They’ve stopped. They’ve all stopped. Everyone here at the party is looking at me. Each one of these rich Pricks has their beady eyes shooting in my direction and I want to shoot back. I want to kick every single one of their asses for looking because I know what they’re doing... they’re judging me.
“What?” I question them all, spinning my head around. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
A hand lands on my back and I swing my arm with a twist of my body, stopping just in time before I crush a pretty face with my fist to see it’s Francesca. I wrap my arm around her neck, crushing her body against mine. “Oh, baby.” I snake my other arm around her waist. “I’ve been looking for you. Where have you been?” Her warm body against mine makes me feel so at ease, so at peace. “Franny, I’ve been missing you.” I kiss her neck. “I’ve been missing your sweet lips.” I open my mouth to plant a hot kiss on her but she pushes me back.
“Not here,” she sighs, tugging on my arms. “You’re drunk, Rick. Come with me.”
Franny takes my hand and leads me through the crowd, into a room, then Franny is shutting the door to what looks like a laundry room, behind her.
Washer...
Dryer...
A basket full of dirty clothes...
Yep, must be a laundry room and I can’t wait to strip Franny of her clothes and get her naked. I push her up against a wall, my full front landing flush against her, my hands at her waist. God, she feels so good. “You want your first time to be in here? Hmm?” I question. My dick is already excited. “I always knew you had a freak streak in you.” I tilt my head, moving in for a kiss.
“No, Rick,” she pushes on my shoulders. The distance she puts between us is making me ill again.
“But Franny, this was the plan. Tonight, was our night. You still want me, don’t you?” I reach for my fly. I can’t wait to throw all our clothes in the basket.
She stops me, gripping my fingers painfully. “I still want you, Rick, but not like this. You’ve had too much to drink.”
Wiggling my hand free, I cup her breast, massaging. She’s not as responsive as she should be. She feels stiff and the sequins feel awkward in my palm. I’m desperate to tear this dress free from her so I can soften her up. Slyly, as I kiss her neck, I slip one of the thin straps off her shoulders, but she slips it back up.
“Stop.” She pushes again.
Ugh! She’s driving me crazy.
We talked about this. She said she was ready to get to the next level. Was she just teasing? I never got the impression my Franny was a tease. I’m so confused. I’m not sure what to think or how I’m supposed to feel. I feel empty. I have no words to describe what I’m feeling until I catch sight of Franny’s cleavage right under my nose and I lick my lips.
I’m hungry.
I cup her breast more firmly. “Show me your titties again, Franny. They’re so fucking perfect. Show me, baby. Let me suck on you and let me eat between your legs. Trust me. You want me to.” My tongue salivates as my head falls downward, towards the pillow tops of her beautiful breasts that I want to lick, bite, and bury my face between.
“Rick, I said, no!” she snaps. “Stop behaving like a Prank. You’re acting stupid like your brothers.” She pushes. She pushes hard.
I’m in shock. Franny has managed to push me so far across the room that when I reach out to grab on to her, I feel nothing before I nearly tumble over. She doesn’t reach back while my hand is up, outstretched and just stands there, staring at me, breathing heavily.
Withdrawing my arm, I smooth my hand through my slick hair. My hair that makes me look like a Prick.
“My brothers?” I ask, cocking my head back and scratching my chest. “They’re not my brothers, and they’re not stupid.”
“Yes, they are! Zane and Teddy are ruining my party,” she huffs.
I laugh. “Your party was already ruined. It was hardly a party until we showed up.”
“See!” Franny flails her arm. “This is why I knew I shouldn’t have invited you.”
My ears can’t believe what they just heard!
Zane was right. Franny had no intention of inviting me, but after all the kisses and sneaking out over the last two weeks plus me being on my best behavior, I just can’t believe she wanted to keep her birthday party a secret from me.
My eyes squint. “Seriously? You weren’t planning on inviting me?”
She swallows, her gaze drifting to the floor.
