This new creep can’t reach that level of cruel if he tried, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. If anyone even comes close to what I went through before, I’ll leave. I don’t owe my mom anything, and I don’t care anymore. I refuse to let anyone else walk all over me.
My hand is on the doorknob when Mom calls out to me. “When do you get paid?”
“I got paid last week,” I lie. “I already paid the electric and phone bills.” That’s the truth, but if I tell her I get paid soon, she’ll be on me all week about giving her money.
“We need food,” she pouts.
“I’ll stop by the food pantry,” I mutter.
“No. Bring me something good,” she whines like she’s the kid and I’m the mom. Her new boy toy laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. The sound of his slurps from the cheap beer can sends a shiver down my spine.
“Get your new boyfriend to bring you food,” I say and step out the door before she can reply. I hear her half-hearted complaints through the cheap particle wood. The slurs of being an ungrateful daughter follow me. I roll my eyes. I’ve heard it all before.
It only takes me ten minutes to get to work. I’d made sure to apply somewhere I could walk to if my bike broke down. There’s so much on my mind, I don’t even notice Chad when he sidles up next to me.
“Hey Senya,” he offers cheerily. I restrain a groan. Can’t I just get a break? Just for a couple of hours? Chad isn’t so bad. He’s older than me, a freshman in college. As far as I know, he’s not a bad guy. But there’s something about him that makes my skin crawl. I think it’s because I’ve grown so suspicious of men in general; he’s never done anything wrong except not taking no as an answer.
“Hi,” I mutter.
“First day of school after break, huh?” When I don’t say anything, he keeps going. “Also a beautiful day for January.”
That it is. The ride had been refreshingly cool. We never get a day so cold I can’t ride my bike, but there are times I’m shivering by the time I make it where I’m going.
I nod absently and swallow my irritation when it seems like it gives him the green light to keep talking. He rambles about his first day of college after the break while we enter the employee lounge. I lock my bag into the lockers they provide for us, trying to act like I’m not listening. He really likes the sound of his own voice.
“Hey, Senya!”
I almost melt in relief when Belle hops into the lounge. She’s been away all break with her parents. She’s my only ally here, the closest thing to a friend I have. She knows I don’t like Chad, although she wonders why when he’s always been a gentleman and he isn’t that bad-looking. I’ve never revealed that I’m still hopelessly hung up on the boys I grew up with.
I give her a little hug as she automatically enters a long monologue about her trip to Orlando with her parents over the break. She’s a year older than I am, but her parents are awesome, and she still likes to hang out with them. She also has four younger siblings, and sometimes I swear they bring her along to help babysit. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. I’m jealous of her life. It might be nothing but a suburban poster family, but it’s still so much better than my own life.
A glance behind me shows Chad’s gaze traveling to my ass. That’s why I don’t like him, I remember. It doesn’t happen often and he’s sneaky as hell, but under his nice guy routine, there’s a creep. I’m sure of it.
Chad gives me my schedule for the week since he’s the assistant manager, and I’m happy to see he put me in electronics with Belle. I give him an almost genuine smile for that and am irritated when he asks me if I’ve seen the latest movie in an attempt to get a date. I turn him down for like the hundredth time, but he acts like I haven’t turned him down so many times any other guy would have gotten the hint. Can’t someone just do something nice for no reason?
I push the bitter thoughts aside and settle into my shift with Belle relaying everything about Disney World. My dad took Manny and me when we were kids, but it’s all like a dream now. I can’t even remember what it feels like to be happy.
I’m so tired from my shift and the stress of the day that I almost forget about Mom’s new boy toy. It hits me as I’m turning the key in the lock and a whiff of liquor hits me instead of just pot and beer. My body freezes, and I consider just walking away now. Hard alcohol never did anyone any favors.
Thankfully, they’re gone. The apartment is blessedly empty. I ignore their trash and slip into my room, flipping all the locks. As an added security, I unlock my window too. No one can get in from outside, but I can get out, and that’s all that matters. There are some texts from the boys, but I ignore them. I’m just too tired to deal with it right now. Despite my precautions, my night is spent tossing and turning as I wait to see if Mom is going to bring the creepy dude back home with her.
Chapter 5
Manny
She still hasn’t texted back. Even Apollo chimed in, and he hates texting because he says his thumbs are too fat. But nothing from Senya. I slip into the BMW my dad bought me for my sixteenth birthday and drum my fingers on the steering wheel as I stare at my phone. I’m not a people person. I enjoy my books, my computers, and anything other than figuring out other people. Senya, more than most, confuses me. We used to be step-siblings, but by the time we’d reached fifth grade, I was dealing with a lot of guilt about the feelings I was having toward my supposed sister. Thankfully, I was buffered by the other guys. But she’s hated me since our parents died and my dad took us away for two years, and I have no idea why. Maybe she realized she started starring in all my wet dreams?
Sighing loudly, I jab at the stereo to turn on something loud and heavy just to drown out all the thoughts in my head as I drive toward school. She’s just slipping off that death trap when I pull in. Her skirt rides up, revealing a flash of dark, modest boy shorts underneath. My cock jumps as I watch shamelessly. I’m not the only one. Groups of guys around the parking lot are nudging each other and pointing. One of the douche football players the brothers hang around whistles, but she acts like she can’t hear. Her dark hair falls in a riotous cloud around her face as she takes off her helmet. I groan as I lean forward in my seat.
