” Thad agreed.

  The rest of lunch was spent talking about our principal, Mr. Renard, and his new toupee.

  Thank God.

  Chapter 3

  Rowan~

  The smell of bacon was an unmistakable one. And it smelled so good that, even if you weren’t hungry, you got hungry for bacon.

  Clad in my pajamas, I did my business in the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and threw my blonde hair up in a bun without bothering to brush it. It was a Saturday morning, and bacon was being cooked in the kitchen. Who cared about my hair?

  My feet silent on the living room carpet, my brother didn’t hear me making my way into the kitchen. It wasn’t until I was pulling out one of the kitchen table chairs that Grayson turned around to see who had joined him.

  “You’re up kind of early, aren’t you?” I asked. “Thought you weren’t due in until midnight?” Grayson smiled, and I had to reluctantly cut my friends some slack. The guy wasn’t completely ugly.

  Where Grayson and I both had our mother’s blue eyes, I had her blonde hair, but he had Dad’s dark brown hair. And where me and Mom were pint-sized at only five-foot-four, Dad and Grayson were both six-foot-one. Grayson was also two years my senior, putting him at twenty to my eighteen.

  The funny thing about my coloring was that it made our friendship foursome a poster for diversity. I was the blonde with the typical blue eyes. Mandy was the brunette with brown eyes and petite as all get out. Carly was our tall redhead with the usual green eyes. And Tammy was our black-haired, brown-eyed beauty. You had a White blonde, a Black brunette, an Asian raven, and a Ginger. But, damn, my friends were beautiful.

  “I think I might be wired from the flight,” Grayson answered. “I’ll probably crash hard tonight.”

  I glanced around. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “They had some early morning volunteer thing,” he said. “Dad mentioned it on the drive home from the airport last night.”

  “So, all this is for little, old me?” I teased.

  Grayson turned back around to face the stove. “Don’t get used to it,” he teased back.

  Staring at my brother’s back, watching him make me breakfast as one of the first things he wanted to do today, I was so tempted to come clean. I was so tempted to spill my guts and have him make it all go away.

  But I couldn’t.

  For the same reason I haven’t told the girls, I didn’t want to burden Grayson with a problem that was no one’s fault but my own. At eighteen, I was an adult. I was going off to college in a few months with the understanding that I was adult enough to handle my own shit. It was going to be left to me to fix my own shit, and that should start now, right?

  Besides, if I told Grayson, there was a good chance I’d be ruining the re
st of his life. My brother had a quiet temper, but it was a violent one. I’ve only seen him lose his shit a handful of times in our lives, and none of those times had been pretty. Grayson had a strong protective streak, and he wasn’t afraid to come out swinging if the occasion called for it. Looking at him though, you’d never guess it. He came across as the nice, wholesome type.

  Only a few people knew the real Grayson Lewis.

  And we were close enough that I knew he was making me breakfast because he genuinely wanted to, and it was his way of showing me how much he missed me. Grayson was one of the good ones, and I couldn’t imagine telling him the truth if I didn’t have to.

  “How’s Leah? Leanne?”

  Grayson snorted. “Lena. And she’s history.”

  “What happened? She couldn’t handle dating all your awesomeness?”

  Grayson reached up and took two plates from the cabinet that was overhead and started placing the food on the plates. Bacon, waffles, and hash browns, Grayson didn’t screw around when he was making breakfast. But he always did take cooking seriously.

  I jumped up and headed towards the fridge for the orange juice. When I brought the carton out, Grayson was already setting two glasses next to our plates. I poured while Grayson sat, and finally answered, “She didn’t think a high school teacher was ambitious enough and kept trying to get me to change my major.”

  “Wow. What an asshole,” I said before shoving a fork full of waffles in my mouth.

  Grayson shrugged. “It was only three weeks out of my life,” he said. “It wasn’t like it was love.”

  “I can totally see her being the type to make you take off your shoes before entering her home,” I grumbled, mad at the unknown tart who thought my brother’s life plan wasn’t good enough.

  We ate in silence for a bit before Grayson asked, “And what about you?”

  “What about me?” I asked, my mouth still happy with the flavor of bacon I’d just devoured.

  My brother regarded me shrewdly. “What’s been going on with you.”

  I shrugged. “Nothing,” I lied. “Just…you know, getting ready for graduation.”

  “Nothing else?”

  My fork paused halfway to my mouth. I looked up at him, and he was still looking at me intently. “Why do you ask?” I set the fork down and eyed him back.

  “Mom’s been calling me a lot lately,” he said. “She’s worried about you.”

  My surprise was genuine. I’d had no idea that my mom has been calling Grayson with concerns about me. “Why?”

  Those blue eyes of his, focused on my face for any signs of lying, narrowed. “She said you seem…out of sorts lately.”

  My weight fell against the back of the chair. “Well, of course I’m feeling out of sorts, Grayson. I’m…I’m graduating from high school in two months. Then, after that, I’m heading off to college. It’s a big deal. These huge life changes are a big deal, and…well, maybe I’m feeling anxious. But that’s normal, right?”

  Grayson’s face softened as he bought my bullshit hook, line, and sinker. “Of course, it’s normal to feel anxious, Row,” he said. “But you really don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I don’t understand, though.” I shook my head, confused. “Why did Mom call you? Why didn’t she ask me what was wrong?”

  “I don’t know, Rowan,” he said. “She just said you seemed sad and preoccupied lately.”

  The weight on my chest felt real. All this time I thought I’d been doing a great job of hiding my depressed moods, but first the girls mention they’d been noticing, and now this. Apparently, I wasn’t a good of an actress as I’d been giving myself credit for.

