Brielle finally notices the table’s attention slipped over her head and glances over her shoulder.
The air in the room shifts, each and every one growing stiff while waiting on shriveled sacks.
Not her though.
Brielle doesn’t tense or freeze or jolt, doesn’t put on a sassy smirk or lean forward to put her chest on display for me, doesn’t trip or try to spice up the least bit.
No fear, no flex.
The girl spins in her chair and fuckin’ smiles, wide and welcoming.
Pleased, and not in a conceited, knowing way.
Goddamn, if it doesn’t take effort to not pause my own punk boy steps.
There’s a heavy beat in my palms, unexpected adrenaline firing through me and making my limbs grow heavy. Tired.
It’s almost enough for me to walk away.
Fuck’s happening here?
Brielle’s elbow is propped up, so she lays her head on her folded fist.
With a whole helluva lot of effort, I force my eyes from her, look across the table, and nod at the guys. A few lift their fists and I meet them with mine.
These are the assholes who have our backs, and we have their paychecks. There’s respect there, loyalty, and it goes both ways.
They don’t know Brielle’s off-limits.
Fuckin’ Christ.
I look to Brielle.
Her smile deepens.
A weight falls on my chest, right where the center of my chain hangs, my family crest.
Off-limits?
“What up, man?” Micah grins, stepping beside me.
I jerk my chin, not bothering to look his way. I might want to nut check him if I do, and I don’t care to know why.
“Not much. Just came to grab somethin’.”
Her eyes flash with amusement, and the turquoise brightens, reminding me of the waters in Panama, where our dad took us on our last family vacation more than a decade ago before shit here hit the fan and kept on spinning.
“Anything, man.” Micah nods, hungry to please, to prove himself. “Tell me what you need.”
I glance his way and he shifts, stands tall, proud, like a soldier facing his general.
It’s a good ass way to be, a great fucking sign from the new guy, but I’m not here for him.
I look to Brielle.
The table looks to Brielle.
And Brielle, she laughs.
I don’t have to tell her to stand up, she does it on her own, and only then do I get a good look at her.
How I didn’t notice this morning, I don’t know. Maybe because I was busy putting a bit of fear in her. Maybe it’s because any fear she may have felt disappeared the second her eyes found mine.
I cut the thoughts quick, focusing on the strappy sandals and pink painted toes planted two steps from mine and follow the path of tan and toned legs.
Thick thighs hugged tight by little white shorts lay a little low on wide hips. A loose fitted green tank with a board shop logo in the right corner that doesn’t quite meet her bottoms.
She shifts to grab her backpack from beside her feet, and that little hint of skin between her belt and top widens, offering with it a sneak of what’s beneath. A different shade of silver catches the light, but it’s hidden as quick as it was exposed.
Was that... a piercing?
I’m tempted to lift the hem of her top and get a better look, but when my eyes cut left, finding Micah’s just discovered, or is wondering, the same thing, and he ain’t looking away, decide against it.
“Thanks for letting me sit with you.” She’s focused on Micah, then turns to the table with a small wave. “I’ll see you guys soon, I’m sure.”
I’m prepared to lead her where I want her, but Brielle doesn’t stand there waiting for direction.
She doesn’t wait for a sign from me at all.
She slips by with a smile, and some-fucking-how it’s me, following her out.
The second we’re standing in the warm outside air, and there aren’t dozens of fucking ears surrounding us, I slip in front of her, halting her footsteps.
She grins, but it falters when she realizes I’m not.
I’m irritated.
Why?
Who fucking knows!
But I am.
So I find something to bark about.
“You seem pretty fucking comfortable already.”
Her mouth pinches to the side. “I thought it was nice of Micah to introduce me to some people he met already.”
“From lame little loner to suddenly needing a gang around you, and all in a half day’s work.”
Brielle nods, and she looks away. “Yeah, Royce, that’s exactly it.”
“Don’t pretend it’s not, nobody likes a fake.”
An angry little flare has her chest rising. “And nobody likes a guy who’s an ass in an effort to drown out his own inner issues.”
My jaw flexes, my tone dark. Warning. “Watch it, baby girl.”
This girl, she either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.
She steps into my space. “Man up, baby boy.”
I push toward her. “I swear to God—”
“If something I do bothers you, say it,” she cuts me off with a soft shout. “Or better yet, growl it since that seems to be your favorite way to communicate.”
“You’re pissing me off.”
“I’m getting the feeling you’re perpetually pissed off.” A sour laugh slips from her, but a soberness is quick to take its place. “If there’s something you want me to know, tell me all about it. Something you want me to stop doing or do more of, spell it out for me. Something you need from or of me, ask for it. I will give it to you if I’m able, and if I’m not, I’ll try to find a way.”
Something wraps around my upper body, squeezing. Pulling.
I swear there’s a crack.
I don’t like it.
