Cherry Bomb (Brighton #1)

by Carmel Rhodes

  Cherry

  GUILT IS A LIVING BREATHING thing. It has a heartbeat and a pulse. It grows and blooms inside me until I can’t breathe without feeling the flutter of it in my belly.

  The last few weeks have been both heaven and hell. I’ve spent my days in school, my evenings at work, and my nights with Cash. Partly because I need him in a way that worries me, and partly because I’m afraid to face Arden, my best friend, the girl I’ve been lying to for a month.

  The smell of gooey chocolate wafts through the air as I slide the baking sheet out of the oven. I smile down at my mini masterpieces. Twelve perfectly round cookies, double chocolate, Arden’s favorite. I baked them for her the first time we went home to visit my dad. They’re his favorite too.

  The guilt baby in my stomach somersaults. I still haven’t heard from my dad, and as worried as I am, I’m more afraid of leaving my cozy Brighton bubble. Down here, things are good. I’ve got school, a job, friends, and a man who makes me come hard and likes taking care of me. Pain and repressed memories are the only things waiting for me back there.

  I sigh and place the pan on the rack to cool, then dig out my phone. I hit his contact information and wait. My heart pounds in my chest as the other end of the line rings and rings. Just when I think it’s about to go to voicemail, my dad’s tired voice picks up. Finally.

  “Hello,” he rasps.

  I blow out the breath I was holding. He answered, and that’s a good thing. But the tone of his voice is off, it’s a little lower than usual. Small detail that could be nothing—or everything. “Daddy, what the hell? I’ve been calling you for two weeks.”

  “I know. I’ve been…under the weather.” He coughs and I can’t tell if it’s fake.

  “Have you gone to the doctor?” I probe. Being sick was the number one excuse the last time he fell off the wagon. Missed work? He was sick. Forgot to pick me up after school? He didn’t feel good. Stumbling down the stairs? Must be a head cold throwing off his equilibrium.

  “Yes.” His voice wobbles, teetering on the legs of a lie.

  My dad has been sober since my senior year of high school, a few months after all the shit with my sister happened. Before that, he’d disappear for unexplained chunks of time, and sneak back in the middle of the night when he thought we were asleep. At first, I loved it. I’d invite my ex over and we’d fuck in my room. At the time, I didn’t realize he was probably sneaking next door to my sister’s room after I’d fallen asleep.

  This went on for almost a month before I started seeing the signs of his drug use for what they really were. He started missing work and forgetting things that my dad, when sober, never would.

  This phone call feels dangerously like déjà vu.

  I ball my hand into a fist and squeeze until I feel the bite of my nails against my palm. Anger won’t work. He’ll just shut down. Guilt won’t either, but fear, like the kind uncoiling in my stomach like a snake preparing to strike just might. “Daddy.” I allow all the guilt and unease I’d been feeling to infiltrate my tone.

  “Don’t worry about your old man so much. You’ve got so much going on for you down there in Brighton. That’s what I want you to focus on. I’m fine.”

  Ticktickticktick. The ticking in my chest speeds up as the front door opens and closes and Arden bounces in. “Okay,” I relent, even as the plan formulates in my mind. There’s no way he’d admit to using again over the phone. My pushing will only cause him to get defensive. “Arden is home. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Tell her I said hi.”

  “I will.”

  “I love you to the moon.”

  “And all the way back down to earth,” I finish, reciting the lines he used to tell my sister, Sunnie, and me before he’d tuck us in. My dad started telling us this when our mother left and continues until this day. It’s the only family tradition we have.

  I think back fondly on those early memories, of the three of us. We didn’t know how badly he’d struggled behind closed doors. All we saw was a loving and attentive dad who worked extra hard to ensure we felt the loved.

  “Call her…Sunnie, I mean,” he rasps, Apparently, I wasn’t the only one strolling down memory lane. “Life’s too short to hold this stupid grudge.”

  “I gotta go, Daddy.” He coughs again as I end the call. That one sounded real.

