“Out of my system?” Liam glances back at Cole, looking offended. “What I got in my system is the need to fuck a nice, warm pussy.”
“Yup, he’s still the same.” Cole chuckles.
“Dudes, I love Mom and her new place, but New York’s got nothing new to offer,” Liam grumbles.
That’s not why we were away this weekend and his refusal to talk about it, well, that’s just fine with me.
I catch Cole’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. We both know what’s in Liam’s system and it has nothing to do with girls. Well, maybe not all the way.
“What happened to what’s her face?” I start. Thinking about Liam’s constant revolving bedroom door isn’t in my repertoire, so I tap the wheel, thinking of the girl he last had for more than two weeks.
“Oh, you mean the slutty looking librarian one?” Cole snaps his fingers. “Helga? Or was it Trish?”
“No, Trish was five months ago,” I say. I remember her ugly ass because I’m the one who had to go to her house and make her delete every single sex tape she had made with Liam.
“Now that was one hell of a girl.” Liam whistles.
“You called her loose neck,” I deadpan.
“What?” Liam shrugs, taking out his phone as he types something. “She liked sucking my dick. And she was good at it. Too bad you sent her away.”
He looks at me then, accusation flashing in his eyes. I look away, speeding down the road so we can get to school.
“Hey, I’m not the one who broke up with her at the damn mall. The hallowed ground for teen shit.”
“You said I should let her go,” he accuses, but I know he’s not angry at all.
I need to drop these two assholes off so I can go stalk my obsession for the past three years. She’s stayed under the radar—well, under my radar—but I’ve never lost track of her. Not after what she did at that fucking party. And what she’s about to do now.
“So, I was supposed to guess that you loved her and wanted her to stay?”
“Hell no!” Liam laughs then. “She had at least two nights of sucking my dick before her time was up.”
“Wait,” Cole interrupts. “You’ve got deadlines for them?”
“You bet.” Liam types out a message, then glances at me. I feel the question before he even says it.
“Just ask, asshole,” I demand, tightening my hold on the steering wheel, trying to remain cool and aloof. Liam isn’t dumb. He knows something’s up.
“So, the car we just egged. Whose car was it?”
Shit.
I was really hoping he’d miss that, but then again, it’s not every day that I give a directive on whose day to mess up. Unlike the shitheads I go to school with, I don’t spend my days bullying people and shit. Up until last week, I had an older brother who was diagnosed with acute leukemia to take care of. And that occupied every minute I had.
Now that he’s gone, the emptiness is back, twisting my insides until I can’t ignore it anymore. There’s an urgency in me, that’s more than an itch and the only person who can appease it, make me feel somewhat better, is a girl I hate with my entire being. It helps that there’s a few years worth of fury and unresolved anger that I’d like to unleash on her.
“No one’s,” I grit out, then grab my shades, putting them on as I mentally try to block the images that keep popping in my fucking head of my brother’s tongue down Mia’s throat.
“I call bullshit,” he says, folding his arms. I can feel his penetrating gaze as he leans in to study me.
“It was just a random car,” I press, wanting him to let it go.
I can feel Cole’s silent judgement from the back, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows to stay out of this one and of course, he knows whose car that was.
“I’ve never known you to do anything randomly. Not since…”
“Dude, didn’t you see that car was new?” I try to joke but my words come out clipped and angry. How the fuck is Montague able to afford that car when I know for damn sure that her father is a few nickels away from begging on the street for loose change for her daughter to keep being the diva she wants everyone to think she is. “I just wanted to mess with it.”
Liam doesn’t say anything for a while, still watching me, fishing for a lie that he can most definitely sense.
I don’t lie, ever. Not on principle or otherwise, especially not to my brother. But it’s been years of some modicum of peace after the whirlwind that Little Minx caused, creating a storm that sucked up my family. I lied to him then, purposely misdirected him from her after he found out, when he tried searching for her. I’ve since learned my lesson about fucking secrets but this one’s a bit different. Mia’s a fucking sore subject between Liam and I. If I don’t go about it the right way, I’ll be letting loose an unstable, angry man on John. Not that I give a damn about that asshole.
“It was a Porsche,” he presses, his gaze burning holes in the side of my head.
Shit.
“I know.”
“A bright cherry red, open-top, girly Porsche,” he counters, eyes narrowed.
Double shit.
“I know that too.”
Cole guffaws from the backseat but doesn’t say a word either when Liam shoots him a look. He looks down at his phone instead, changing the playlist in the car to “You’re Fucked” by Ylvis.
“Seriously, asshole?” I grit out, looking at him through the rearview mirror. The shithead shrugs, knowing exactly what he’s doing.
“I love this song!” He laughs, then sings along. Liam grins but I can feel his narrowed eyes on me.
“So that’s all you have to say for yourself?” he says.
“Liam, you just bought a new Lambo, and had it customized to a bright neon green that aliens from the deepest paths of the universe can see. What’s your point, exactly?” I counter, trying to smile so that he lets this one go.
“Don’t you dare hate on my color choices,” Liam defends, pointing at me with his phone.