She’ll do what she can, as much of it as she’s got, for me.
‘Cause that’s what I hired her for, right? What a good employee would do?
My lungs fill with air.
Right?
Brielle’s arms fall to her side. “All I want is to be whatever it is you hoped for the minute you decided I was worth this place,” she whispers with purpose. “But I can’t be if you don’t help me figure out what that is.”
I push my chest out, my attempt to stretch through the heaviness building and building.
And fucking building.
She wants to be whatever I want her to be.
Whatever I want her to be.
I want her to be better off than she was because she was supposed to be.
I want her to be everything her brother doesn’t.
I want her to do all the things he’d hate.
See all the things he tried to shield her from.
The pain and anger, the danger and resolution.
I want her in the middle of trouble and forced to fight her way out.
I want her to be nothing she is and everything she’s not.
That’s why I brought her here, to change her, to give her more and use her to piss off her brother?
Isn’t it?
To create something new for Bass Bishop’s little sister.
To obliterate the softness, bury the bright, and lead her into the darkness?
To erase everything she is and rewrite her completely.
RIGHT?!
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until a hard hand comes down on my shoulder.
I meet Maddoc’s gaze, and he lowers his chin.
Snap out of it, brother, that’s what he’s saying.
With his help, I do. I force my muscles loose and push a chuckle past my lips.
I grab the ball he offers and begin walking backward, Brielle studying me closely.
“That...” I trail off, plant my feet and throw for a three-pointer, slowly turning back, not stopping until I’m directly in front of her. “Was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever heard.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“And you should go,” she says softly. “Your BrayGirl is waiting.”
BrayGirl?
I look over as she does.
Katie K stands near the double doors leading to the empty locker room, pretending not to be eavesdropping.
She’s far from mine, just someone I enjoyed playing with, but I don’t tell her this.
I lick my lips.
“You were wrong, you know.” We meet each other’s eyes. “You said a BrayGirl is good enough for our bed, but not our heart.”
I’m not sure she realizes it, but she takes a step back before speaking. “So you could love a girl who would give herself to you when you haven’t earned it?”
“No.”
Her frown is as quick as my response, but it doesn’t hold long.
She understands what I’m saying.
Not only is a Brayshaw’s heart off-limits to the girls they sleep with, but their beds are, too.
With that, I walk away, grab Katie K and get the fuck out of there.
I should have realized right then and there Brielle Bishop would be a problem for me.
I didn’t.
Chapter 12
Brielle
I walk through the football field and out the back gate instead of going out the front.
I have no idea if Royce or Micah or any of the other girls from the home will be waiting around for me or not, but it’s not likely.
A fact that’s proven when a half hour passes, and I get no calls or texts asking where the hell I disappeared to. I could always say I stayed after to help my teacher, but if they asked him about it, I doubt he’d lie for a student he doesn’t even know.
Not that they would ask or that I have a reason to lie.
I’m technically a free reigner here until I’m called on by the game maker, aka Royce freaking Brayshaw and his hot and cold attitude.
That’s the logic I use when I hop on the city bus and take it the forty-five-minute route to the edge of town.
It’s the line where Brayshaw ends and the real world begins. Just behind this neighborhood are almond orchards and small, privately owned vineyards. Those go on for miles and at the very end of them sits a highway. It too, is miles long to the next true town, and the exact reason this one is able to function as it does.
Well, that and the money flowing through it.
Money is power.
But money isn’t always good.
People would never guess, but me and my brother? We weren’t poor.
We weren’t even a leg up on Brayshaw wealthy, but we weren’t poor.
Did we go hungry? Yes, but as a punishment.
Have fewer fancy things and rotate clothes like champs? Oh yeah, but again. Punishment.
We were pale and frail and silent, just as they wanted.
My brother is still a guy of few words, but he’s far from frail, though he hides it well. He built strength, but he built it how he wanted it—deceptively.
If our father taught him anything, it was how to hide what he didn’t want others to see.
I’m not too bad at it either, but as far as strength, I’m still trying to figure out where mine lies.
I can’t exactly kill with kindness.
That was one thing my father hated most about me. He said I wore my heart on my sleeve and one day it would be shattered, if he didn’t shatter it first.
What he didn’t understand was I was the way I was, because he was the way he was.
It wasn’t a weakness; it was a choice.
My heart was on my sleeve so my brother would know I still had love to give, and I’ll admit, a way to spite our parents. I needed to show them I wasn’t bitter and broken, like they wanted. I saw deeper, understood young, they weren’t normal or good or even decent, and I knew I would be nothing like them.
I give my brother a large amount of credit for that. He and I, through all of it, we had loved each other. And that alone was enough to endure the tomorrow that we knew would forever come.
Speaking of my brother, where is he?
I pull out my phone, but we’re too close, I have to focus, so I stuff it back in my bag.