  “You finally got in touch with Randy?” Arden asks, taking a seat at the breakfast bar.

  “Yeah. He said he isn’t feeling well.” I lift the tray of cookies and place them in front of her.

  “You made cookies?!”

  “They’re hot, but yes. I figured since I’ve been MIA lately, it’s the least I could do.”

  Arden reaches for one and burns her hand. “Ow, shit.”

  “I told you they were hot.” I giggle.

  “That only makes me want them more.” She rolls her eyes and shoves a crumbling piece of cookie into her mouth. “You’ve been getting dicked down by some mystery guy and while I can’t even find a place to volunteer this summer. I deserve a hot cookie, damnit.”

  Guilt churns inside my stomach. The urge to confess is on the tip of my tongue. I hate lies in general, but especially ones to my best friend. I’ve always prided myself on being loyal, and now, not only am I lying, I’m also sleeping with her father.

  “Still nothing?” I say avoiding the dig about Cash.

  “No, my mother is going to flip. I mean there are a few places looking for temporary help for special events, but nowhere full-time.”

  “Did you tell them you’d work for free?”

  “Yes! Apparently, they don’t let just anyone work with abandoned kids or pets,” she huffs.

  “Well, you don’t really like kids or pets so it’s probably for the best.” I grin, and duck the piece of cookie she tosses at my head.

  “Anyway, when am I going to meet your guy?” She slides the question in so nonchalantly, I almost spill the beans.

  “Soon,” I promise. “I just don’t want to jinx it.” It’s a weak excuse, but it’s enough for Arden. Perks of never lying to her before means she takes me at my word.

  “Fine, I’ll let you keep your guy a secret, for now.”

  “Thank you. Also, I need to ask you a favor.”

  Arden looks down at the cookie then back to me. “I knew these tasted like bribery.”

  More like atonement, but we’ll go with hers. “I need to go home this weekend and my car barely gets me to campus and back. I don’t know if it will make the hour and a half drive north.”

  “No problem. I’ll take you. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Randy anyway.”

  “Thanks.” We’re quiet for a while as we burn off our taste buds with the scalding cookies.

  “Oh! I almost forgot.” Arden jumps to her feet and heads to the freezer. “Derek came up to me on the quad today. He looked like shit, by the way.”

  “Naturally.” I watch as she pulls a pint of ice cream out, then goes for a spoon. “Where’s my spoon?” I huff indignantly.

  Arden clutches her chest. “Cookies and ice cream?! This guy must have a golden-dipped penis.”

  “Fuck you. I eat.” Sometimes.

  “The bare minimum.”

  I snatch the spoon and dip it into the vanilla goodness. “Fine, he gets pissed if I don’t eat, and he doesn’t let me come.” God, I’m going to hell for talking about sex with Cash to Arden. “Tell me what happened with Derek?” I add, quickly changing the subject.

  “Okay, so he came up to me and apologized and swore it was a one-time thing, and that he totally deserved the chlamydia thing, and that if I’d just give him one more chance, he’d never cheat again.”

  “You didn’t believe him, did you?”

  “Fuck no, but then he reminded me that he rented the beach house for my party and since it falls around summer break, it’s going to be hard to find another house available on such short notice.”

  “He’s such a fucking dick.”

  “So, now I
’m stuck with him until the party.” She stares out the window fingering the diamond cross around her neck.

  “Arden.” My tone takes on a motherly inflection, despite the flour caked on to my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle tee and my chewed manicure. It’s a rough day in this apartment when I’m the logical one.

  “Don’t worry, Cherry. I’m not going to fall for his shit. We aren’t even technically dating. I just told him we could have dinner.”

  “You can’t have dinner with him. It’s how it starts.”

  “After it came out that he was sleeping with Sabrina, two other girls messaged me on IG to say they hooked up with him too.”

