by Eden O'Neill
Well, nothing else.
He came right toward me, a smile on his face in the sports jacket I’d helped pick out. He looked so handsome, his hair slicked back and his smile cool, and I almost forgot for a second. I forgot that my life was literally imploding. I forgot that our parents found out about us. I forgot that I cared.
Mom: The message came from your stepbrother.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jax
Something… happened. I knew when her expression changed.
I left my friends behind and their arguments that would be a nonissue in like an hour. These people loved each other, a harder love than most people would probably ever see. This talk of strippers and the like would be nothing in a matter of moments, which was why I found all this humorous.
But there was nothing funny about the way Cleo was looking at her phone now.
Something put her off, stiffened her up and had her covering her mouth. Something put unshed tears in her eyes.
I saw when our gazes collided.
Shock rippled through me at the sight of it, and I picked up my pace. I left everything else behind, needing to get to her.
And as soon as I did…
Slap!
My face in another direction, the burn from her hand seared heat into my flesh. It happened so quick it took me a second to gather my bearings.
And the record stopped.
No arguments behind me now, no more of my friends going on about bullshit that really would be a nonissue in an hour. I knew these people, knew them well, and this fight was a fake one at best. They couldn’t stay mad at each other longer than a night. Really, it was laughable.
But whatever this was with Cleo was here and now, her hand shaking, and it was still in air. She’d actually hit me.
And she came down to do it again.
I got it this time, her wrist, and she tugged at me. “Cleo. What—”
She jerked away, her heels stumbling on the deck and her Rapunzel hair falling over her shoulders. She looked beautiful in her own quirky way, a dress with so many ruffles she drowned in them. They covered her neck like some Amish nun, completely gorgeous in the weirdest fucking way. I’d think more about it if she hadn’t tried to flee away from me, and in her stumble, she hit the yacht’s rails. I grabbed her.
“Let go!”
“No.” I tugged her back. “What’s wrong with you?”
She shoved me, shoved me so hard I might have fallen with her in my hands had I not been stable. I ensnared her wrists, pulling them down, and at this point, all the fighting behind me really had stopped.
My friends lingered on in the distance, watching us. More than one looked on the cusp of jumping in, but I held up a hand.
I shook her. “What’s wrong with you!”
Out of my arms when she jerked away, cringing. “Was it always a game? A sick fucking game?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This, you asshole!”
She shoved her phone in my face. I took it, and she let me look only to see myself.
To see us together.
It’d been the picture of us I’d taken on her phone. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, you don’t understand.” She nodded, nothing but sarcasm in the statement. She tossed her hand out. “Look who it was sent to.”
I read her messages, text messages back and forth from her mom and my dad. It was a group thread.
They’d gotten the picture?
“What the fuck?” I jerked my head up. “How the fuck did they get it?”
At this point, she appeared on the cusp of slapping me again, her eyes cold, and this time, she allowed her tears to fall. They blinked down, her cheeks red. “You’re so full of shit. Look at that last line.”
I did, instantly twitching.
Her mom accused… me, but before I could say anything, Cleo grabbed her phone.
She darted around me and I pushed between Knight and LJ to get to her. They’d had their girls, crisis averted as expected. They currently hugged them against them, confusion and shock on all their faces. Knight shook his head. “Buddy?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t know what any of this fucking meant. I got the same looks from both Royal and December. They were holding hands so obviously they were good too. Royal looked on the cusp of saying something, but I had no time.
“Cleo.” I got her hand, managing to twist her around before she left the boat. She couldn’t leave. Not like this. “Cleo, you can’t honestly think this was me. I don’t even have that picture—”
She took back her hand. “Let me see your phone.”
“What?”
“Let me see your phone, Jaxen.”
I did only to prove to her this was crazy, finding it in my pocket. She was going to see this was all some big mistake. That her mom and my dad had misunderstood.
I pulled out the device in silence, well aware the entire boat was looking at us. Despite knowing I was innocent, the blood rushed to my head.
Then had to have drained from my face at what I saw.
My screen, like my entire screen, was filled with messages from my dad. He kept asking why I’d sent what I had and how I could do such a thing.
I unlocked the device to find more of the latter, more accusations on his end. He said I sent the photo to my stepmom, but that was bullshit. I didn’t have this picture and I didn’t even have my stepmom’s number.
I scrolled away despite what I’d seen. I was innocent. I was and would find nothing.
Until I didn’t find nothing, until I did see a message thread from a number I didn’t recognize.
I opened it up with a dry mouth, text messages over and over again with confusion. They asked me why I would do such a thing? They ask me what was the meaning of this. I scrolled up to find what this was, a picture I’d sent.
A picture of Cleo and me.
But that didn’t make sense. I didn’t have this picture, and before I could make sense of it, my phone was being taken from me.
Cleo had it, studying it, and though she looked at the device like she needed to confirm, so much despair cloaked her features.
