Hope was a funny thing that way. A real cruel bitch.
But deep inside, I knew.
My parents were the only ones who acted surprised when Cary didn’t show up. The only ones who felt they needed to perform that kind of charade.
But we all performed our charades sometimes, right?
I tucked the album away and went to get my brother a coffee.
* * *
When I approached the closed double doors to Cary’s studio, I found yesterday’s coffee, still full and cold, sitting on the floor. Exactly how I’d found the one from the day before, yesterday. In the mug I gave him.
Good Morning, Handsome.
I picked it up, dumped out the coffee in the kitchen sink, and washed the mug. Then I sent Cary a text to let him know I was running out to the coffee shop.
He didn’t respond.
I was back to the house within forty minutes, and I left the fresh coffee outside the studio doors for him.
It was just past ten a.m., and my work for the day was done. I’d barely been employed by my brother for forty-eight hours, and already I’d given up on trying to find things to do for him.
I couldn’t exactly go out, though. It was a workday and my brother was paying me, whether or not there was actually work to do. Which meant I should be here in case there ever was any.
I’d spent the bulk of the last two days avoiding the backyard. I hadn’t even touched the pool yet. It was another gorgeous day… and I was gonna die of sheer boredom if the rest of my summer rolled out like this.
I really wanted to hang by the pool, but no way was I doing it alone, in a bikini, while Xander was around. Not because he’d ogle me. Because if he saw me while I was wearing a bikini and he didn’t ogle me… it would make me feel like shit.
Invisible shit.
Sad, but true.
So I decided to invite my girls over. Then at least I wouldn’t have to be alone when he ignored me.
I told Cary what I was doing by text; that was the rule. I was allowed to have friends over, but only if he knew about it.
I changed into a bikini and pulled my T-shirt over it. Then I whipped together some snacks, in hopes that my girlfriends and I could claim the pool area before Xander did. Lucky for me, Rose did my brother’s grocery shopping once a week, and she knew what I liked; the cupboards had been stocked with my favorite salty snacks.
I kept checking out the windows, but I hadn’t glimpsed Xander yet today.
When my girlfriends, Shayla and Larissa, arrived, we headed out back together with the snacks. And booze. Drinking on the job seemed permissible under the circumstances, as long as I kept it to a minimum.
The poolhouse door was closed and Xander was nowhere in sight as we approached the pool. But I’d already checked, and his car was in the driveway.
There was a row of lounge chairs facing the pool and I chose one in the middle; I made sure my girls would be flanking me like protective shields whenever Xander emerged from the poolhouse with whatever skank he probably dragged home last night. I’d heard his car pull in at like two in the morning, while I was watching Saw on the couch in the living room—because that’s what I did at night when I couldn’t sleep: watched horror movies alone in the dark and scared the crap out of myself.
No idea why, but I’d always found it oddly soothing.
Shayla had, as usual, arrived with music already pumping from the Beats Pill she’d shoved in her giant tote purse. She set the speaker on a table by the pool, turned it up, and some dirty Megan Thee Stallion song filled the summer air.
In Shay’s world, if it wasn’t hella dirty, it wasn’t music.
She immediately peeled off her dress and said, “Where’s Cary?” She tossed the dress aside with a little too much enthusiasm, smoothing her long, straight strawberry-blonde hair over one shoulder. As she stood there in her electric-turquoise string bikini, her pale, slim body struck an unnecessarily sexy pose.
Larissa rolled her eyes at me.
“In the house,” I muttered, setting the snacks on the tables between the lounge chairs. It grated me when Shayla purred my brother’s name like that. He was twelve years older than her and she’d only met him a few times, but she said his name like they had Unlawful Carnal Knowledge of each other or something.
“Hmm.” Shayla took a good look around, like she was making sure she hadn’t missed Cary sunbathing, naked, over in the garden.
Larissa gave me a sympathetic smile as she slipped off her sundress.
