Fight Or Flight (Tempted Series Generation 2.0)

by Janine Infante Bosco

  Don’t make it right, though.

  “Dude, you are extra fucking weird today,” Danny says as we walk to the bus stop. “And where the fuck is your brother?” he questions, looking over his shoulder for Robert. “Are we leaving him at school or did the little ballbuster get detention?”

  “He’s not riding with us today.”

  If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t ride with us tomorrow either.

  After our parents revealed their plan to move Brooklyn and Joss into our home, things got a little hairy. Bella had a playroom on the first floor that my parents cleared out to make room for the hospital bed that was delivered this morning before they discharged Joss from the hospital. Mom suggested Brooklyn should have her own room. The girl was going through hell and she thought having her own space might be helpful when it all became too much for her.

  But as a family of six living in a four-bedroom house, we were already short on rooms. Me, being the oldest, I had my own room. Anthony and Eric shared one and Bella, being the only girl, got her own room too. Before my parents could ask me to give up my room, I offered. Conveniently we had a pull-out couch in the basement that I could sleep on and there was plenty of room for my crap down there. Besides, between school and my part-time job at Kate’s as a busboy, I wasn’t home all that much, anyway.

  It just made sense.

  Of course, Rob didn’t see it that way and thought me offering up my room was an excuse to get into Brooklyn’s pants. That’s about the time our dad pulled us aside and read us the riot act, warning us both to keep our dicks in our pants.

  “Brooklyn needs friends, she needs people she can depend on when her mom passes. What she doesn’t need is the two of you hunting her like she’s your prey. There are plenty of frisky felines for the two of you to sink your teeth into. She isn’t one of them.”

  Brooklyn was off-limits and that’s fine by me. Don’t get me wrong, I was sure living under the same roof with a girl as gorgeous as she is would be torture. A certain kind of agony that keeps you awake all hours of the night with your hand permanently wrapped around your dick, but I could deal with it. After all, what is life without a little sacrifice?

  Or so I thought.

  I got my first dose of torture last night when I walked in on her grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen. Somewhere in the back of my head I was aware the girl was fucking distraught, and I needed to listen to my dad, but seeing her in her pajamas…well, let’s just say the rest of my body didn’t get the memo.

  “Then fuck the bus. Let’s walk to the next stop. I’ve got a cannon the size of my head in my back pocket and you look like you need to smoke.”

  Not one to turn down weed, I nod in agreement. We cross the street and he reaches for the blunt he has safely tucked in his pants and a lighter. Setting that shit ablaze, he hits it first.

  He and Rob are the same age, making him a year younger than me, but we’ve always got along better. It’s probably because we both don’t give a shit about anything. We do what we want when we want, consequences be damned. The only thing we don’t see eye to eye on is our futures. While I don’t want any part of the motorcycle club, Danny is certain he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and is counting down the days until he can be a prospect for the Satan’s Knights.

  He’s got some pretty big shoes to fill considering his dad, Uncle Jack, is the former president of the club. If it wasn’t for his longtime battle with mental illness, Uncle Jack would probably still be in charge, but the Devil’s work became too much for the man and he turned over his kingdom to my grandpa.

  Blowing out a billow of smoke, he coughs and passes the joint back to me.

  “So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume your mood has something to do with your new house guest.”

  How perceptive of him.

  “I still can’t believe Bones has a daughter, and no one knew,” he continues. “Shit, Riggs must be losing his shit.”

  I take another hit. This time I hold my breath and welcome the burn in my throat. Blowing out a thick cloud smoke, I cough and pass the joint back to him.

  My dad is actually calm.

  It’s the rest of us that are losing our minds.

  “I think we all are,” I admit, hitching my backpack further up my shoulder. “Specifically, me.”

  Danny brings the blunt to his lips and arches an eyebrow.

  “Learning she exists was a shock itself, but knowing her mom is dying and she has no one—well, I don’t know how to feel,” I explain, pausing to think about my words.

  Honestly, I don’t want to feel anything.

  “What do you mean?”

  Turning my head, I stare at the street.

  I have no idea what I mean. I’m so fucking confused I don’t know if I’m coming or going. One minute I feel guilty and like it’s my mission in life to protect this girl I don’t even know, the next I’m standing in the kitchen trying my hardest not to stare at her boobs. If there are going to be ground rules, someone should tell her she needs to wear a bra to bed.

  “She came here looking for her father because her mom is dying and all she got was a death certificate and I’m the reason.” I divert my eyes back to him and shake my head. “How fucked up is that?”

  And why the hell couldn’t Bones’ daughter be ugly?

  Why did he have to leave behind a stunner?

  “Dude, seriously? It’s not your fucking fault. Bones made a decision to jump in front of that bullet and judging by the stories we’ve heard growing up, he would’ve made the same decision over and over again. That’s just who he was.”