And now she won’t answer. I’m fuming! “You know, you’re just like your father. You’re just like every other sneaky rich Prick—”
“Don’t bring my father into this,” she barks back. “At least, he’s honest. You’re a liar. You never told me you were working for him.”
“Honest? You think your father is honest?” This girl has been over-sheltered. “There are things about your father I know better than you, Francesca, and believe me, he’s nothing but a Prick, a Prick who uses people. Like you do.”
“Like me?” She swings her head, pointing to herself, her hair flying in the stiff heat of the room that doesn’t feel like it shares any air conditioning.
“Like you,” I affirm. “You were going to use me just like every other Prick who likes to use Pranks because you think that’s all we’re good for—doing your dirty work.”
Her jaw drops and her cheeks flush red. “Use you? How the hell was I planning to use you?”
“You’ve been planning on using me for two weeks. You’re eighteen today and you figured that you might need a back up—a booty call—in case you were lonely or felt the need to get deflowered on your path towards womanhood or some stupid chick shit like that.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve been with a lot of chicks, Franny, and I’ve been to a lot of parties. I know when a chick is too hot for her own good and let’s be honest. You got yourself all dressed up like that to be sure you’d get some tonight, but I’m the only guy at this party that you trust to fuck you because unlike those Pricks out there, I’m the only one who has any self-control.”
“Self-control?” she mocks. “You dented my car when we first met.”
Ugh, why does that matter? “Yeah, but I fixed that!”
“It doesn’t change the fact that you damaged it in the first place the same way your brothers are damaging my house.” She stomps her foot. “And my party!” she screams.
“It’s a lame party!” I shout back. “You’re fucking clueless. If you had come to me to plan it—”
“Did you just call me clueless?” Her eyes narrow.
My face twitches. “That’s not what I meant.”
She makes fists of both hands. “I’d rather be clueless than a lying, cheating, low-life, dirty scumbag like you.”
Ouch. I feel like Francesca just stabbed me with a knife.
My eyes fall to the laundry basket on the floor filled with dirty clothes. I sense her gaze, blazing and I turn to stare her down with equal fury. “Don’t you mean Prank? You could’ve saved a lot of air if you simply said you don’t want to be confused with a Prank. And I take it you don’t want to be with a Prank anymore either.”
She grits her teeth, panting. “I certainly don’t want to be with anyone who ruins birthdays but, then again, could I have expected anything less from someone who was raised in a gutter?”
What the fuck? My Ma did the best she could. I hate my mother sometimes, but I’m not going to listen to some spoiled rich bitch talk down about my home, the home my mother breaks her back to maintain and not just for me, but for other kids as well.
I head towards the door, gripping the handle. I sigh as I turn the knob, pulling it open. “I take it back, Franny. You’re not clueless. You’re a brat and unfortunately for you I don’t fuck brats no matter what side of the city they come from.”
I step out the door. My head is pounding, my blood boiling. I could totally fuck up some shit right now—get into some real trouble tonight. I feel the angst rising
within and I want to hurt someone. If anyone messes with me right now I’m sure I’m going to hurt them, so I reach in my back pocket because I need to calm down but...
Nothing! No cigs!
Fuck, I should’ve never changed. I left my smokes in my other pants.
Chapter 14
FRANNY
Francesca Hancock!”
Daddy’s voice cuts through the noise and the pounding music stops suddenly, but it’s replaced by a deafening wailing which I realize is the fire alarm. The screaming and laughing has morphed into running feet as kids scurry to grab their things. There is a monumental exodus through the front door and the crowds part as Brock Hancock makes his way across the kitchen toward me. By the time he grabs my arm and hauls me over to the control panel and silences the alarm, all my guests have fled.
Frantically, I look for Rick and his non-brothers but they have vanished too. The night sky is flashing red and blue and that’s when I realize I can hear sirens.
“Y-you called the cops?”
“The cops called me.” He spits as he tugs me out of the kitchen and onto the patio.