I honestly thought she’d keel over where she stood. She actually visibly paled, holding her stomach like she would be sick. She threw my phone against the deck, instantly shattering the screen.
“Cleo, I didn’t do this.” Panicked now, panicked despite what I knew. That I didn’t do this, that this was completely fucked up. I crossed in front of her. “I don’t know how your mom got sent that picture, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t even have that picture. I sent it to that asswipe you went out with from your phone.”
“Because you didn’t have ample opportunity to take it from mine. Jesus, Jaxen.” She shook her head, blinking down more tears. “How many opportunities did you have? How many times had we fucked? You could have easily taken it while I slept.”
Silence around us, again everyone watching on. At this point, I noticed some of the girls cover their mouths, and a couple of my friends looked away. The guys had accused me of being with a girl before making it out to them today.
I guessed they’d been right.
Forcing myself to ignore their response, I kept my attention where it mattered.
“But I didn’t,” I pleaded, trying to make her look at me. “Someone must have gotten my phone.”
“Yeah, that’s rich.”
“No, that has to be it.” I stopped her again, a hand out. “I must have put my phone down. Actually, I did. We were at the club tonight, and I didn’t have it the whole time.”
I had left it on the bar at one point, for actually most of the night before I’d realized.
I shook my head. “Cleo, that has to be it. I left it on the bar. I hadn’t even realized it was gone until before we were about to come out here. I had to get it from the bartender and he had to get it from the lost and found.”
The complete truth, no lie. Someone had clearly set me up he
re.
But my stepsister looked no closer to buying it. If anything, she only hugged her arms closer to her body. Her expression twisted. “You’re trying to tell me that someone got your phone and sent that horrible photo to our parents with the sheer intent of screwing you? Screwing us?”
I knew how that sounded, but that’s exactly what I was saying. My lips parted. “I know how that sounds.”
“Yeah, like bullshit.”
She clipped my shoulder, but she couldn’t run from this. I was fucking innocent.
“Cleo, I didn’t do this. Please. Just—” Another hit to my arm. Another shove to my chest. She would have gone for my face too, but I dodged. “Cleo, I’m fucking innocent!”
“Oh, you’re beyond that,” she said, sniffling. Staring back at my friends, she cringed. “I’m sorry I ruined your party, December. I’m just…”
As if ashamed, she fled, and I made steps to move, but I was grabbed.
“Buddy, you probably shouldn’t—”
I shoved Knight off me. “Don’t get in my way. I didn’t do this shit she’s accusing me of.”
“But it looks like you’re guilty, man.” Royal, his arm around December. He squeezed her. “Until it doesn’t, you don’t have anything.”
Objective, logical. He was right, of course, always right.
I fucking roared, punching the air. I didn’t fucking have anything. I did look guilty.
And maybe my shit, shit with her was finally coming full circle. I’d done a lot to that girl in the past.
I guessed it was just catching up with me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jax
Cleo wasn’t hearing me out. She wasn’t hearing anything at all from me. I’d heard from everyone else, of course. My dad. Even my moms had reached out. My dad, I guessed, had called them, let them know what happened and about “my behavior.” Those had actually been his words.
And so a years-long silence between all my parents was finally broken.
I’d been the one to bring their worlds together, and though I did believe that would come eventually, not in this way. I’d wanted to screw my father, ruin his world. Crazy enough, I’d accomplished that mission. I just hadn’t thought about the collateral damage. I hadn’t thought about myself.
And I definitely hadn’t thought about her.
Cleo had completely ghosted me, and yeah, I knew her routine. I found her several times on campus, studying her feet as she always did. She hugged her books and did her thing, and every time I thought I should make my presence known, I always held back. I just let her be. I let her live her life. I was still looking very guilty in her eyes, and until I wasn’t, I really couldn’t go back to her. I couldn’t talk to her.
I did have nothing.
Time headed into midterms after weeks of hell, weeks of trying to forget that night I busted shit up with Cleo and threw a bomb into both my friends’ bachelor and bachelorette parties. Of course, both Royal and December told me it was okay, that they were only sad at how things had turned out. They had no idea about Cleo and me. None of the guys did. I’d kept it pretty quiet. They thought I’d still been trying to handle her.
Not that I’d fallen for her.
Which I had like a sick fucking puppy. I wanted that girl and was stupid for wanting that girl. She was nothing like me, fragile and just good. I wasn’t good. I was the villain. I was the head case who still wanted to destroy my father’s life, but I was in deep fucking feelings with his stepdaughter. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I’d destroyed that fucking cake. I put a bomb through my life. I’d gotten rid of the girl.
Only to long for her in her absence.
I decided to go home after midterms, just for the weekend because I needed a goddamn break. A break from fuck ups, a break from seeing Cleo walking campus and not being able to do anything about it. I needed to just be home so that’s what I did.
I took a break.
