“Hear?” I asked dumbly. “I just—I’ve been sitting on the bed. I couldn’t—”
Tristan bent down low, getting his face close until I could see every ounce of fury in his expression. “If you breathe a word of anything to anyone, I’ll make your life hell. Understand?”
“I won’t say anything about what I didn’t hear. I got it.”
Tristan put his hand on my cheeks, squeezing slightly. For a second, I thought he might push me down to the bed. Instead, he let go and straightened. “Do they work?” He asked in a frighteningly casual tone, as if he hadn’t just looked ready to murder me.
“What?”
“Your legs.”
“Um, well, that depends on—”
He didn’t wait for me to finish. He scooped me up, less like a sack of potatoes this time and more like a child.
The memory of how terrifying he’d looked when he loomed over me kept me quiet until we got outside. My wheelchair was waiting by the front door. I scanned it for signs of the damage he’d talked about, but all I could see were small dents in one of the wheels, almost like it had been hammered back into shape.
“You fixed it for me?” I asked as he sat me down in the chair.
“The alternative was carrying your ass back home.”
“Thanks.” I tested out the wheels. They didn’t seem any worse for wear. “Did you find my glasses?”
“Not my problem.”
I sighed. “What if I drive myself off the path and crash into a bush again because I can’t see?”
“Then you’d be solving a problem for me.”
I glared at him, searching for something biting to say back and finding nothing. I didn’t need to verbally spar with him. I just needed to go home and forget Tristan existed, even if that was going to be difficult considering he basically lived in my back yard.
“Go home,” Tristan ordered, as if the idea that I might disobey him could never enter his mind. “And remember what I said. Breathe a word of anything that happened here or anything you heard, and you’ll wish you never met me.”
“One step ahead of you.” My voice dripped with anger and embarrassment. I pushed myself down the path and away from his house.
4
Tristan
I waited until Kennedy got out of view to start following her. I knew her name because I’d gone through her stuff once she was asleep and found her license. It was all kept in a dorky little bag attached to the back of her wheelchair. Kennedy Stills. Seventeen years old. Five foot seven and an organ donor. She also had a birthday coming up.
I was only following her to be sure she didn’t blab to her parents first thing and send them to my place with pitchforks and torches. Keeping an eye on Wheels was going to be a necessary evil for the time being, I decided.
I found a good spot behind a patch of trees where I was relatively sure I wouldn’t be seen and crouched down in view of her house. She wheeled herself toward the house, but her mom was already waiting outside. The woman was imposing, I had to give her that. She looked like she might have made for a better offensive lineman than half the idiots on our team.
Her mom rushed toward Kennedy when she got a little closer, cupping her face and assaulting her with a barrage of questions, which she interrupted with fierce hugs that looked tight enough to kill. I wasn’t close enough to hear much of it, but I watched with vague curiosity when her mom started producing orange prescription pill bottles from her purse in rapid succession. She even had a little water bottle she gave to Kennedy as she had her down at least half a dozen different pills.
Kennedy looked like she was trying to explain something to her mom. She was gesturing to her legs and head and then tried to stand, but her mom sat her back down in the chair and handed her more pills. Finally, Kennedy seemed to give up the struggle and finished off the course of medicine letting her mom push her chair inside the house.
I scratched my chin in thought. Judging by the fact that her mom hadn’t already come back outside with a shotgun, I thought Wheels might have done the smart thing and kept quiet.
I waited, watching the house for a few more minutes, even though I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. The light upstairs flicked on, and then I noticed a silhouette in the downstairs window. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the person was looking toward me, so I decided to head back home and start cleaning up the mess from last night’s party.
A few hours later, I had made a decent sized pile of trash bags full of cups and beer cans out front. Cassian pulled up in a Rolls Royce Phantom. My parents were loaded, but Cassian’s were richer than God. His folks also hadn’t moved to the other end of the country and forbidden him to follow, either, so I guess he had that going for him.
Gage and Logan filed out of the car behind Cassian.
Cassian had black, curly hair that he kept short. His jaw was square and his cold, blue eyes always seemed to be slightly narrowed, as if he was about to say something cruel.
Gage was just behind him. He was cleanly shaven and wore a high-collared leather jacket, like some modern-day version of James Dean. His dirty blonde hair was straight and cut shorter on the sides. His family was no stranger to money, either, as his dad was a world-renowned mystery author. Being the son of the famous Ken Winters meant Gage was no stranger to paparazzi and the public eye. It also meant he had a habit of disappearing whenever we were about to get into something stupid, probably because he knew it’d make headlines.
“Coach canceled practice today,” Logan flipped the football up and snatched it out of the air with one hand. “We wanted to get some reps in.”
Of course, Logan did, I thought. He was the only one of us without the money to pay his way into any college he could want. Football was his ticket to a future, and he never seemed to forget that.
“I’m busy,” I turned my back, scooping an armful of trash from the porch into a bag.
Cassian kicked a trash bag, sneering. “There’s this thing called money. You give it to people who need it, and they do shit you don’t want to do. Hey, here’s an idea. Logan, you want to clean this up for a couple hundred?”
