I promise, though. This wasn’t a pity party. I was not a whoa-is-me-poor-little-rich-girl.
I’d have to overly-care to be that.
I knew I was fortunate, and I knew my future was going to be fine, no matter what I chose to do with it. I knew I wasn’t going to be homeless or starve.
I was just…restless.
I was feeling restless, and I really needed this winter break to just pull back a bit and give myself some breathing room.
There was also the fact that, while I loved Grace to death, she was pushing more, and more for details about how I’d lost my virginity last week. It had been easy to put her off while she had been embroiled in all her drama with Styx. But now that she and Styx were in a good place, and everything was working itself out, there was nothing distracting her from demanding details. And because Styx didn’t come from wealth, the guy worked after school to help pay for his tuition at Blackstone, so he didn’t have spare time to keep her occupied.
Dammit, Styx.
And it wasn’t even that it deserved to be this big secret or anything. I just recognize it for the mistake that it was. Now, don’t get me wrong. It had felt great, and as far as losing your virginity goes, I had no complaints. It had been hot, heavy, and satisfying. It had actually turned into an all-nighter, and-again-no complaints. It had been passionate and perfect.
It also happened to be with the wrong person.
Or, maybe, that’s not entirely accurate.
It had just been with someone I never would have imagined it would have been, and I didn’t want things to get awkward if they didn’t need to be. That was another reason I couldn’t wait to kick off winter break. Three weeks from now, the experience will be an old memory and won’t matter.
Not that it really mattered now, but still.
At least, I didn’t think it mattered.
God, please don’t let it matter.
Chapter 2
Sterling~
It was a good thing we were coming up on winter break because I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to keep my hands to myself. I knew my sister didn’t need me to fight her battles for her, but it’s what I’ve always done, and I wasn’t sure how to stop.
Grace and I were twins, but I was a few minutes older. However, that didn’t matter. I was the guy, and she was the girl, so even if Grace had popped out first, I would still go to battle for her. She was the only person in the world I loved more than I loved myself, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I’ve been raising her and protecting her all our lives, and it was hard to step back from that now. However, now she had Styx. And even though I had nothing against the guy, he still had to prove to me that he could take care of my sister completely. I knew he could fight because we traded blows just last week. But I needed him to prove that he was in it for the long haul, and he had what it took to protect Grace from the haters and make her happy. That’s the only reason I was holding back.
And it was a goddamn struggle if I’ve ever had one.
Granted, I didn’t have many struggles in life. I was Sterling Hale; heir apparent to Hale Securities & Investments, and only son to Sterling Hale the Fourth (making me the Fifth) and Serena Hale. I was athletic, favoring baseball, and in good company at the top of my class. Oh, and my parents had more money than a small country.
Grace and I were royalty within the Wakefield Community that was nestled in Dayton, California. And we were the top of the food chain at Blackstone Prep Academy where there wasn’t one kid richer or more popular than Grace and me. Even with Grace’s newfound sense of decency, students still clamored to get close to her.
Grace’s issue was that the love of her life, Styx Reinhart, didn’t come from money. He came from a blue-collared family and wasn’t embarrassed that he did. He was also brilliant and musically gifted, which was why he attended Blackstone. However, while people weren’t stupid enough to attack Grace outright, I knew there were guys who were hating on Styx big time for landing Grace. He was holding his own, but I knew if anyone came after him to get him thrown out of Blackstone for being with Grace, I’d have to jump in. Styx could fight, and Styx wasn’t scared, but everyone knew money was what made the world go round. And if it came down to a battle of the wallets to keep Styx enrolled in Blackstone, that’s when I would finally jump in.
Because I didn’t have any other struggles.
Except that I did.
I had parents who were rotten human beings, and there was no escaping them as long as I was destined to take over HS&I. It wasn’t that they were much of a concern since they were never home, but having turned eighteen back in November, it just made me realize how much I didn’t want to be around them at all if I didn’t have to be. And with mine and Grace’s trust funds from our great-great-grandparents kicking in when we had turned eighteen, we didn’t even need our parents’ money anymore. But I had been born and raised to take over HS&I, and I knew nothing else.
And my biggest problem were people.
I had no patience for them.
I didn’t lie and I had never perfected the art of tact. I had a shitload of people who hung out with me, but I didn’t have any real friends. At this point, I’d have to say Styx was the closest thing I was going have to a real friend, and we were still sporting bruises and cuts from our fight last week.
I was very matter of fact about what I thought and what I said, and that led guys to think that I was untouchable and girls to think that I was a challenge.
I was neither.
The bulk of my personality was that I just didn’t give a shit about much. It wasn’t intentional, but I had been raised to believe that emotions were pointless. Emotions didn’t garner results. They didn’t solve problems. And they didn’t benefit the bottom line. Emotions were a waste of time on the path to productivity. Except, that I had a twin sister I would murder an entire school for.
So, I knew emotions.
I did.