  “I’m fine, Grayson,” I said, the lies just coming nicely along. “Just…nervous thoughts.”

  He went back to scooping up food on his fork. “Well, have a talk with Mom, will you? Let her know she doesn’t need to worry.”

  I nodded, and went back to eating my breakfast, satisfied that my brother believed me.

  Two more months.

  Chapter 4

  Lorcan~

  It was Saturday morning, and I’d slept like the fucking dead. After another shitting Friday of Mr. Hostettler’s crap, I had not been in the mood for people. So, when Vanessa had insisted on going to a spring break kickoff party without me, it had led to a huge fight that ended with her hanging up on me, but not before calling me a selfish asshole. I, in turn, had vented to Josh, and being the best friend that he was, he had come over with an eighteen pack of beer.

  After drinking the entire thing-nine beers each, thanks to his older brother, Lance-Josh and I had passed out around one in the morning, and the guy just barely left about an hour ago. Now, fresh out of the shower, I was feeling rested without the slightest bit of a hangover.

  Heading into the kitchen for some food, I saw Molly sitting at the kitchen island, typing away on her laptop. “Hey, Molly Doll,” I said.

  She didn’t look up once. “Hey.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her eyes still glued to her computer. “Like three hours ago.” She jerked her head towards the microwave. “There are a couple of egg and sausage sandwiches in the microwave for you. You just have to heat them up.” Molly wasn’t much of a cook, but the sweet girl tried. However, breakfast was the one meal she could do.

  “Thanks.”

  “Also, Mom and Dad are leaving this afternoon for Hartford. Some medical conference or something. They’ll be back on Wednesday.”

  Lorcan Cavanaugh Sr. was a very gifted neurosurgeon, and the entire world knew it. The man was brilliant, dedicated, and determined. All traits he had instilled in his children.

  Our mother, Emilia Cavanaugh, was a homemaker and a damn good one. She took running the Cavanaugh household seriously, and she did it with pride. She was the perfect physician’s wife, and a damn good mother.

  Compared to a lot of rich households, Molly and I had no complaints. While our parents were constantly busy, they were still good parents. Their house, their cars, their money, their success, and their prestige hadn’t turned them into assholes.

  Well, not to me and Molly, at any rate.

  I reheated the breakfast sandwiches as the sounds of clacking keyboard keys filled the kitchen. “What are you working on?”

  “A new blog entry.” Molly was a social media guru, but not in the self-absorbed way that most internet fame seekers were. Molly had a very popular blog that focused on building women up instead of tearing them down.

  Pulling the sandwiches from the microwave, I walked over to the island, and started eating my leftover breakfast. The only sound in the kitchen was Molly typing away, and though loud, it still felt peaceful.

  After a few more moments of typing, Molly stopped and announced, “Done.”

  Now that she wasn’t consumed with her blog, I asked, “How are you doing? Any plans for the week?”

  “Not really,” she replied. “Maryanne and Crystal want to take a trip up to The Bay, but I’m not trying to get arrested for any underage anything.”

  Molly was one year younger than me, and a junior in high school. And though our parents’ money could buy us out of a lot of trouble, we respected our parents, and tried hard not to act like entitled assholes. Molly more so.

  Standing at only five-foot-five, Molly Cavanaugh was a force to be reckoned with. She was smart, fierce, funny, popular, and had a way about her. She had charisma and people liked her. From the ages of three to ninety-three, people just liked Molly.

  She was also the prettiest thing around. Of course, that was me being bias, but Molly had a smile that made people feel like they were at home. And I wasn’t being conceited in saying that we both looked alike. We’d taken after our father with his black hair and grey eyes, and it was obvious we were siblings. Especially, only being one year apart.

  “I think I’m staying home, too.”

  She quirked her head to the side. “Problems with Vanessa again?”

&n
bsp; With our parents busy all the time, Molly and I were close. We took care of each other and actually spent a lot of time together, just hanging out. I liked my sister, and she liked me back. So, we shared things most siblings our age wouldn’t. And as much as I trusted Josh, Molly was the person I trusted most in the world.

  “I think she’s cheating on me,” I admitted, right before polishing off the final bite of my second breakfast sandwich.

  Grey eyes that matched mine narrowed. “I’ll kick her fucking ass,” Molly threatened, and I believed her. Molly may be petite, but she was a scrappy little thing.

  I laughed. “No need,” I told her. “I’m pissed at the idea, but…I don’t know, Molly Doll. I’m finding that I don’t feel as heartbroken at the possibility as I should be, considering.” I had a million reasons to be angry at Vanessa for cheating-if she was-but I was finding it hard to conjure up some feelings of heartache over it. That early realization made me wonder if this was Fate’s way of telling me heading to separate colleges was the right idea when it came to Vanessa.

  Molly shook her head, disgusted. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why not just break up with you? Why cheat?” She leaned her elbows on the counter and threw one finger up. “In fact, right now would be the perfect time to break up with you. High school senior relationships all over the world are breaking up right now with so many people going off to college. You and Vanessa going to separate colleges is her perfect excuse.”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea,” I told her honestly. “Maybe she just doesn’t want any drama.”

  My sister raised one brow and regarded me coolly. “Because there would be?”

  “Depends,” I replied. “While I’d never fight over a cheating girlfriend, I might beat the fuck out of the guy she was cheating with, if he knows about me.”

  “That’s fair,” she conceded. “And he’d deserve it.”

  Not wanting to talk about Vanessa anymore, I asked, “So, what are your plans for the rest of the day?”