  “I’m sorry, babe,” I say wrapping her in my arms. I knew he was scum, but I never had proof to back up my claims. There was something about him, something I gleaned from my own experiences with dating a serial cheater. He was always overly confident, and quietly dismissive. Treating Arden like she is crazy and insecure, instead of owning his shit.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “You know you don’t have to be fine right?” An authority on keeping it together during a crisis, I am not, but I know a ticking time bomb when I see one. Her Lily Pulitzer dress doesn’t fool me.

  “I know, but I can’t cancel my party and I can’t be the girl who got cheated on and the girl who can’t get over it.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says everyone. Listen, I don’t want to cancel the party, and Derek is right, every house is booked. My birthday is a little over a month away and unless Marco owns a beach house, I don’t really have any other options.”

  “That’s it!” I beam.

  “What’s it?”

  “Your dad…well, Cash.”

  “What about Cash?”

  “He just moved into a new house, right? I mean, you said he invited you over for dinner?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, maybe you can have the party there?”

  “I want to have a bonfire on the beach, not a house party in some suburban neighborhood. If that were the case, I’d have it here,” she huffs.

  I want to yell, Cash lives on the beach and would literally agree to anything you asked of him. But I’m not supposed to know any of that, so I bite my tongue.

  “I know you’re worried that I’m going to fall back under Derek’s spell, but don’t. I’m not an emotional mess anymore. I just want one thing to go right this year, okay?”

  “Fine,” I say taking another scoop of ice cream.

  “Fine.” She clinks her spoon against mine, and we eat the rest of the pint in silence.

  Cash

  CALIFORNIA ISN’T AS SHITTY AS I’d originally estimated. The sunshine is nice, and my job with Logan, while different than what I’m used to in New York, isn’t bad. INVIGOR is one of the fastest growing investment firms in the country, and most recently, Logan is looking to expand into the international market. I can’t deny the thrill of chasing the next big thing, especially after years of working in the good ole boys club on Wall Street.

  Then there’s Cherry. That girl…there’s something about her. Something I just can’t seem to quit. She takes fucked up to a whole new level, yet I want her. I want to take care of her and protect her, but mostly, I just like being around her. She is one hundred percent her authentic self with me. She isn’t afraid to show me the ugly, jagged pieces of her soul. I like that, maybe because time and life haven’t really gotten their claws in her yet, or maybe she’ll always be this way. The only thing I know for sure is that she makes me happy and I’m wise enough to know that people who genuinely make you happy are rare.

  Of course, there’s a one-way ticket to hell with my name on it because of that, and yet, I don’t care. I shouldn’t be fucking a nineteen-year-old, period, but I damn sure shouldn’t be fucking my daughter’s best friend. A daughter who I have to fight tooth and nail to get to acknowledge my existence. She still won’t meet with me. I’m starting to think that first dinner was more to satisfy her own curiosity about me than it was a desire for us to have a relationship, but she has unblocked me on social media, and Cherry tells me that’s a win.

  I can’t help but want more. I’m not a sit back and let things happen kind of guy, not since I was seventeen. It’s frustrating being patient and letting Arden thaw to me on her own time. A frustration that I’ve taken out on Cherry’s body.

  Morally, I’m fucked. I’m jeopardizing the thing I want most—a relationship with my daughter—for the thing I crave—Cherry, on her knees, worshiping my cock.

  She is my biggest vice. Before Arden, I’d willingly drown in the ocean between her legs if it meant tasting her. The old Cash didn’t have anything to lose. Now, I have everything to lose, and yet, like a sailor lured to his death, I go to my tattooed siren every night and wait by the bar, sipping shit craft beers while assholes flirt with my girl. Once her shift is over, I take her back to my house and do things no man my age should do to a girl her age. It’s wrong, and yet for us, it works.

  I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. Thinking about all the ways in which I will burn in hell is doing my head in. This thing with Cherry is happening and I’m powerless to stop it, so worrying about it is fruitless. She’ll find a bloke her age eventually and settle down. There’s no reason I can’t explore this attraction and mend the relationship with my daughter.