  Deep down I know he’s right, that none of this is really my fault, but I can’t help but feel as though I somehow cheated her out of a father. Call it survivor’s guilt or whatever the fuck you want, but it’s real and I don’t think I’ll be shaking it anytime soon. Especially not with her living here. I am going to see her face every damn day. I will have to look into those sad eyes of hers and know that I’m the reason she’ll never know her dad. My family can do all the righteous things they want, but we’ll never make up for what she’s lost no matter how hard we try to and that’s a fucking fact.

  But the shittiest part of this whole situation is knowing she has yet to process any of it. She’s so focused on her mother that she hasn’t mourned the father she’ll never meet. She’s going to resent me. She’s going to fucking hate me. I think that’s why I brushed her off last night. I would rather she hate me from the beginning than have her hate me after I’ve had the chance to like her.

  Danny snaps his fingers in front of my face, demanding my attention.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  He hands me back the joint.

  “What do your parents say?”

  I shrug.

  “We haven’t really discussed anything. They spent the first night at the hospital and then yesterday morning they sat us down to tell us Joss was dying and that they were going to be Brooklyn’s guardians. The club took her to get her stuff in Connecticut, and we spent the rest of the day moving everyone around.” I pause for a second to see if I’m missing anything. “They want us to befriend her.”

  Like that’s going to help matters.

  “So, that’s what you do.”

  Easy for him to say—he didn’t have a midnight encounter with her headlights. He didn’t leave her standing in the kitchen like a lost puppy to spend the rest of the night wishing he was blind. Guilt or no guilt, not only do I have eyes, I’ve got raging hormones and they don’t come with an off switch.

  “You tell her the stories we all heard growing up and let her know how great of a guy her dad was,” Danny continues. “Who knows, it may even make you feel better about things.”

  I arch an eyebrow.

  Doubtful.

  Still, maybe he’s onto something.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, you’ve got it planted in your head that you took her father from her, but if you tell
her about him and give her a chance to know him like we do, it’ll be like you’re giving him back to her. I don’t know man; I’m fucking high as a kite. It sounded like a good idea in my head.”

  I chuckle slightly before diverting my attention back to the street. I can totally tell Brooklyn about her dad. I’ve heard all the stories and I’ve seen all the pictures. I don’t know if it will help either of us, but it might be worth a shot.

  “Is she going to go to our school?” Danny asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  I draw my attention back to him and think about that for a second. No one mentioned anything about school, but if she’s going to be living with us permanently, it only makes sense she goes to the same school as me and Rob. I just don’t know when that will be. While we were all getting ready to leave this morning, she was putting the sheets on the newly delivered hospital bed.

  “I guess, but with her mom being so sick I don’t think there is any immediate plan for her to enroll.”

  “You said she’s your age, right?”

  I nod.

  “Switching schools senior year has got to suck,” he adds.

  “I gather not much more than losing your mom.”

  “True,” he replies. Then he shakes his head. “Man, I don’t even know her, and I want to hug the shit out of her.”

  “Yeah, well, wait until you see her. If you weren’t so hung up on Tabitha, you’d want to do a whole lot more than hug her.”

  He quirks an eyebrow.

  “Oh, yeah, it’s like that?”

  I shake my head firmly.

  “Nah.”

  “Bullshit,” he taunts, laughing at me.

  I roll my eyes in response to him just as my phone rings. Digging it out of the back pocket of my jeans, I flip it around to look at the screen and groan when I see who is calling. I quickly silence it and shove it back inside my pocket, but not before Danny gets a look at the screen.

  “You should probably answer that,” he says.

  I like to get on my brother’s case, but I’m really no better. Always thinking with my dick and not that lump three feet above my ass. A couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of sleeping with the clingiest girl in Tottenville High School. I should’ve been a little more selective in deciding who I stuck my dick in because I’m pretty sure Jade DeMarco is planning our wedding right now.

  Boy, did I peg her wrong. I thought she was a cool girl down for some fun; I had no idea she expected me to make her my girlfriend after we hooked up.

  I look at Danny.

  “She won’t stop calling me.”

  He shrugs.

  “So?”

  “So, I’m not looking for a girlfriend.”

  “Then don’t make her your girlfriend,” he says simply. “She’s smoking, Eric, and she’s into you. Maybe hitting that again isn’t the worst thing for you.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Possibly,” he replies with a grin, and in that instant, he is the spitting image of his old man—right down to the gleam in his dark eyes. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree after all.

  Seven

  Brooklyn

  Have you ever been so exhausted that you can’t sleep? Your body goes limp against the mattress, but your mind never shuts down. Today was a rough one. My mom was discharged from the hospital and in the twenty-four hours since I had last seen her, she appeared to have aged twenty years. Her skin was paler than usual and teetered on the edge of gray. She didn’t appear to have much strength either and the woman who once was self-conscious about losing her hair made no attempt to cover her bald head.

  Terminal cancer had a face, and it belonged to my mom.

  She was talking, so at least there was that. But other than the smoothie Lauren made her, she barely kept any food down. I didn’t get to spend much time with her either. She slept a lot and when she was awake, she summoned Riggs into her room to discuss their guardianship over me. I felt like I should’ve been present, it was my life they were talking about.