Mine just happened to be a bit skewed. My first reaction to everything was thought. I never flew off the handle if the situation didn’t pertain to Grace. I could always rationalize, and I was very calculated with my actions. I was a doer, a solver.
I knew a lot of students, and even teachers, believed I was a bit of a sociopath, but I wasn’t. I just had a real tight hold on my emotions. My parents were the only people who could bring forth my inner demons, and a lot of my wrath was reserved for them. Grace had everything else.
Even at a young age, I knew who we were and what it meant to be Sterling and Grace Hale. We were important even before we knew what that had meant. But the second I had caught on, I began my study of people. As rich and powerful as our parents were, I knew Grace and I were perfect candidates for being used or manipulated.
I was never going to know if someone wanted to be my friend because they just wanted to be my friend. Even as small children, if the kid hadn’t known who I was, his or her parents had known who I was and that had been enough to push a friendship into developing. So, I never knew who was genuine and who wasn’t. Had my father saddled me with a different first name, maybe I would have stood a chance. But Sterling wasn’t a common name. At least, not around these parts.
And at the same time that I was warding off users and manipulators, I had been doing the same for Grace. It had been my job to make sure Grace had been the biggest shark in the ocean, next to me. For all that she regrets how horrible we’ve been, she fails to see that it really was a survival of the fittest situation. And I wasn’t worried about her turnabout now. Grace was strong enough to know the difference now. Plus, she had Styx.
It didn’t matter that my parents weren’t going to like him. I already knew they weren’t going to even pretend to make an effort to get to know him. They were going to spot a guy who didn’t come from money, and that would be the end of it. It wasn’t going to matter how much Grace loved him or if he made her happy. It wasn’t going to matter that he was smarter than everyone in the state or th
at he could play Beethoven better than goddamn Beethoven, himself. It wasn’t going to matter that he’ll probably go on to invent the cure for cancer or be able to colonize Mars. Styx didn’t have money and neither did his parents. That was all Sterling and Serena Hale were going to care about.
And as perverse as it sounded, I couldn’t wait to put them in their place the second they come unglued.
I guess that was another reason I didn’t suffer fool gladly. I had real-life shit I had to deal with; I didn’t need typical high school drama.
And never mind girls.
Ever since I got my first hard dick, girls have been doing everything they could to put themselves in the girlfriend role. Even the girls who came from money still didn’t have enough self-awareness to understand that they didn’t need a man to take care of them. They had all the connections, beauty, and money in the world, but they still wanted my money, my connections, and my dick.
Now, that wasn’t to say I was ignorant of how I looked because I wasn’t. I looked at my sister and I saw the prettiest thing ever. However, I couldn’t think that without applying the same positive spin on my looks since we were twins. If having our dad’s last name wasn’t bad enough, we took after him in looks, as well. And that left us with inky-black hair and bright green eyes. Grace was all femininity, and I was all masculinity. But if you put us next to each other, you knew we were twins, even if my six-foot-two frame dwarfed Grace’s five-foot-four.
I knew I was every rich parent’s dream come true, but I wasn’t stupid. Just like I couldn’t trust that guys hung out with me because they genuinely liked me, I couldn’t trust that girls opened their legs for me because they genuinely were attracted to me.
Well, except, for one girl.
Before her, I was pretty sure there had never been a girl who hadn’t just been a means to an end. I had healthy sexual desires like every other red-blooded teenage male in the world. I liked females, and there was nothing better than sliding inside one. It didn’t even matter that I always used a condom. Sex still felt exhilarating wearing one. Any guy who said different just didn’t know how to fuck right, in my opinion.
Okay.
That statement needed some amending.
I have had sex without a condom before. It’s just been recently, so up till last week, I’ve always worn a condom. The fucked-up thing about it all was that I’d had the condoms available. However, I had been so caught off guard by what had been happening, any responsible thought had failed me. It had been the first time something like that had ever happened to me, and the last time.
God, please let it be the last time.
Chapter 3
London~
Things felt…weird.
That’s the best way I could describe the uneasiness I’d been feeling the past week, or so. We were in full winter break mode, but the me-time hasn’t been helping. Bernice was pretending to be all maternal with family dinners and crap like that, and it was making me antsy.
Mark couldn’t have millions and be stupid, so I wasn’t sure who she was trying to impress with having Cash over all the time and forcing family dinners on us. Mark knew Bernice and I weren’t close. He knew I preferred to do my own thing. And he also knew I didn’t care for his son. All that, and he still wanted to marry my mother, so I wasn’t sure what her deal was. I wasn’t sure why she was still trying to impress him when he knew better.
Christmas had been a disaster of uncomfortable awkwardness. And the only thing that had saved it was that Cash had come down with the flu and hadn’t been able to make the drive to Dayton. Bernice had broken out the theatrics and had droned on, and on about how it was such a shame ‘our family’ couldn’t all be together for the most important holiday of the year. She shot me the dirtiest look ever when I had pointed out that Jason, her real son, has been missing from our Christmases for years.