He scans the garden and then drags me along behind him across the yard, over to the table where Rick’s friend, Skinny, set up jars of moonshine earlier. Daddy glares at me as he pours what’s left away and hurls the glass into the bushes.
“You stupid fucking bitch.”
I’m stunned and can’t even reply. There is a commotion at the back door and four police officers appear silhouetted against the house which is now lit up like a Christmas tree. Every damn light is on inside and I can see heads ducking out of rooms upstairs.
“He was here, wasn’t he? That Prank?” Daddy hisses into my ear as we watch the cops sweep across the lawn toward us.
I open my mouth to speak but he shakes me hard. “Don’t lie to me, I saw that Prank leave when I pulled up before the cops.
My head is whirling, I still can’t figure out how Daddy found out what was going on or why the cops are here.
“Think before you speak to the police, Francesca. The party was gatecrashed, you panicked, and called me for help, you hear?”
I nod meekly. How did he know?
The cops take forever, questioning me and they force me to reel off lists of names of kids that attended—but I never mention Rick or Teddy or Zane. Even though I’m mad as hell at what has happened, I can’t bring myself to involve them.
Daddy glares, his eyes are burning into me, and I know as soon as the cops leave I am in trouble. When I go with my father to the front door, the officer in charge gives me a speech about being lucky that he isn’t going to write me up and how my stupid behavior could have ended a lot worse.
My stupid behavior! Like seriously? My party was tame until Rick showed up.
Outside, I see two cars in a wreck and a group of kids from my school looking dazed as officers breathalyze them and read them their rights. The front yard is a mess. Litter and even pieces of furniture from the house are scattered all over. There are neighbors standing outside on their manicured lawns and I guess I have my answer as to why the police ended up here.
By the time everyone has left and I’ve helped bring things back into the house, I’m sobbing uncontrollably. Shame overwhelms me as I see the mess in our home and even though I know Rick and his friends didn’t actually do any of this, I lay the blame squarely at their feet.
It was their friend that brought the alcohol, it was Zane’s karaoke act that turned my living room into a nightclub, and it was Teddy’s fiery moonshine cocktails that set off the fire alarm. But most of all, this is Rick’s fault—if I never invited him, none of this would have happened.
“Why don’t we get some sleep and finish this in the morning.” Mom is crazy calm and I can’t believe she is trying to diffuse the situation.
“You go up, Elizabeth.”
“Brock…”
“I said, go the fuck to bed.”
She vanishes out the room and I’m left facing Daddy on my own. It’s all my own fault. I know. But my knees are knocking as he slides off his belt.
“Tell me the truth, Francesca. You were with that dirty Prank, weren’t you?”
“No Daddy, honestly I’d never lie to you. If he was here, I never saw him. It was like you said some people gate crashed. I didn’t invite half…”
“Francesca.”
Daddy has the power to silence me with one word and all my denials are falling on deaf ears.
“Of all the boys to take up with.” His eyes grow dark and he pulls the tongue of his belt through his hands. “Why couldn’t you date that nice boy, Lance? His father owns a million-dollar limousine company…”
I don’t hear the rest of the words but it is a speech I am familiar with. Nice boy! After what I saw of Lance at his own party, there is nothing nice about Mr. Gordon’s son. Rick was right about one thing. He is the only one I trust because he is the only one that is open and honest. Rick always took care of me, he never pushed even though I know being restrained drove him wild.
The smack across the backs of my legs takes me by surprise even though I knew it was only a matter of time. There is nothing I can do to defend myself as Daddy grips my wrist and let’s go with a volley of back-to-back lashings. He only stops when my mother screams at him from the bottom of the stairs.
As soon as he lets go of me, I stumble up past her, hoping she will keep him from following me.
When I finally make it to my room, I have no tears left to cry. I struggle to lie down on my mattress as the welts across my backside and thighs smart every time I move. Next to my bed, is a huge card my parents gave me this morning. I snatch it up and tear it into a hundred tiny pieces.