I sit on the edge of the plastic and felt-covered bus seat, staring out the window.
With each stop made, we grow closer.
I lift my hand to yank the wire lining the windows that lets the driver know to make the next stop, but as my hand wraps around it, I chicken out. My fingers rest on the cooled pull string, and then someone else tugs it down.
I guess it’s settled.
We’re making the next stop.
I could easily not get off, but I came all this way.
I step from the bus, walking down my old street for the first time in four years. A street that, the day I was finally off of, I told myself I never wanted to set foot on again. Never see or think about.
That only lasted a few months.
It’s like the saying goes, you want what you can’t have, only warped.
I didn’t want to see my home, but being sent away, unable to, I wanted the chance to stand across the street and stare at it.
I thought about it a thousand times, and each time, Bass was beside me.
The entire situation, and conversation, played out in my head.
We would wait here, across the street until the living room got too smoky and our dad needed fresher air to blow his piney tobacco into. He’d come out on the porch and freeze, spotting us there, in the light, during summer, for all the neighbors to see.
What he’d say.
What we’d say back.
What our dad would try to do, and how we’d stop him.
How I’d get behind the wheel of my brother’s Cutlass and hit the gas, paint the brown garage red, if he even bleeds the same way we do.
No, that’s wrong, he doesn’t.
Me and Bass, we bleed on the inside where no one can see.
Pain becomes pity, and we never wanted any of that, so we showed none.
We participated in PE with achy ribs and blank faces, because to show discomfort meant to raise questions, raising questions meant raising our dad’s fists.
Silence was best.
Secrets were necessary.
Trust was nonexistent.
We didn’t trust our father not to kill us, our mother to save us. We didn’t even trust ourselves, which meant we couldn’t trust each other. Not because we thought we’d do one another wrong, but because we’d do anything for each other. Anything. Always. No matter what.
People say all the time how they’d die for someone they love, in a heartbeat, they usually follow the statement with, but most have never and will never be faced with a situation where they’d have to put their money where their mouth is.
It’s easy to say I’d die for you in a moment of hyped emotion or an attempt to prove your love or loyalty.
But would they?
If you stared down the barrel of a custom, steel-bodied, Glock when the safety’s off, would they step in front of it?
Probably not.
“You okay?”
My elbow lifts, flying around with my body, but the guy jumps back before he catches it to the jawbone.
His hands lift and he takes a careful step back. “Hey, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, but we got off the bus almost five minutes ago, and you’ve been standing there staring at the stop sign ever since.”
I turn back to the stop sign I had no idea I was looking at.
My dad banged my head against that once.
Bass taught me how to ride a bike. My mom came out pretending to be proud, and he followed.
I fell and he strolled over.
A perfect fatherly thing to do, right? Lift your little girl off the ground when she falls flat against it.
He did, my bike too. He even helped me out of my helmet, while Bass stood by warily watching, an apology in his eyes. And then as
we crossed the street, my dad pretended to bump into me. My head “just happened” to knock right into the metal post, leaving a large knot in the center.
To anyone around, it was a harmless accident. I might have even thought so too, if he didn’t take the time to whisper, “Now you know what it will feel like next time you fall.” He threw my helmet in the trash that night.
The guy clears his throat and I blink out of the memory.
I say the first thing that comes to mind. “I don’t like this stop sign.”
He chuckles, his eyes quickly taking me in. “Yeah, I’m not a fan of that yield sign on the next block up,” he jokes. “You headed that way?” He points forward.
I nod.
“Well, I was a scout, and scouts are required to help people cross the street.”
“Old people.”
He grins. “I was hoping you didn’t know that.”
A light laugh leaves me, and we both step up to the curb.
He’s not a creep, doesn’t try to hold my arm or hand or anything, and he doesn’t drop behind me to check out my ass. We walk side by side across the street.
We don’t speak as we make it past the first few houses, but when we get to the curb of the next block, he turns to me.
I look from his blond hair to his light eyes.
He tips his head. “You don’t seem eager to get wherever you’re going.”
“I’m not.”
He nods, glances away and turns back with a slight tilt of his head. “There’s a taco truck a couple streets back.” He motions toward where we came. “I could eat.”
Yeah. “I could eat, too.”
He grins and we head in the direction he suggested.
We order burritos and sit across from one another at a picnic table.
“So.” He stares at me.
“So.” I laugh lightly. “I hope I didn’t keep you from something.”
“Not at all, this is where I was headed.”
My brows pull in and I smile. “But you were walking in the opposite direction.”
He opens his mouth, but then laughs it off. “Yeah, no. I just mean I was planning on getting some heartburn this afternoon. Figured it may as well be now instead of later.”
A low laugh leaves me. “So where were you going?”
“Oh, uh, I missed my stop, but what about you? You seemed to know the area.”
“What makes you think I don’t live over here?”
Break Me Page 13