I’d met Shayla at Westmont Academy, where we’d both gone to high school, although she was two years ahead of me. Westmont was an exclusive private girls’ school over on Vancouver Island, tucked away in the woods by a lake. There was one incredibly long, boring road to get to it, though you could also fly in and land on the lake, and some students did. Before the road was built, back in the eighties, everyone had to fly in.
That exclusive.
There were mostly two kinds of girls at Westmont. The ones who were good at everything and got lavished with scholarships and awards. And the ones, like Shay, who didn’t actually have to be good at anything because their parents were insanely rich. A lot of people probably thought I fit into that category. But I actually fit into a third and shittier category.
The ones no one wanted.
I’d gone to Westmont because my parents wanted to retire, travel and generally enjoy life, and having a kid at home got in the way of that. That fourteen year gap between my brother and me had caught up with them when I was about thirteen. They spun it to me like they wanted me to have the best education, but I knew having me around was putting a dent in their social calendars. All their friends were semi-retired and traveling. My parents weren’t rich; at least, not without my brother’s money. But my brother stepped up to pay the insanely high tuition.
In their eyes, Cary was nothing but a raving success at life.
In most people’s eyes, really.
Within a week of my arrival at Westmont, it had spread through the entire school that my brother was a rock star. And teenage girls could be merciless with such information.
Some of them went out of their way to make it clear to me that I wasn’t “special” just because my brother was a rock star. While the others went out of their way to make it clear to me that my brother was totally fuckable.
Fortunately for me, Shayla was in a similar personal hell. Her half-brother, Johnny, was also a rock star, and we’d bonded in commiseration.
Then, when I was sixteen, I’d met another little-sister-of-a-rock-star, Angeline, at a particularly shitty party. Angie had introduced me and Shayla to Larissa, whose big brother was a record producer. And the four of us—Shayla, Larissa, Angie and I—had formed a secret club in jest.
The Lil Brat Society.
We even had a (secret) name, thanks to Larissa’s brother, Trey, inadvertently naming us.
It was no longer a joke, though. We’d all become super tight friends, and something of a support group for one another. And Angie, long ago, had become my very best friend.
“Where’s Angeline?” Larissa asked, as she settled onto a lounge chair to the right of mine in her pale-pink one-piece. Larissa was pretty much the physical opposite of Shayla; curvy figure, dark skin, and dark, curly hair. And a pretty face.
Honestly, Shayla made up for what she lacked in prettiness with confidence.
“She can’t come.” I sat down, shrugging off my T-shirt. “Her dad’s doing his bring-your-lazy-daughter-to-work thing again this week.”
“Ugh,” Shayla said. “Real estate?” She was rubbing sunscreen on her body, slowly, still looking around—for my brother, probably. “Part of his latest campaign to help her ‘find her passion’? When’s he gonna realize she’s never getting a job? Especially in real estate.”
“Yeah. Probably not.” My best friend Angie was twenty-four years old and had never worked a day in her life. Her parents were pretty wealthy, and like Shayla, she didn’t really have to.
“And where’s your new pool boy?” Shay settled onto the lounge chair on my left, stretching out gratuitously, probably in case Cary looked out a window or something. Fortunately, none of his windows looked out onto this end of the backyard.
“I don’t know. I guess he’ll be by sometime…”
“It’s so adorable he’s cleaning your pool this summer.”
“I actually love that his dad made him get a real job,” Larissa said.
“Aaand one that involves him taking off his shirt in your backyard,” Shayla added, pulling a bottle of wine out of her purse.
“Yeah,” I said. “Lucky me.”
My new “pool boy” was my brother’s next door neighbor, Stephan. His dad had indeed made him get a real job this summer, before he went off to college. He was now my brother’s pool boy, and by default, mine, too.
“Lucky him,” Larissa said. “He’s so in love with you.”
“He isn’t.”
“He so is,” Shayla said, pouring wine into three glass tumblers for us. “Remember that time he broke his nose when the poolhouse door hit him in the face, because he was staring at you in your bikini? So. Epic.”
