“Are you sulking Bella in New Moon style? Should I play some sad music? Maybe find the world’s smallest violin?”
“Jesus Christ!” I jump, the chair rolling out from under me so I slam into the floor. “What the fuck, Willow? Give a guy some warning.” I rub my bruised tailbone. Unfortunately I can’t do anything about my ego. “What are you even doing here?”
“Um … saying hello to my little bro.” She stands above me since I’ve yet to get up from the floor. “I told mom to text me when you got here so I could come over. Didn’t you miss me?” She’s laughing at me—not with actual laughter, but I can see it in her eyes. She’s mocking me in the way only older siblings seem to know how.
“I didn’t miss you a bit.” I get up, making sure not to flinch, but my ass hurts.
“Liar.” She pulls me into a hug which is kind of comical since she’s so much smaller than me now. “Ugh, it’s good to see you.”
I might envy the close bond my sister has with our dad, but I would never envy her. Sure we fight like any siblings and mock each other, but Willow is always going to have my back just like I’ll have hers.
“How’s the almost-married life treating you?”
She steps back smiling, her skin almost glowing. “It’s great. I couldn’t be happier. Dean is … he’s everything. I’m so glad we both got our heads out of our asses and decided a relationship was worth a shot over risking our friendship.”
“You two have always been meant for each other.” I might be a guy, but even I could see that. I’ve never seen two people better suited for each other. “Is Dean here?”
“He’s in the kitchen stuffing the food in his mouth I’m sure is meant for you.”
“And Rory.”
“Rory?” Her brow furrows. “Who’s that?” Her mouth widens. “A girl? Did you bring a girl home? Oh my God, Mascen! Do you have a girlfriend?”
The fact that I’m almost twenty-one years old and this is such shocking news should probably offend me, but it doesn’t. I’m not the girlfriend kind of guy.
“Rory is a girl, yes, but she’s not my girlfriend. She’s Rory-Rory,” I try to put emphasis on her name, hoping Willow will get what I’m saying. She ends up only looking more confused. “Remember Rory and Hazel that grew up in the house down the road—that Rory.”
“I’m so confused,” she mutters. “I didn’t know you kept in contact with her? You were so young.”
I shake my head, picking up the chair from the floor and returning it to the upright position and it’s rightful spot in the room. “I didn’t. But she’s a freshman at Aldridge.”
She blinks at me and bursts into laughter. “Wow, what are the odds?”
“No idea, but they have to be slim.”
“Why are you hiding out up here then? Shouldn’t you be with her?”
“I just showed her to her room and came up here.”
“And it looked like you were doing a whole lot of nothing. Come on,” she grabs her hand, yanking me forward, “introduce me to this girl you brought home that’s not your girlfriend, but we also somehow happened to know a long time ago.”
The last thing I want to do is leave the sanctuary of my bedroom, or I guess maybe I should start referring to it as my bat cave.
Peeking my head in the guestroom I find Rory isn’t there. The bathroom straight across from her is empty too. I left out the convenient fact that we’ll have to share.
“I don’t know where she is.”
Willow gives me the look, the one she perfected at a very young age that says I’m an idiot. “Then I’m sure she’s downstairs with everyone else.”
Sure enough, we find everyone gathered in the kitchen. The kitchen is the heart of the home after all.
She’s laughing with Dean, her head tossed back. She looks at ease, but I don’t miss the tight set of her shoulders, so she’s not entirely comfortable. Her laughter is genuine, the cadence tinkling and light. I could fall in love with that sound and it scares the shit out of me. Another part of me is furious that Dean is the one making her laugh, but I remind myself he’s engaged to my sister and has no interest in Rory.
Dean must sense my sister’s presence because he looks over, the smile on his face the one he wears only for her. He immediately heads over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in for a kiss.
Gag me.
I can’t imagine ever being that wrapped up in a woman.
Rory watches them before her eyes slowly drift to me. Her smile falters a bit, but it doesn’t stop her from coming to stand by my side while the lovebirds reacquaint after their five-minute separation.
“Getting to know everyone?”
“Trying to. It’s weird that I used to know everyone except Dean.” She shrugs her narrow shoulders. “But we’re all strangers now. Time does that.”
“Yeah, it does.” In ten years people grow, literally, personalities change, things evolve. In another decade we’ll all be different varied versions of who we are now in this moment. “Are you guys going to stay around?” I address my sister and Dean.
Willow shakes her head. “We’re going to run into town for some errands but we’ll have dinner tonight. Mom said she’s making your favorite.”
“What’s your favorite?” An amused smile plays on Rory’s lips. “A bloody steak?”
Despite my best efforts a smile overwhelms me. “No, lasagna.”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?” Willow’s eyes bounce between us, trying to put something together. I don’t know what she possibly thinks there is to figure out.
“Oh,” Rory clears her throat, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her pert nose, “I work at an Italian restaurant near campus. When he comes in he always orders steak.”
Willow says nothing, still looking between Rory and I like there’s some special road map written between us that only she can see.