She has no clue how sexy she is. With her curvy body and cute, short hair, she looks like the lead singer of some punk band. Dark eyeliner rims her eyes and lip gloss glistens on her full lips. She’ll have chewed it all off by second period, but not many know that. She has her own style. Everyone talks around the nerd because they think I’m not listening, and I know that a lot of the girls envy her. Even though her clothes are all secondhand, she has a character that’s so far from the preppy Barbie dolls and the wealthy academics that she’s carved out her own little niche.
Our school is strange in that it straddles several parts of town, mixing the poor with the rich. Five elementary schools, two junior highs, and then they throw us all together in one crowded high school. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and more than one turf war has broken out. For the most part, though, the major groups don’t interact. It’s an interesting social experiment, one I’ve documented more than once when I’m writing my essays that lean more into the nonfiction category than the creative. Senya was always the writer, but I also enjoy putting my thoughts down on paper. If I don’t, my brain becomes so muddled I can’t function.
A knock on my window makes me jump, pulling a curse word from my lips. The brothers are leaning next to my car. Apollo is smirking. I open the door a crack and wait for them to move so I can get out.
“I was wondering if you were just gonna sit there and stare at her ass all day or actually get out of the car,” Orion quips. His eyes go to Senya. It’s no secret, at least not to them. We don’t interact much in school because it would explode the brains of the narrow-minded social cliques, but we still spend most of our time together out of school. I haven’t told them I have a hard-on for Senya; I’m just not very good at hiding anything from them. They don’t blame
me, though, because they aren’t any better.
Their eyes follow her as she walks toward school, swaying a little to the music streaming through her earbuds as if she has no idea that she’s leaving twenty guys in the parking lot adjusting their pants. Maybe she doesn’t know. She seems like a different person than the one I grew up with. At one point, I thought I knew her better than anyone else on earth. Now, it’s like she’s from another planet.
“Did she text you?” Apollo asks as I finally draw my eyes away and push the button on the key fob to lock my car. I adjust my glasses and raise a brow at Orion. Sometimes, I swear all the hits Apollo has taken on the field have affected his brain. It’s not surprising. There have been numerous studies about the lasting impacts of concussions, and Apollo has had his share as the quarterback and captain of the football team.
“We’re in a group text, knucklehead,” Orion teases his brother. “If she didn’t text us, she didn’t text him.” Orion pauses and looks at me. “Right?”
I roll my eyes. “Right. Nothing. I’ve heard nothing. She does have a phone?” I’ve been wondering ever since she balked at pulling it out during class yesterday. I’d snuck enough glances at her to realize she has an ancient iPod that plays her music, not a smartphone.
“Whose number did she give us if she doesn’t?” Apollo asks. “Nobody else has responded saying we have the wrong number.” Ah, so he does use his brain.
“Aric would know,” Orion says quietly as both of them ignore Jack. My role as captain of the swim team keeps the football players from treating me like every other nerd, but they still don’t like it when the brothers step out of their circle to talk to me. Thankfully, the brothers don’t care. If they did, our friendship wouldn’t have lasted.
I clench my fingers around the strap of my backpack. Aric would know, and it makes me tense with anger. I might seem like the easy-going one, but that’s actually Aric and Orion. The swim team and my martial arts lessons are the only things keeping my anger in check. I’d always dealt with anger issues, but it got ten times worse after Mom’s death and Senya’s abandonment. Although my dad stepped in without a word and has done as well as he can, I still miss my mom. The therapists have a field day with me, especially when I start psychoanalyzing them in return. I hate that Aric knows things about her that we don’t. We never had secrets between us before.
As if we’d conjured him, Aric arrives on his own bike. He parks it near Senya’s, and my fingers clutch the bag tighter. His is nicer, but then he also works on them. The bike was one that the shop he works at had slated for the junkyard before he asked to try to fix it up. He’s such a good mechanic that he got promoted from grease monkey to technician. Not that he’d told me that. I learn things just by listening and acting oblivious.
His flowing, dirty blonde hair flicks back from his face as he sees us all standing in a tight group by my car. Before I can say anything, Orion calls his name. He walks toward us with the grace of a dancer, his long legs eating up the pavement. I’ve had more than one nightmare about those long legs wrapped around Senya’s shorter limbs. I don’t know that they are any more than just friends, but my brain loves to hate me and taunt me with the possibilities.
“What’s up, fellas?” he asks when he’s in speaking range. He looks like he should be the front boy for some boy band, crooning on stage and driving all the girls crazy. He and Senya would make a cute couple, and it drives me crazy every time I consider it.
“Did Senya contact you?” The words spit out of my mouth before I can stop them. His eyes widen as he meets mine and I feel a spark of guilt that I’m taking my temper out on him.
“About the project?” he asks as we start walking toward the school. I swallow down my anger that she might have contacted him about something else. She never talks to us.