  I shift on the uncomfortable chair as I slide my phone from my desk drawer. INVIGOR might be one of the fastest growing companies in the country, but it’s a shit show. Logan never was one for conventional business practices, but this place makes Google look like a fucking sweatshop. I asked Logan if I could switch chairs out and he said, that stool is ergonomically designed to increase productivity. I told him that I’m pushing forty and don’t give a rat’s ass about productivity, I need back support. I still have the fucking chair. I guess that’s what you get when you work at a company whose sole purpose is to find and cultivate the next best thing.

  Tapping on the screen, I type out a text to Arden.

  Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner tomorrow?

  Arden: Sorry, I can’t. I’m driving Cherry home for the weekend because her car won’t make the trip.

  Oh, ok, maybe next week?

  I scowl at my phone, trying and failing to rein in my irritation, before clicking the Cherry icon on the home screen. It rings twice before she answers. “G’day, mate,” she greets, thawing a little of my annoyance.

  “I’m British, asshole.”

  “Ohhhh, that’s right.” She laughs that throaty laugh of hers and my dick instantly wakes from his slumber.

  “Why didn’t you mention that you were leaving this weekend?” I can’t help but growl through the other end of the line. My email pings and I balance the phone between my ear and my shoulder and log in to my computer. It freezes and I have to restart the damn thing. Five hundred dollars for a shite chair, yet the fucking servers are bullocks.

  “I was going to tell you tonight…and, wait, how do you even know I’m leaving?”

  “Because my good girl used your leaving as an excuse to blow off yet another dinner invitation.”

  “If she keeps standing you up, shouldn’t I be the good girl? I come for dinner almost every night.”

  “Yeah, but you come after dinner too,” I say. Heat zaps down my spine. I’m pretty sure it’s a sign from God. A little reminder that I’m going to hell.

  “Touché,” she breathes, and I can picture the press of her thighs. The flush of her cheeks. The pucker of her lips, both the ones on her face and the ones between her legs.

  “When are you girls leaving?”

  “In the morning. Arden has some Greek thing tonight.”

  “Are you off?” I ask skimming the email. Logan wants me to sit in on a conference call tonight. He’s working with a kid from the Philippines who has an idea for an app. I email back telling him I’m game if I can take the call from home.

  “Yup, till Monday,” Cherry says, refoc
using my attention on our conversation.

  “Perfect. Come straight over when you leave campus. If you get there before I do, there’s a spare key under the potted hydrangea.”

  “I do have a life, you know. My world doesn’t end and begin with you.”

  I snort. “It bloody well better.”

  “You are a cocky son of a bitch. And my old therapist would say that your possessiveness is bad for my obsessiveness. But I’ll be there, because I’m frustrated, and I could use the distraction.”

  “What has you so frustrated?” I go to lean back in my chair and almost fall over.

  “What’s that?” Cherry asks as I jump to my feet.

  “It’s nothing, tell me what’s up.”

  “My scholarship, the university is doing away with it and so I’m in the financial aid office looking for suitable replacements. So far, I’ve come up with the Seymour Long Scholarship, the Young Scholars Award, and the Foreign Language Grant.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  She groans. “The Women in STEM scholarship paid for seventy percent of my tuition. I’d have to be awarded like ten of these things just to make up the difference.”

  “Oh, bullocks.”

  “Bullocks, indeed,” she sighs. “But it’s not your problem. Just my stupid luck. Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

  I end the call just as Logan steps inside my office. “How’s the teenager?” he asks, tucking his hands in his pockets.

  “She still won’t talk to me.”

  “And the other one?”

  I flip him off. Logan and Jax are the only two people in my life privy to my relationship with Cherry. Surprisingly enough, the priest isn’t the judgmental one. “None of your business. Also, I’m expensing a new chair.”

  He laughs, then claps me on the back as I pass. “Whatever you say, old man.”

  A knock at the door of my home office breaks me from staring at the numbers on the screen. I look up in time to see Cherry is standing there, her long black hair swept over one shoulder. Fuck me. My dick twitches as I watch her pink lips pucker into a pout.