“I don’t like their lasagna.” I tilt my head down to Rory. Sometimes I forget how much shorter she is than me until I’m right beside her and the only way to look in her eyes is to almost completely look down. “My mom’s is better.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Well, we’re going to head out now. We’ll see you later.”
Willow taps my shoulder and stands on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. Dean holds his hand out for a fist bump and we both blow it up. I chuckle at his dorky ways. He really is the perfect match for my quirky sister.
With them gone, Rory slides onto one of the barstools, leaning over to grab another chocolate chip cookie. Her tee rides up, exposing the smallest hint of her creamy midriff. My eyes linger there and I look away in shame when she sits down fully and her shirt lowers once more.
“This is my fourth cookie,” she whispers conspiratorially. “Don’t tell on me.”
I reach for another for myself. “My mom is the best.”
“Yeah, she is.” Sadness fills Rory’s face and she looks away, not wanting me to notice, but it’s too late.
“How is your mom?”
She presses her lips together, licking away a piece of chocolate stuck there. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You don’t talk?”
She puts the uneaten portion of her cookie down on the counter and scrubs her palms nervously on her jeans. “No. She wasn’t really there. I mean, she wasn’t even like your mom when things were good and my dad was alive, but she wasn’t like what she became. Once we lost everything, we lost her too. Hazel and I were a burden she didn’t want to deal with. We raised ourselves after that.”
My fists clench at my sides, pissed off at her mother. “Despite what happened, she shouldn’t have stopped caring about her kids.”
Rory rolls her eyes and picks up the cookie. “Well, she did.”
“How bad was it?” I’m hesitant to ask, worried her answer will only piss me off further.
“Bad enough. I’m sure other kids had it worse.”
I shake my head, my teet
h grinding together. “Did she ever hit you?”
Her face reddens. “Once. A back-handed slap.”
“Why?”
Her face, somehow, gets an even darker shade of red. “Um … she found Plan B in the trash. I thought I put it down far enough she wouldn’t find it, but apparently she wanted to hide something too.”
I suddenly, very much, want to hit something. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” She turns away from me, picking a crumb off the counter.
“Who was the guy?”
“A nobody. It was literally a one and done deal in the back of his truck.”
“And how old was he?”
She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know why that matters.”
“It does.”
“Because you don’t do sloppy seconds?”
“No,” I growl, suddenly right in front of her. I brace one of my hands on the counter beside her and the back of the stool she sits in, keeping her from leaving. “But I might have to drive wherever the fuck this guy lives and punch him if he was messing with an underage girl.” She bites down on her tongue, turning her head to the side so she doesn’t have to look at me. I take her chin gently between my fingers. “Tell me.”
“Twenty-one.”
“Fuck,” I growl, desperate to hunt down and kill this unknown to me guy.
“It was a mistake, among many others.” She gives a shrug like it’s not a big deal.
“You were sixteen. A kid.”
“I’m only two years older now.”
“Almost three,” I remind her. She looks confused and I crack a smile. “Yeah, I remember your birthday. January fourth. You’re a Capricorn.”
She raises a brow. “Into astrology now, Lex Luthor?”
I brush my finger over the smooth slope of her jaw. “Not really, but I am a Taurus. The bull. It makes me notably stubborn, so maybe there’s something to it after all.”
A small smile softens her face, but I can tell from her eyes that she’s still far away. “Something tells me you’d be stubborn, Taurus or not.”
“You’re probably right.” I take a step back and hold my hand out to her. “Let’s go somewhere.”
“Where?” She narrows her eyes suspiciously
Wiggling my fingers, I sigh. “Somewhere you’ve been before. Trust me.”
Her lips pinch, but finally she slides her fingers into mine. With her free hand she grabs the last of the cookie and tosses it in her mouth, laughing in amusement at my expression. “I like sweets.”
And I like the way she tastes. The urge to lean in and kiss her is strong, but I don’t act on it.
Since it’s not exactly warm out I pass her a sweatshirt from the mudroom, it’s probably one of Lylah’s, and dig out one from my cubby that’s been left there from last winter. Holding the backdoor open for her, we traipse past the fenced in part of the yard, heading for the trees quite a way in front of us.
“Are we going to the treehouse?”
I jerk to a stop. “I can’t believe you remember.” The treehouse had only been finished a few days prior to when she disappeared from my life.
She rolls her eyes. “Of course I remember.”
We reach the woods and it’s not far from there. The path is still clearly laid out even though I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who still comes here, and it’s not like I’m around much.
The treehouse is nicer than most, with a ladder built into the ground, stabilized with steel rods drilled down into the earth. The ladder leads up to the treehouse, which is basically one square room with an outer deck area. When I was young I felt like a king and this was my castle.
“It’s smaller than I remember,” Rory remarks, tilting her head to take in the wooden structure.
“You got bigger.”
Her laugh fills the air, my chest tightening in response because I made her make that noise. “Calling me fat?”
“No,” I blurt, feeling like an idiot. “I meant we grew up.”