  But when the lawyer came and the door to her room closed, it became clear I wasn’t getting a say in anything. It’s not that I didn’t like Riggs and Lauren, or that I wasn’t grateful for everything they were doing. I just wanted to be able to look at them while they revised my mom’s will. I wanted to take in their facial expressions and hopefully find some assurance that I wouldn’t be a burden to them.

  They had four kids of their own, and one of them was currently avoiding me like the plague. I shouldn’t be harping on that, Eric was entitled to dislike me. I had blazed through his home like a friggin tornado and upended his happy little life.

  But it bothers me, and I can’t help that.

  I throw the blankets off me and slide out of bed. Unlike last night, I don’t feel like I’m dying. I’m not hot and I can breathe just fine. Still, I creep out of Eric’s bedroom and make my way down the stairs.

  Without thinking my actions through, I start for the door leading to the basement. A warning bell sounds in my head, informing me I’m about to make a mistake. No one likes their privacy invaded, and I’ve clearly already colonized his bedroom.

  I reach the door, but before I can open it, I hear someone moving around in the kitchen. Tiptoeing away from the basement door, I pad to the kitchen and pause when I spot Eric standing in front of the refrigerator, slurping a juice box. His eyes widen at the sight of me and he freezes with his lips around the straw like I caught him with his hand in the cookie jar or something.

  So I’ve made him uncomfortable again.

  Great.

  My gaze wanders from the juice box to his bare chest. Doesn’t this guy own a shirt? How am I ever going to break the ice between us when he parades around half naked all the time? It’s distracting as all hell. The sound of his fist crushing the juice box forces my eyes back to his face.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. Although, I’m not entirely sure if I’m apologizing for walking in on him or everything else. Tearing his eyes from me, he walks to the garbage pail and chucks the crushed juice box in the trash.

  His silence drives me mad and something snaps inside of me.

  “So, is it just me that you don’t want to talk to?” I ask. His eyes slice back to me and slightly narrow.

  Screw it.

  I came down here to clear the air, and that’s what I’m going to do. I huff out a breath. This would be so much easier if he had a damn shirt on, but whatever. I look at the fridge and speak my piece. “Last night, you said you liked to talk but every time you and I are in the same room you don’t speak. I mean, I get it, I stormed into your life like a hurricane and flipped your perfect home upside down. You gave up your bedroom, and you did it without receiving so much as a thank you in return. I wouldn’t want to talk much to the girl who took my bed either.”

  “Brooklyn.”

  My gaze snaps back to him. The rambling stops and my eyes widen because he’s no longer standing by the garbage pail. Note to self: staring at kitchen appliances will result in a sneak attack and you will find yourself standing a foot apart from the guy you were trying to avoid.

  One foot.

  Twelve inches.

  So close.

  Close enough to get lost in those blue eyes and forget my life is falling apart.

  Too close.

  “You rang?” I croak.

  “My bed sucks.”

  “What?”

  He shrugs a shoulder.

  “I don’t know if it’s the mattress or the pillows, but it takes me like an hour just to get comfortable.” He pauses for a beat, cocking his head as he clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I prefer the pull-out I’m on now.”

  Yeah, right.

  I narrow my eyes.

  “No one prefers a pull-out,” I argue.

  “You calling me a liar?” he questions, raising an eyebrow.

  I think about it for a second. There’s no way he can possibly prefer to sleep on that thing, I just don’t understand why he
’d bother to lie about it.

  “Yes,” I admit.

  He laughs, and that startles me for a moment. He’s got a great laugh and for some reason it makes me want to smile, so I do. I friggin smile. I didn’t think it was a possible to do that when you’re hurting so much, but here I am.

  “Well, at least you’re honest,” he says.

  “Yeah, you should try it sometime,” I tease. He seems to consider my words for a moment. Desperate to keep him talking, I find the courage to press him. “Admit you hate the pull-out.”

  He looks at me.

  Those blue eyes so damn consuming.

  “Fine, you want honesty, I’ll give you honesty. I haven’t said much to you because I don’t know what to say.”

  Now, I wasn’t expecting that. I try to mask the confusion on my face, but when he sighs, I realize I’m a horrible actress.

  “The truth is, you are a hurricane, Brooklyn, but not in the way you think.”

  I’m not sure what that means, and I don’t think I want to know either.

  “We need Oreos for this conversation,” he mutters.

  Taking a step closer to me, he reaches over me to open the cabinet behind me, taking a package of cookies from the shelf. He turns his head and those blue eyes connect with mine.

  Damn.

  “Can you grab the milk while I get us some glasses?” he asks.

  I’m not really sure what’s happening or how we got to eating cookies and drinking milk in the middle of the night, but I go with the flow and nod. I make my way to the fridge and I hesitate for a second as my mom’s voice sounds in my head, reminding me it’s not polite to open someone else’s refrigerator.

  I don’t know that I will ever get used to thinking of this place as my home.

  I don’t know that I even want to.

  Why does life have to be so hard?

  “Brook, the carton of milk doesn’t have legs. You have to pull the door open,” Eric says. I glance over my shoulder at him. He’s already seated at the breakfast nook with the cookies and two empty glasses.