“Uh-huh…” Who could forget?
“Ugh,” Larissa groaned in sympathy. “Poor guy.”
I glanced at the poolhouse. The shades were closed but the windows were open. I hadn’t told my friends yet that Xander was back.
And I really had no idea if he could hear any of this.
“I wonder if he’s embarrassed having to clean the pool now that you’ve moved in…” Shayla went on, handing us each a glass of thick purple wine.
“Why should he be embarrassed? It’s a job.” I sniffed my glass. “What are we drinking?”
“It’s blueberry port. My dad brought like a case of it back from some winery. It’s amaze.”
“Cheers.” I sipped, and it was amazing.
“Hmm…” Shayla sipped. “You can use this to your advantage, you know…”
“Use what?”
“His vulnerability. Maybe he’s all self-conscious about being your pool boy, and you can make him feel better.”
“How do you make everything sound dirty?”
“How are you not hot to screw him? He’s cute.”
“So… I’m supposed to want to screw him just because he’s cute?”
“Yes!”
“No,” Larissa said flatly.
The two of them were like the devil and the angel on my shoulders.
In personality, Shay and Larissa were even more opposite than they looked. Like polar opposite. Without Angie here to balance things out, it could get weird.
Sometimes I wondered how Shay and Larissa stayed friends, but despite the fact that they rarely agreed on anything, they were weirdly tight.
“Plus, Brittney What’s-Her-Face from my dance class says he’s got a big, fat dick,” Shayla informed me, “so there’s that.”
“Ew,” Larissa said, and sipped her drink.
“What do you mean, ‘ew’?” Shayla demanded. “He’s hot.”
“He’s Courteney’s neighbor. I’ve known him too long.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Bullshit. You can’t be hot for a guy just because you’ve known him for a long time?” Shay challenged. “How long have you been with Jason?”
Larissa shrugged. “Three years.”
“I rest my case.”
“He is in love with you,” Larissa told me. “He asked Jay about you when they ran into each other the other day. I think he’s hoping to get invited over for a pool party.”
“He sooo wants to see you in a bikini again,” Shayla said. “Why don’t you just throw him a bone already? Let him suck on your boobs or something. You never get any action.”
Okay. Now she could shut up.
I shoved a bowl of snacks at her. “Fill your mouth hole.”
“Mmm. Cheesy poofs.” She picked one up and bit off the tip suggestively. “Speaking of never getting any action…” she said, and I did not like that glint in her eye. “Who do you think he fucks?” She flicked her flat-ironed hair toward my brother’s end of the house. “He never leaves the house, right?”
“So?”
“So… Don’t tell me he never gets laid. He’s gor-geous. Do you think he like, calls women over and sneaks them into his secret lair for quickies or something?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
“But do you think—”
“I don’t care.”
“Hmm. I’m telling you, though. You don’t go from being a rock star to never having your dick sucked—”
“Shayla. Don’t talk about her brother like that,” Larissa said. “It’s disrespectful. You’re on his property, enjoying his pool.”
“I’m not judging. I’m curious.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “Please.”
Shayla laughed, like I was kidding or something. “Don’t you be such a slut,” she told Larissa. “You’re just greedy-Miss-Breezy because you got to see him naked.”
“He wasn’t naked!” Larissa shot back—and went all flushed. I’d never met another black girl who could blush like Larissa Jones could. “He just didn’t have a shirt on…”
Shay cackled. “Greedy! And what did you do, stand there talking to him for like forty-five minutes? While he was half-naked.”
“He was so nice!” Larissa balked.
“Please stop talking,” I grumbled, sipping my drink. “Both of you.”
I was aware of the incident they were talking about, unfortunately. Last summer, when Larissa stayed over with me one weekend, she’d run into my brother in the kitchen. In the middle of the night.
They’d somehow gotten chatting about music for almost an hour, and no, apparently he wasn’t wearing a shirt at the time. Larissa hadn’t mentioned that detail to me at first.