I’d arrived to the Midwest as the seasons started to change, the end of fall upon us and the cusp of winter threatening its chill. Maywood Heights bared naked trees, multi-colored leaves breezing about the sharply cool air. There were no beaches and absolutely no golden sand. In fact, the temperature switch had been so jarring I thought my dick would snap off the moment I left the airport. Forty degrees felt like sub below after being in constant heat and I knew it’d only get colder once I did get home.
Both my moms were home this weekend. In fact, they said they would be since I told them I’d be in for the weekend. They were busy, but made time to be home with me there.
I was greeted with disappointed faces and distant hugs when I arrived, more than one conversation had before I got there. They’d let me have it for what I did to my stepsister, my biological father’s portrayal of events the only side they had. I hadn’t heard the conversation between them, of course, but I was under the assumption he felt I’d taken advantage of my stepsister. I doubt Cleo told him that. Because that’s not how she felt.
At least, I hoped that wasn’t how she felt.
Honestly, I didn’t know her position. She hadn’t talked to me, not answering my calls or texts. I stopped after a week or so following the parties. Again, I looked guilty and hadn’t seen the point.
Both moms gave me what they had the minute I arrived through the door, but they left me alone until they called me for dinner that night. I hadn’t wanted to go downstairs, hadn’t seen the point. They’d said what they had to say, what they believed, and I had nothing else to add. I was paying for my sins, sins that had been true and ones they didn’t even know about.
“Baby, would you please come down for dinner?”
Mama behind my door, Mama trying to coax me out. The peacemaker and kind-hearted spirit that kept this family together. She was our foundation here, and she wanted me to come downstairs.
So I listened.
She was probably the only one who could get me out. That was probably why Mom had sent her. My biological mother had barely been able to look at me after I’d gotten home.
Shooting a basket into the hoop attached to the door of my childhood room, I forced myself up and opened the door for my adoptive mother.
Mama was beautiful, a woman of a honey brown complexion with voluminous curls who appeared half her age on even the days she said she looked tired. Point-blank, my adoptive mother was a knock-out, was from her angelic smile to the glow of her hazel eyes, and I’d had to check more than one of my asshole friends for commenting on such over the years. The comments had started when I was about thirteen and ended that same goddamn year. This was my mom, and eventually, my friends respected that. She’d obviously knocked my biological mother on her ass as well. More than ten years separated the two in Mama’s favor.
She held the door frame. “I was beginning to forget your eyes, sweet love.”
Found that hard to believe. They no doubt appeared dead and cold once I’d arrived through that door today. At least, that’s what they looked like whenever I stared in the mirror these days. I was stressed the fuck to hell lately.
And I didn’t hide it.
Where Mama usually greeted me with a smile, I noticed this time it wasn’t there. Her hand came out, making me move into stride with her. Somewhere along the way, I’d gotten bigger than her, looking like a beast and she the kid. She rubbed my back. “Your mom wants us all to sit together so we can talk. As a family?”
Fucking hell.
I figured they’d both said enough whenever I got here, but whatever.
Shrugging, I prepared myself for the worst, but did go downstairs with her. I was scrubbing into my hair by the time we made it into the kitchen. And though my biological mother was there, Sherry, she wasn’t sitting at the table by herself.
Familiar eyes stared up at me, mostly because I’d seen them every day. We had the same goddamn eyes.
We had the same goddamn everything.
My father’s heart was just as dead and cold as myself, and I growled, com
ing between both him and my biological mother.
“The fuck is he doing here?” I charged, but Mama pulled me back.
“Jaxen,” Mama scolded, shaking her head. She put a hand on mine before tugging me back and making me take a seat between both herself and Mom. Mom was playing with her hands, staring at them.
And I swore to God she’d aged in a day.
Obviously, my mom was a little older than Mama, but she’d never appeared so tired looking. Mom had dark creases under her pale blue eyes, her blond hair tied up but bunched in a messy way. She rubbed her arms without words.
And she hadn’t said anything despite me cursing.
Mom was the first to hand me my ass for that shit, always had been. It’d been Mama who never scolded. But now, the roles seemed to have reversed.
Mom opened her hands. “I asked your dad here today to talk. We need to talk. As a whole family, we need to talk.”
This man wasn’t my family, though, and in Florida, he’d made that all too clear. He’d chosen his own family.
Dad sat there quiet now, staring at the grains in the table. He had fingers pressed to his lips, a part of the action without being a part of it.
With them all around me, I thought, well, would you look at that? Here they all were to tell me about my shit. Tell me how disappointed they were in me for what had happened under Dad’s watch. I’d get to hear it now for how I’d taken advantage of my stepsister straight on.
“I messed up, Jaxen.”
But then Mom said that, Mom who couldn’t seem to look at me in that moment. Jaw tight, she continued to squeeze and massage her arms. “And you’re suffering for it.”
So confused as I looked at her, I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
Silence next to me, no words on her end and Mama reached behind me to squeeze her wife’s shoulders.