“They’re amazing choices, Liam,” Cole encourages, still laughing his head off. “You did want to make a fucking statement that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, when I race fucking Matthews tomorrow.”
“You’re not racing tomorrow,” I shut it down immediately. I indulge my brother in a lot of shit, but when it comes to the Devil’s Track, especially when racing the dirtiest asshole there is, there’s no way I’m going to allow it.
“What the fuck, J?”
Liam’s just a year younger than me. He’s a few inches shorter, with more attitude of course in his leaner build. He’s been training with Cole for years to take over quarterback of St. Jude’s football team and watching me on how to be a fucking leader. The boy is hotheaded, sensitive as hell but when it comes to me pissing all over his death wish plans, he hates it.
“I said what I said, Liam.” I look away, driving through the school gate, going straight for the underground parking where Cole and Liam left their rides.
“No, you don’t get to do that again.”
Again?
“Liam, I…” I start but he cuts me off.
“No, J, let me speak.” Liam puffs his chest up, looking at me head on as I park the car right next to his. “Ever since Aiden got leukemia, you’ve had a tight fist wrapped around my ankle, dragging me away from anything you think is too dangerous, or anything that you think is bad for me.”
Fuck. This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have with my brother right now. Especially when we’ve just suffered a loss in more ways than just parents divorcing in public.
“Liam, I’m not trying to control you—” I start but he cuts me off again.
“J, you might not see it, but you are controlling me. You’ve been doing it since we were kids.” He glances at Cole as if waiting for him to back him up, but Cole smirks, looking away and taps the passenger seat when we get to the school parking lot where they both left their cars.
“Nah, gents, I’m not getting into this sibling rivalry
part deux,” he starts when Liam gets out to move the seat for him. Before Cole gets out, he glances at me. “But word to the wise, you might actually want to talk to him. There’s nothing else that matters more in this fucking life than family and the siblings we have to take care of.”
Understanding passes between us. I look away and he gets out, fist-bumping Liam and they laugh about something.
But I didn’t miss the heavy set of his brown eyes when he said that or the way his body tensed when he said the word sibling.
Unlike Liam and I, Cole’s intro to this wretched world was fucked up, messy and not at all what it is now. He wasn’t born into money. His birth parents, the assholes abandoned him and his sister—because to them, they didn’t want to associate themselves with kids they thought were ‘possessed’.
But fuck it all to hell, they’re not like that! Cole’s fucking humble but he’s one of the fucking best QB’s in the history of high school football, and the fact that every D1 college wanted him can attest to that. He’s fucking smart and he’s been my best friend since we were fucking kids, after he was adopted by the Perry’s.
I know him so fucking well to the point where it’s pretty clear to me that something’s up with him.
“You good?” I call after him, really concerned for the first time in two, maybe three weeks. In all that time, he’s been by my side, helped me with Aiden until the very end. Meanwhile, trying to forget his own demons.
He stops, glances back at me and shoots me a wink.
“Yeah, boy.” He smiles but it’s a bullshit kind of smile. “Now lighten up on young cub here, he’s the next big dog of SJ!”
“Exactly my point, dude.” Liam nods enthusiastically. “At least someone’s got my damn back.”
“Yeah, not in that way, Little Liam.” He laughs.
“Please, Cole, you love me,” Liam jokes, clutching his heart over his chest.
“I wish that were true.” Cole smiles, shaking his head. “See y’all in a minute!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Liam smiles. The kid has had a hard-on for my best friend since we were younger. Following Cole everywhere, copying everything he did, it’s freaking cute. Liam, Cole, Aiden and I are brothers and that will never change, not even in death. That’s my family.
“The plates said and I fucking quote, ‘princess’,” Liam starts, leaning over the door to look into the car as Cole’s Range Rover Sport pulls out of the lot. “So fucking unoriginal, but I saw it.”
“What?” I stare at him.
“You heard what I said.” He snorts, “The plates for that Porsche said ‘princess’ and I know for damn sure it’s not Matthews’ ride or some random chick’s car. But you saw the car and targeted it.” Liam tilts his head to the left, watching me. “Who is she?”
How the fuck did he notice that? He was egging the fucking Clintwood football jerks, laughing his head off. He couldn’t have had the time to notice the plates of her damn car.
“A nobody.”
Well, once I’m done with her, she’ll be a nobody. I’ve procrastinated on her demise for a godawful long time. It’s finally time to act.
“What did she do?” he presses.
“Nothing.”
Liam stares at me, studying me as Cole honks as he peels out of the lot.
“Why do I get the sense that I’m missing something here?”
Fuck.
“You’re not, Liam. Just drop it.”
“The fact that you can’t even look at me right now is the reason why I’m not going to drop it,” he grumbles. “At least be man enough with your fucking lies.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re just keeping her identity hidden,” he scoffs. “You’re an expert at that.”
I can hear the frustration in his voice, can feel the tension between us.
“Maybe you’re just reading too much into it.” I sigh, running a hand through my hair. Heavy silence stretches between us for a few seconds, then Liam clears his throat.
“I know she goes to that school,” he starts, his voice sombre and low.