My comment hadn’t been appreciated, I think.
The next day had been spent with Grace and Styx at his parents’ house. Swapping horror stories (I guess Christmas with the Hales had been worse than the shitshow at my house), Grace had wanted to spend time with people who weren’t assholes. The Reinharts had ended up having all kinds of us kids over the next day, and it had turned out to be a good time.
Grace and I had ended up meeting Styx’s childhood friends, and it had been like stepping into a completely different world. Even having Claire there hadn’t been awkward. Claire was one of Styx’s closest childhood friends, but they’d had a sexual relationship for a while. There had been some concerns when Grace and Styx had gotten together if Grace would be able to handle the situation. But after spending an afternoon with Claire, getting to know her, and talking out what was what, Grace felt no threat where Claire was concerned. It also helped that you couldn’t help but genuinely like Claire. She was pretty terrific. In fact, all of Styx’s friends were.
But we couldn’t stay in Oz forever, right?
Returning back to our reality, I’ve been spending a lot of time going over college applications and crap like that. And with Grace following Styx wherever he was going, that left a lot of options open for me now. Not that Grace and I were co-dependent, but it would have been nice to think that I’d be able to start the next chapter of my life with my best friend. And when I wasn’t being a responsible human being and looking into my future, I’ve been spending the rest of my time hanging out or avoiding Cash. He’s been…interested too much for my liking these days. Luckily, Bernice, Mark, and Cash were all out having dinner somewhere, so I had the house to myself.
I had just made it upstairs to my bedroom with a bottled water when my phone rang. The ringtone gave the caller’s identity away immediately. “What’s up?”
“I forgot to ask you on Christmas if you were coming to Texas for my graduation?” Jason asked.
“Am I invited?”
“Yes, you asshole,” he replied dryly. “You’re my sister.”
I laughed. “And that’s why I’m going,” I retorted.
“Well, since we’re going to yours, I figured we could all just fly back to Texas the day after your ceremony and, maybe, you could stay for a couple of weeks,” he suggested and my chest panged with emotion. My brother and I weren’t super close because of the age difference and the split in our family when I was so young, but he did try.
“I can do that,” I told him. “As a matter of fact, I might stay all summer.”
He chuckled. “Oh, yeah? And why’s that?”
“Bernice is planning a June wedding, and I really don’t want to be around for it,” I told him. “I have no desire to be a show pony.”
“You’re not in the wedding?”
I snorted. “Hell, no.” Jason’s laughed echoed through the phone. “I’ve got nothing against Mark, but there’s no way in hell I’d subject myself to…whatever that wedding is going to be.” I was serious, too. “I’d rather have bamboo sticks shoved under my fingernails.”
“Ouch.” But he was still chuckling.
Just then, the door to my bedroom creaked open, and when I looked over, Cash was leaning against the door frame with his arm crossed over his chest. I narrowed my eyes at the nerve of this asshole. His father wasn’t a rude douchebag, so surely, he had raised his son to knock, right?
“Hey, can I call you later?” I asked into the phone. “Something just came up.”
“Sure, London Bridges,” Jason replied, and I would have smiled at the nickname he had given me when I was a toddler, but I was super irritated at Cash in my doorway.
We hung up, and I eyed Cash. “A closed door usually implies knocking, Cash,” I said, not even pretending that I wasn’t irritated.
He straightened and walked into my room even though I hadn’t granted him permission to do so. “We’re practically family, London,” he smirked.
I got off the bed and went to stand in front of him to hinder him from coming into my room further. “We’re not family, Cash,” I corrected. “Your father is marrying my mother for
however long their marriage will last.” I raised a brow. “And since I highly doubt it’ll be for long, there’s no need to get comfortable.”
I was wearing a plain t-shirt, some jeans, and sandals, but the way his eyes raked down my body and back up again, you would have thought I was naked. “It’s actually a good thing that you don’t see us as family, I suppose.”
I bit my tongue.
There was no mistaking where he was going with that completely inappropriate remark, and I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of thinking his ridiculous comments were affecting me beyond the level of annoyance. “Look, I don’t know what brought you to my room, but say what you have to say or get the hell out,” I told him.
Cash grinned and it reeked of sleaze. “I’m spending the weekend here,” he replied. “Possibly New Year’s Eve, too.” I stared up at him and wondered at his game.
Cash was in college, and he was good-looking as much as I hated to admit it. There’s no reason he should be spending New Year’s Eve in Wakefield. There were plenty of partying to be had at Stanford, even if all the schools were on winter break. He was up to something, but I couldn’t bring myself to really care overly much. All his little announcement had managed to do was to make sure I didn’t find myself at the same party that he might attend.
“And this information matters to me why?” I asked, ready for this conversation to be over.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Just letting you I plan on being around for a bit.”
I huffed out my reply. “Again, why would I care?”
He stared down at me and you could see he was edging towards anger. “Why do you insist on being such a bitch, London?”
The Blackstone Prep Academy Duet Page 12