The football douches have given up calling for the brothers, but people are staring at us. Valedictorian, football captain, co-captain, and the loner no one knows anything about. Their little high school brains are exploding with conspiracy theories. There might be some kids here that went to our elementary school and knew we were friends, but I doubt they remember. We were all in our own little world back then, and we’ve changed since then.
“Yeah,” Orion offers. I’m glad he’s taking point, because my jaw is too busy clenching. I need a sparring session. The dojo closed down for a week over break, and I’ve been ready to blow since. Apollo offered to spar with me, but I’ve made that mistake before. He’s all lumbering strength and slow moves, but his sheer mass hurts when it hits me. I can’t afford to break anything. And Orion goes too easy on me.
“No, but I know she had to work last night,” he offers. “She was probably just busy.” His voice trails away and I’m thrown back ten years in time.
“What are you not telling us?” I force my voice not to be too accusatory so that he’ll answer, but I recognize that look. When we were kids, he’d always get that look when he had a secret.
Aric plays with the leather thong around his neck, and my eyes widen. I’ve seen it before, but I’ve never noticed the pendant. He always keeps it under his shirt. Today, though, it’s a clear outline under his white t-shirt. It’s one of the coins we got at a fair we went to as kids – a circular token with a square hole in the middle. We all had one. Mine sits in my wallet so it’s with me at all times. We all had a different color of metal, and Senya’s was a combination of all our colors as if the fake fortune teller knew something we didn’t. We’d honored them as mementos of our time together. The woman told us we’d always be friends and they were the tokens of our friendship. As kids, we were ecstatic about that. Now, I want to punch that old lady in the teeth.
Seeing Aric still wearing the coin takes me back. The brothers and I miss our old friendship, but Aric acts as if nothing touches him. He’s always nice, despite his bad-boy look, and he can charm the pants off of all the lady teachers no matter their age. His mom left just before my mom died, and I know his dad had a hard turn with his job not long after our parents died. The loss forced them to move out of our old neighborhood. Other than that, I don’t know what else he’s been through. Out of all of us, he’d been the only one to go to the same middle school Senya did. I’d been jealous of that at the time; hell, I still am. But I thought he’d moved on from us as a group – with Senya. The fact that he still wears the coin makes me rethink this.
“She might drop the class,” he says in a low voice that’s almost lost in the chatter of the kids around us.
A cold hand seizes my heart. “She can’t,” I say before I can stall my wayward tongue.
Aric lifts a brow in surprise at my outburst, but the brothers know how I feel. We talked about it last night. Apollo is still hiding his true feelings, but Orion is happy we’ve been thrown together. I don’t believe in fate because it can’t be quantified, but something brought us together.
“Oh, she could,” Aric replies almost absently. If I couldn’t see how much the thought bothers him, I might have laid him out right there. “She doesn’t need this class because she’s not planning on going to college right away.”
My brows draw together. Senya had been so excited about college when we were kids. She’d wanted her MFA in Creative Writing. Nothing had ever interested her more than the stories and poems she wrote in her spare time. I’d been so relieved when I saw she still wrote, but no college?
“Why not?” Orion asks before I can. Apollo trails behind us, but he’s listening intently. He likes to be seen and not heard.
“Look, you guys may think that Senya and I are all buddy-buddy, but we’re not. She doesn’t share much with me anymore.” There’s sadness behind Aric’s voice. I want to feel sorry for him, but he still got more of her than we did.
“She’s not dropping it,” Apollo snarls suddenly, drawing all of our attention. “Let’s meet at lunchtime. I want to know just how well you know her and what the hell happened that makes her think she can just leave us – the class…” The last tw
o words are tacked on almost as an afterthought, but his sentence still makes my chest tighten. What is it about this little girl that still has us wrapped around her finger? But I know. As a kid, she’d been the glue that kept us all together, the sunshine in the dark times, and the voice of reason when we were acting like stupid boys.
“The God has spoken,” Aric replies with a chuckle. It was something we always used to say as kids, and it makes my lips twitch. “Text me for lunch and I’ll meet with you. I don’t know much, but I agree. She can’t drop it.” He stops and faces us. We make a small circle in the middle of the hallway. I may be the shortest but not by much, and the four of us make an impressive roadblock. Something passes between us, dragging me back into the past. My animosity towards him fades just a little. I’ll reserve judgment until we talk again. We all nod to each other and break apart, each going our own ways. My focus is not on my classes as the morning passes by.
Chapter 6
Apollo
“Hey, whatcha doing?”
Jack catches us just as we’re getting ready to meet Aric and Manny for lunch. We’ve decided to go off campus so we don’t have to face the curious stares and shit like this. Orion knows how much I hate Jack, but we’d decided a long time ago that keeping him close is safer than making an enemy of him. Dude has a fucked-up mind, and I think we’ve stopped him from doing some horrible things. Acting like friends means I can keep an eye on him. He has an obsession with Senya because she can see right to his rotten center. If I’m close, I can keep him away from her.
“We have some errands to run during lunch for our dad,” Orion lies smoothly. I suck at lying. I don’t talk much, but when I do, I don’t waste energy on lies.
Lost & Found: Contemporary Reverse Harem Page 3