Logan stared at Cassian, jaw flexing silently.
Gage tossed a football to Logan, who caught it without taking his eyes from Cassian. “We going to practice, or eye fuck each other all day?”
“I told you. I’ve got to clean this shit up. Unless you idiots want to help, then you need to wait or do it without me.”
“Come on, Tristan,” Logan urged. “Coach installed a shit load of new formations. I need my QB to get the right kind of reps in.”
“Then I suggest you quit whining and start cleaning.”
Cassian scoffed, walking back toward his car as he pulled out his phone. Gage and Logan started scooping up cans and shoving them into plastic bags.
I stopped when I saw a small figure coming down the road toward my house. She was riding a wheelchair as her red hair blew across her face. Fucking Wheels. It hadn’t even been twelve hours since I thought I’d made myself painfully clear.
With a clatter of glass, I dropped the bag I was holding and walked toward her. Logan, Gage, and Cassian all stopped to watch with curious expressions.
“I knew your legs didn’t work,” I said. “I didn’t realize your ears were fucked, too. Or is it just your brain that’s faulty?”
She glared up at me, bringing her chair to a stop just a couple feet from me. She looked filthy, with dirt smeared across the bridge of her nose and her hands. She had fiery eyes, like being trapped in that chair had concentrated all the energy a normal person might put into their body and focused it in her head. I had to give her credit. Even though she was such a small, frail thing and bound to a chair, there was a kind of energy to her. It was like finding a lizard and picking it up by the tail. Even though it had no teeth, the little fucker would still try like hell to bite you and squirm free. It’d even detach itself from the end of its tail if that was what it took.
At the end of the
day, it was still just a fucking lizard. But you had to at least give it a nod of respect for having the spark to fight back.
“My glasses.” She was trying and failing to sound tough.
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for more.
“They weren’t where I crashed. That means you took them when you came and got my wheelchair last night, didn’t you? What’d you do, hide them in your room so I’d come back?”
I cringed. I knew the guys were listening in, and when I’d told Kennedy to keep her mouth shut, that included the part where I rescued her pathetic ass from a bush and fixed her wheelchair. But the cat was out of the bag now, and the best I could do was play damage control.
I moved close enough that only she could hear me. “Roll your pathetic ass back home, now, or I’ll make sure you regret it.”
“I need my glasses.” Her voice was surprisingly calm, even though I could see she was breathing heavy.
I stepped back, raising my voice as I turned to walk back toward the guys. “Careful. Apparently if you give a little taste of dick to a cripple, she’ll roll all over Hell itself to get some more.”
Logan raised a skeptical eyebrow, then looked between Kennedy and myself. “You hooked up with her? When? Last night?”
I waved off his question. I didn’t need to add details to the lie. I knew Cassian would remember it and giving him someone’s weakness was like giving a raw steak to a hungry dog. I could already see the way he was looking at her. Calculating. His fucked-up mind was probably already trying to figure out how he could do the most possible damage with the new information.
I looked back at her. “You’re still here? Go. No dick today. Understand?”
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought tears were welling in her eyes. She was pissed, though, too. An angry cry. I wish I could say I hadn’t caused my fair share of those.
“He’s lying,” she said, voice breaking.
“Nah,” Cassian said coldly. He stepped toward her, flexing his muscular arms as he squeezed a football in his hands. “I’ve seen the type before. You’re hungry for cock. Only difference is you’re on wheels.” He smirked. It was a humorless smirk, like the kind a sick kid might get on his face if he was prodding a frog with a stick. “You’re kind of hot, though. If you want to suck my cock, we can—”
I stepped forward, putting my hand on his shoulder and trying to move him behind me. For some reason, listening to him taunt Kennedy pissed me off. “Enough,” I growled.
Cassian regarded me from the corner of his eyes, then laughed dismissively. “Was already bored, anyway.”
I made sure she was looking at me, then I gestured back the way she’d come. “Go,” I gritted through clenched teeth.
I breathed out a sigh of relief when she finally left. The guys and I broke into teams of two and ran some drills, which eventually devolved into a rough game of no pads tackle football once competitiveness got the better of us.
But my mind couldn’t stop running over Kennedy, like a scab I couldn’t leave alone. Yeah, I could tell it was her in the bush last night. And yeah, I’d mostly just wanted a chance to scare her straight. Part of me had thought it was just too damn pathetic to leave a disabled girl stuck in a bush in a forest in the middle of the night. The same part that had known it would only take a few seconds with a hammer to fix up her wheel.
And what did helping her get me?
Trouble. The last fucking thing I needed more of.
5
Kennedy
I wiped sweat from my forehead and stared down at the little makeshift garden. Okay. That was a stretch. It was more like a patch of dirt where the diced up remains of some weeds lay. I modified the broom handle spear I’d used earlier and put one of those slotted spaghetti spoons on the end. It made for a pretty good weed-flinger. Within about half an hour, I’d managed to sling the majority of the chopped-up weeds out of the way, leaving just a handful of tiny, finger-tip length sprouts of greenery.
I had no idea what kind of plants they would grow to be. For all I knew, they were just a fresh batch of weeds. But if they were, they’d be my weeds, because I was going to water and love the crap out of the little things.