“What?” He holds my stare, silently demanding the truth that I don’t want to admit. My heart beats against my damn chest like I’m in the middle of a game and we’re about to punt at fourth down.
“Mia Montague,” he starts, folding his arms. “After that fucking Malibu party, you tried to make it as if she wasn’t from Palos Verdes but she was. She’s been living here all her fucking life.”
I just shot myself in the damn foot. Cole was right with his stupid song.
“Liam—”
“I get why you did that, I fucking do, but it doesn’t take a genius to find skinny dipping ice queens like her.”
Yeah, no kidding.
“And I’ve never seen you so angry at someone else like you are at her.” He eyes me cautiously. “You never take your anger out on anyone except for Dad. But she’s really the only one that presses your fucking concrete buttons.”
“That’s not true,” I start. “A bunch of shit makes me mad.”
“Not like her.” He shakes his head. I know he’s searching. I know he wants to know and the fact that Liam knows me is a pain in my fucking ass. “Hell, that crazy girl pulled that pregnancy shit with you but you weren’t mad.”
“That’s different.”
“Sure, that was different,” he scoffs. “Let’s try another one then.”
“Liam, stop digging—”
“You weren’t mad when Cindy brought over that marriage license form on your birthday either.”
“That’s because that bitch is out of her damn mind,” I grumble.
“Yeah, but she’s the only one you actually fucked more than once.”
“It means nothing.” It’s always meant absolutely nothing but itch scratching and availability.
“I know that.” He watches me, eyes filled with unresolved grief staring back at me. Trusting, waiting, needing an explanation for something I know will hurt him. “So, tell me if I’m reaching. Is it her?”
I don’t even know how to say it or where to start. Do I tell my brother that our father wasn’t there when Aiden was taking his last breath because he was balls deep into his latest whore—who he’s surprisingly been with for the past two years? Or do I tell him that our asshole of a father asked that same woman to marry him on the day of Aiden’s funeral?
“The girl who broke your heart,” I say instead, lying through my teeth.
“What?” Liam jumps back as if he’s just been electrocuted by my car.
“I said the owner of the car is the girl who broke your heart. You know, the queen bitch from Clintwood who told you off the first day of freshman year?”
“I didn’t get my heart broken by some girl!” he vehemently denies but we both know that’s not true.
Once upon a time, my brother believed in crap like ‘one true love’. He believed he could find ‘the one’ and fall in love with her until kingdom come. Of course, we gave him smack and hell about it, but I won’t ever forget the way he came back home that day—after vowing to make a name for himself at Clintwood Academy, away from me. His eyes were red and swollen, his shirt torn and he told Dad that he wanted to go to St. Jude High instead.
When asked why, he could only say it was because of Devil’s Princess. Naturally, I’ve tried to find out who the damn girl is, but I haven’t been successful with that. But by God if it’s Mia…
“You said the devil’s princess broke your heart,” I start, smirking. “Those plates said what? Princess. It was her car. You should be proud about that.”
“Fuck you,” he grits out. “That wasn’t her car. And stop trying to hide shit from me.”
“So, I’m right. There is a her.”
“J.”
“Liam.”
“Drop it.”
“After you.”
Silence stretches between us for a second, then he pushes off the car, and shuts the passenger door.
“You do know secrets
always find a way to come out right?” he questions as I switch gears to reverse out of the lot and head home. Those words twist my chest up, an echo of the same words being uttered by the girl who’s about to destroy my life, again, by hurting the last brother I have.
“Don’t they always?”
“Remember that, J.”
I won’t ever forget. But at the same time, I know that I need to handle this with care, knowing damn well that our parents’ divorce hit Liam harder than anyone else. I don’t think him finding out about John’s love affair while Aiden was dying would do him any good either.
“You’re still not racing Matthews, Liam,” I call out as I drive away. “Get over it!”
8
Arriving home, I pull up into the driveway only to find two white trucks parked around the fountain, the back doors open with workers dressed in white coveralls going in and out of the house, carrying some type of equipment inside.
Getting out of the car, I take off my shades and walk over to the front door, watching two guys working on the front steps, building a ramp—something that my father refused to do once Aiden had to use a wheelchair to move around. Well not for the front steps. He did it for the other entrances, because to him, that was fitting for Aiden.
“What the hell?” I mutter, watching them work as my blood starts simmering in my veins.
“Julian, son.”
I tense up the moment I hear his low baritone voice. Everything about the man who calls himself my father has me feeling the need to punch him then go out and destroy everything he loves. If I didn’t know that doing so would hurt Liam one way or another, I would have done it by now.
“What’s going on?” I demand, going up the stairs to the front door of the large mansion, noticing that John has casual clothes on. “Did you go the office today?”
“Nope, I was working from home today,” he answers, watching me with caution.
“Let me guess,” I start, looking around at the workers moving about. “You’re redecorating the house?”
“Well, the house does need renovating but not right now.”
“What’s going on then?” I look him straight in the eyes as I ask that, daring him to lie to me.
Devious Kisses: A Bully Enemies -To-Lovers Romance (It's Just High School Book 1) Page 11