She smiles over at me, her eyes clearer than before. “I know. I wanted to mess with you.”
I groan. “Go up, Princess.”
“Fine.” She reaches for it and starts up the first two rungs before pausing to look down at me. “Enjoy the view, Farquaad.”
“Oh, I will.”
I follow after her, definitely enjoying the lovely view of the delectable curve of her round ass. She gets to the top and crawls into the tree house on her knees instead of standing up like a normal human and walking in.
“Whoa, this isn’t what I expected.” She looks around at the bean bag chairs, rug, full bookcase, and other things I’ve drug up here over the years. One fall when I was bored I put some of those sticker wallpaper things on the inside that looks like brick.
“It’s my home away from home.” I plop my ass into one of the bean bags and she does the same.
“You’re kind of a loner, aren’t you?”
“I suppose you could say that. It’s hard to make true friends when most people want something from you.”
“You’re friends with Cole,” she points out.
“Cole puts me in my place. He tells me when I’m an asshole and he’s not scared of hurting my feelings. He never asks me for money and gets irritated when I offer. He insists on paying rent to my parents for the townhouse, even though they don’t want his money. He likes me for me, even when I’m less than tolerable.”
“Which is almost always.” She leans across the narrow space, nudging my knee with hers. “I can’t believe I let you convince me to come here.”
We both know she doesn’t mean the treehouse. “I’m very persuasive.”
“You say persuasive, I say annoying.”
“Tomato-tohmatoh.”
“It’s weird being here,” she whispers softly, like she’s scared to speak the words aloud, “but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I missed it more than I realized. I feel at peace here.”
“I wanted nothing more than to get away,” I confess, looking up at the ceiling with the plastic glow in the dark stars I put there when I was eleven. “I thought if I got away it would solve all my problems, that I’d be happier being independent, but I felt lonely and like I didn’t belong. It’s better now, but I come home every break whereas when I left I thought I’d never come back.”
“Why’d you want to leave so bad?”
“I don’t even know anymore. In the beginning it was to prove a point to my dad, I think I wanted him to miss me and I needed to hear him say that, but he didn’t.”
She sits up straighter. “Are things … bad with your dad? I can’t imagine your mom—”
“No, no, nothing like that,” I rush to assure her. “My dad’s a good guy and he’s a great dad with my sisters, but me…” I trail off, not sure how to explain it to her. It sounds crazy when I try to say it out loud. “I’ve always been closer with my mom. I think when I came along and was more into sports and girls and I wasn’t anything like him it was hard. He’s the closest with Willow. They’re so similar, but I’m definitely the least like him. When I got into baseball, he didn’t get why it was so important to me, the thrill I get from it. He didn’t come to many games, only one my entire senior year and he left halfway through it. Anything I did wasn’t as important to him as the things Willow and Lylah did.”
“I’m sorry, Mascen.”
“Mascen?” I turn my head, smiling at her. “No nickname this time?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t ruin the moment.”
“Thanks, Princess.”
“You know your dad loves you, though, right? I can’t imagine him not.”
“I know, but sometimes love isn’t enough. Surely you get that? It takes action. Being there for someone. Stepping up. Showing them that what they do and who they are matters even if we’re different.”
“Actions speak louder than words,” she murmurs.
“Exactly.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Ro
ry
Dinnertime comes around quickly, surprisingly. For some reason I expected the day to drag on. But after Mascen and I left the treehouse I took a nap and after I woke up I worked on a paper that’s due a few days after break ends. By the time I did that it was time to eat.
Seated by Mascen I’m surrounded by his scent. The intoxicating notes of citrus and woods fills my lungs every time I breathe. At the end of the table is his dad, at the other his mom, with his sisters and Dean seated across from us.
Mascen piles a cut of lasagna onto my plate first before putting another on his.
“Thank you,” I whisper under my breath. This might be Mascen but I’m still going to use my manners … sometimes at least.
He then passes me a piece of bread and takes one for himself after.
In the presence of his parents he’s on his best behavior.
“So, you’re studying at Aldridge with Mascen?” His dad, Maddox, asks me. “What are the odds?”
I shrug, lifting my hands. “That’s what we all keep saying.”
“How have you been all these years?”
“Um … good.”
God, this is more awkward than I feared. Things went too smooth with his mom and sisters, of course there had to be some sort of speed bump.
Maddox chuckles, running his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. I know he must be in his late forties, but he’s still insanely handsome. Smile lines decorate the corners of his eyes and mouth. There’s a sparkle in his gray eyes, the same shade as his son’s, that tells me that there’s a mischievous side to him. He’s different from Emma, who’s soft spoken and motherly. He’s clearly a troublemaker. But when he smiles at his wife the love in his eyes is undeniable. Even after all these years he’s clearly still head over heels. He loves his children too. The first thing he did after he greeted Emma when he got home was kiss all three on top of the head and talk about how happy he was to have all three children under the same roof tonight.
Bad Boys Break Hearts Page 19