I dumped half a cup of water on them and was working on drinking the rest myself when a beat-up truck sputtered to a stop in front of my house.
I watched one of the football guys hop out. It was the one who was a little taller than Tristan with shoulders and arms like some kind of blacksmith out of medieval times. His hair was a curly tangle that fell carelessly over his brow, and he wore an impressive amount of beard stubble for a high school guy.
He was in a sleeveless black t-shirt and jeans. Nothing like the fancy, expensive clothes Tristan and his other friends wore.
“If you’re here to offer me more dick, I’m actually not interested, despite what Tristan says.”
The guy shook his head, wearing a grim expression. He stuck his hand out when he got closer, not seeming to care that mine was filthy. “I’m Logan, by the way.”
I shook his hand. “Kennedy.”
“I couldn’t help noticing Tristan seems to hate you already. And I wanted to make sure you understood who you’re dealing with.”
I frowned. “What, are you like his hype guy?”
Logan flashed a sad smile. “No. I’ve just had the misfortune of knowing him a pretty long time. Tristan is… He’s not the kind of person you want to be enemies with.”
“Great. Any other helpful advice?”
Logan folded his arms. “Look. I’m just saying you should keep your distance.”
“And why are you so concerned about my well-being, exactly? I didn’t see you jumping to my defense yesterday when he was claiming I was a ‘whore on wheels.’”
Logan walked to his truck and pulled the door open. He hung his head, then looked back at me. “He’s our QB. He needs a clear head if we’re going to make it to state this year. And I assume you’d prefer not to have Tristan Blackwood making it his personal mission to ruin your life. You keep to yourself and everybody wins. Sound good?”
I dug my makeshift weed-grabber into the ground. “Yeah,” I said dryly. “Sounds wonderful.”
Aside from my glasses, which I sorely missed, I had no intentions of ever going to Tristan’s house again. To be honest, I was starting to think I’d rather suffer round two of my mother’s wrath when she found out I’d lost them than go back there.
My mom came home from work that evening and flopped down on the couch, rubbing the arches of her feet. “These non-slip shoes they made us buy are miserable.”
I pushed myself around the kitchen on the kind of walker elderly people used—the ones with little tennis balls on the legs to help them avoid catching too much friction. It let me move around well enough to cook, and I always tried to have dinner ready when mom came home from work.
“Maybe you just need to break them in,” I suggested, trying to sound cheerful.
“More likely they’ll break me first,” she said, massaging her ankles.
“I made your favorite.” I pulled the tuna noodle casserole out of the oven. It sounded gross, in theory. Tuna made into a kind of salty gravy over wide, flappy noodles. The whole thing got a generous coating of crushed up ruffled potato chips and grated cheese on top before being blasted in the oven. Once it came out, it was equal parts gooey and crunchy. I served up a plate for her and set it at the table.
My mom came and sat down, taking a few hungry bites before she stopped to eye me suspiciously. “You hate draining the tuna. It always makes you gag.”
“I closed my eyes.” I served myself a plate, carefully maneuvering it and my walker to the table before sitting.
She was still watching me with her knife and fork in her hands.
“Eat,” I said. “It’s going to get cold.”
She cut herself another bite and laughed softly. “If you’re hoping I’m going to un-ground you, it’s not happening.”
I licked my lips. Now or never. “Ac
tually, I was thinking more about how with your new hours, it’s going to be really hard for you to keep up with homeschooling me this year. I mean, you’ll want to sleep in and catch up after those long doubles. And I’m going to feel terrible that you’re having to drag yourself out of bed for me.” The best kind of lies weren’t really lies at all. I hadn’t fabricated anything, yet. I really was worried about how she’d manage the load of homeschooling me when she was working so many hours. I just wasn’t bothering to include the other reasons I wanted to go to a real school.
Like having a social life. Or maybe meeting people and making friends. Or just getting to pretend I was sort of normal.
She kept me in suspense while she ate several mouthfuls of tuna noodle casserole, and then finally shook her head. “No. I already told you. You’re not well enough to be out of the house like that. And what if you had an episode at school?”
“You can fill out these forms. I looked it up. I could have all my medicine with the school nurse. They would know exactly what to do.”
She sniffed. “The school nurse? I don’t even trust doctors with you. You think I’m going to let some school nurse take care of my baby?”
“I won’t have an episode, mom. I’ll stay in my chair. I won’t push it.”
She shook her head again. “It’s not happening, Kennedy. You’re staying home with me, and that’s final.”
6
Tristan
I stood outside Kennedy’s house, knocking every few seconds on the rattling screen door. I hadn’t seen her for a couple days, and I decided it wouldn’t hurt to check on her. Granted, I probably would’ve had a better shot of getting let in if I hadn’t come at night.
I knocked again and finally heard footsteps approaching.
The door swung open to reveal Kennedy’s mom. She wasn’t quite as tall as she had looked from where I was hiding in the woods the other day, but she was still impressive. “You must be Mrs. Stills.” I flashed my best smile. “I’m Tristan, and—”
Ruthless Love Page 3