She’d told Shay, though. And yes, Larissa had a boyfriend. An awesome boyfriend. Yet she’d had some kind of hormonal meltdown over my brother’s hotness that I wasn’t supposed to know about.
Shay had blabbed to me at the first possible opportunity.
“I’ve met him like four times,” Shay said. “He was fully dressed, every time. How is it the first time you meet him, he’s not wearing a shirt? And he’s showing pubes.”
“What?” I choked out.
“Larissa saw pubic hair.”
“I never said that!” Larissa snapped.
“You know when a hot guy wears his pants like really low on his hips,” Shay said, ignoring her, “and he has that sexy V-thing going on, and you can see his pubes?”
“It wasn’t pubes!” Larissa hiss-whispered. “It was like, that little trail of hair below his belly button. You know, leading down. It was kind of… blondish…” She faded off.
I almost wretched.
“Please shut up, both of you. Before I hurl.”
“Sorry,” Larissa said.
“This conversation totally goes against Lil Brat Society rules. You’re not allowed to fangirl over my brother.”
“I’m not fangirling,” Shay said. “I never said anything about his musical prowess. Even if he wasn’t ever a rock star… I’m just saying that your brother is so—”
The door to the poolhouse floated open… and Shayla’s words just kind of hung there in the air. My friends went dead silent.
Xander strolled out. Alone.
Shockingly, there was no bimbo dangling from his arm.
He wandered over to me and stood right in front of my chair, like he was waiting for me to notice. I grabbed the bowl of cheesy poofs back from Shayla and started snacking, ignoring him.
“Hey,” he said, his gaze shifting to Larissa. Unfortunately, he was friends with her brother. Xander was friends with everyone. You know, except me. “What’s up, Larissa.”
Larissa nodded. “Hey, Xander.”
“I’m just on my way to see Trey,” he told her.
“Cool,” she said.
He
glanced at Shayla. “Shayla, right?”
Of course he remembered Shay’s name, even though he barely knew her. She looked like a model. I mean, Shay was never the prettiest girl around, but she was skinny as a model, for sure.
“Hey.” She smiled a little, then threw me an uncomfortable glance.
“I’m… uh… heading to the gym,” he said, to me, because for whatever reason he felt the need to inform me of his destination—while he was wearing gym shorts, a workout shirt and sneaks. And carrying a gym bag.
I crunched a cheesy poof, in no hurry to respond. “You don’t say.”
“You need anything?”
I scowled at him, briefly. “From the gym?”
“How about a six-pack?” Shay laughed at her own joke.
Xander didn’t laugh. He just stood there for a long, long moment, while I ignored him.
“See you later,” he said, and strolled out to the driveway.
“Oh. My. Gaaawd,” Larissa said, flicking a cheesy poof at Shay. “Did you just flirt with him?”
Shayla gaped at me. “He’s back??”
“Unfortunately.”
Now Larissa threw a cheesy poof at me. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“I did not flirt with him,” Shay sniffed. “It was a joke.”
“Only because he didn’t laugh,” Larissa said.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“He’s staying in the poolhouse?” That was Larissa.
“Unfortunately.”
“OMFG. This is perfect!” That was Shayla.
“How?”
“How? Because now your summer is set. I’m thinking a pool-boy-slash-rock-star sandwich, featuring you as the meat in the middle. Hashtag: sexbythepool, baby.”
“First of all, it’s my brother’s pool. I’m not having sex by it. And second, I’m not having sex with Xander Rush, anywhere.”
“Come on. I know you think he’s shallow, but you have all this amazing, sexy tension between you…”
“It’s called hatred,” I informed her.
“Mmm,” she purred. “Sounds delicious.”
Larissa actually snickered.
“He’s thirty,” Shay informed me. “Hashtag: fact. He’ll know what he’s doing. Who better to pop that cherry?”
“Ugh. Stop.”
Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2) Page 5