Eighteen.
I’m eighteen-years-old and it’s the worst day of my life.
My phone buzzes and my heart sinks. If that is Rick… But it isn’t. Bambi’s picture flashes on the screen and I answer it, lowering my voice so Daddy won’t hear.
“Oh my God, Franny are you okay? Did the cops arrest you?”
“No.” I sniff, there is no stopping the tears again as I try to reply.
“Do you know what happened?” She hesitates waiting for me to answer.
“No. I was, um, talking to Rick in the laundry room and when I came out, all hell had broken loose. What did his friends do?”
“His friends?”
“Yeah, the guy on my coffee table who thought he was Justin Bieber and the one with the beard making flaming cocktails.”
Bambi giggles then turns serious. “They were fun, huh? But honestly, they had nothing to do with it.”
“They got my friends drunk.” I wail, forgetting for a moment to keep my voice low.
“No, it wasn’t them. Lance spiked the punch as soon as he got here. I overheard him say to that loser buddy of his that he wanted to loosen you up.”
“He what?”
“Um, don’t get mad, Franny. He was saying how he was gonna make sure you noticed him tonight and that he had a big present for you. He grabbed his junk and made this rude gesture when he spoke. His friend thought it was hilarious.”
I buried my head in the pillow. “What else did you see, Bambi?”
“Well, um, the wrestling team set up a tournament on your front yard and it kind of attracted a lot of attention from the neighbors and that guy from Lance’s party—the one who wanted you to try coke—um, maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”
“Go on.”
“Well, him and Jerry had these pills and they were passing them around and dropping them in people’s drinks.”
“What pills?”
“I don’t know, Franny, some type of drugs, I didn’t take any.”
There is too much going around in my head and I am unable to process everything she is telling me. My backside hurts and the tension at my temples makes me close my eyes. “I-I should go, it’s been a long night.”
“Okay, call me tomorrow, Franny, I hope you don’t get grounded.”
&nb
sp; By the time morning came, I was pretty intimate with my ceiling after having lay awake all night staring up at the damn thing trying to work out what went wrong and ignore how stiff and sore I am from Daddy’s belt.
Bambi’s call last night only muddied things up in my head and now I’m not sure who to blame. My phone is by my side and it has been ominously quiet all night and I wonder if I’ll ever hear from Rick again.
Do I even want to hear from him?
A few seconds later, I’m scrolling through our texts. The sweet things he says make me catch my breath. I love how he talks to me, that he calls me sweet lips, that he tells me he will be good to me. With a sigh, I flip over to the pictures in my photo app. I only have a couple of us together but my favorite by far is the one where I was trying to take a cute picture of him kissing my cheek. My eyes are wide, his mouth puckered up mid-smooch. What you can’t see in the picture is what he said to me as I snapped the photo.
“Smile, if you want me to fuck you, sweet lips.”
What you can see is the hugest smile on my face.
I trace my finger over his features on the screen and I can’t help that my body reacts to him even though he is not here. My cheeks flush, my heart-rate quickens, and I know if I looked in the mirror my lips will be a deeper shade of red and my eyes will be sparkling. Even though I am still mad at him, my body wants him and that familiar ache and longing takes hold.
My brain and heart are in conflict. When I think back to last night, how he was drunk and pawing me and how he accused me of using him, my heart breaks because none of that is what our relationship was about.
What we had might have been doomed to failure but for a while it was real. For a few weeks, we defied the odds. Downtown and Uptown met in the middle and the fact that he was a Prank and I wasn’t, didn’t even come into it. We were just two people in love, two souls that thought we could kick back against history. And, even though we knew others would judge us, we were sure our love was all we needed.
I go back to the texts and my finger hovers over the keys. First, I type I’m breaking up with you, but no sooner do I hit the last letter than I press backspace and delete it. On the next try, I write I love you, but a second later that is gone too.
Heart Broke (Broken Home Book 1) Page 11
