After I gave the order it was time to call it a night, they exchanged spank bank pictures and we left. Henry hasn’t been far from my mind. I hate that asshole for messing with Leigh.
That job belongs to me. I reserve the right to let it be me and only me who makes Leigh’s life miserable. However, if she drops her defiance, I’ll forgive and forget, welcoming her to the town and my turf with open arms.
“It’s still early. Doesn’t she take the bus?” This from Malice.
“You noticed?” Shit, did I say that out loud?
He ignores my question and takes the conversation down a path that doesn’t sit well with me for many reasons, the primary one being that he is onto something.
“Any girl who can rock a one-piece is mighty fine in my book. She leaves enough to the imagination, if you know what I mean.”
I’m about to tell him to leave her the fuck alone. That he should return to getting a hard-on for Riley. But the bus pulls into the parking lot. Malice cups the back of his neck and shoots me a sly grin.
“Waiting for your girl like a pussy-whipped mother-effer.” He tsks.
A well-planted sock in the face is the cure for Malice’s what-the-fuckery.
“She is not my girl.”
“Then it shouldn’t be a problem if I pursue her. You’re right; it’s time I get over Riley.”
I see red. Turn so fast I get whiplash. I grab him by the front of his shirt. Slam my other hand, palm up, against the underside of his jaw.
“She’s off limits.”
He smirks. “We’ll see about that.” He untangles my fingers from his shirt. Smacks aside my palm.
We’ll see about that? Where is his loyalty? Did he lose his grip on who sits firmly on the throne? Fuck’s sake, my boys and I never fight over a girl.
My hands balled at my sides, I watch kids walk off the bus.
I’m not seeing Leigh. Is she okay? Don’t know how long she was underwater before the guys and I jumped the fence and found Henry drowning her. Damn, the murderous glare on the asshole’s face. What were he and Leigh disagreeing about?
“Anyone have her number?”
“Hannah might.”
Thank fuck for Trace’s ability to think on his feet.
We go in search of Hannah. As soon as she sees us, she stops talking, licks her lips, and does this weird shit with her eyes. Sorry, babe, but you are not pulling off the bedroom-eyes look. Hannah looks high. I cut to the chase.
“Haven’t seen her.” Hannah shuts her locker and pops her gum. “Not giving you her number either. Don’t have it.”
“She’s living on your family’s property.”
“So? Only my dad has hired help’s numbers.”
“Your brother and his friends still hanging out at the house?”
“They drove back to Dumas this morning.”
I unfurl my fists, not realizing my hands are balled at my sides. The first bell rings. Ten minutes before classes start. My boys rest their bodies on the lockers. They’re not in a hurry. They’re interested in how this new situation of my being interested in Leigh in a different way pans out.
Believe me, I’m not interested in Leigh other than to punish her for messing with what’s mine. No one messes with my truck. The battery is what gives the old girl life. Leigh might wrongfully think we’re even, but we’re not. Not by a long shot.
“Look, Seven, she probably overslept and missed the bus. No need to worry, okay?”
Worry? Who’s worrying?
“Not that I give a shit. I hate her. Well, gotta go.” Her friends are tugging at her sleeves. “See you after school.”
Hannah and the other cheerleaders hurry off to class. We look after them. Trace is predictable, his eyes glued on their asses. Malice though, he’s not giving a flying fuck and that worries me.
It’s time to shut down the search party.
“Come on, bros. Hannah’s right. We shouldn’t give a shit. New girl’s defiance is nothing but trouble for us to squash and stomp on.”
“Here, here.”
Me and Trace fist bump. Malice is quiet. Then he does the unforgivable. He walks the fuck away. I growl under my breath. Curse his family for good measure too.
Not wasting more head space on my disloyal friend, I stomp to my first class. I make it through lunch before needing to grab cash from inside my locker for a kid who did a favor for me. I yank open the door.
Poof! A plume of mustard yellow and dark purple smacks me in the face. Powder coats my skin. I suck in a breath and inhale a mouthful of it. There is only one person stupid enough to take defiance to a new level. Nails painted yellow. Full lips in dark purple.
Leigh Kim.
I scrub my hand over my stained face.
I am going to wring her defiant neck.
6
SEVEN
I jump the sorry-of-an-excuse-for-a-fence separating the Stevenson’s property and my parents’ and stomp over to the guesthouse.
The curtains are drawn. I pound on the door. Nothing. I pound harder. Kick the door with the toes of my sneaker when there’s still no answer.
On the second go at the door, it swings open. I barge inside Leigh’s place, not giving a care that she’s in her underwear and a tank top sans bra.
“Seven, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at school?”
She’s staring at the floor. Damn right, she should be avoiding looking me in the eye. I’m so pissed off right now I’d scare the living daylights out of her.
“If it’s about yesterday, I’m sorry I didn’t thank you for saving my life.”
Her words strip me of my anger. Goddammit, how can she defuse the situation so easily with her crappy-ass words? She glances up and sees what is smeared on my face. Her eyes widen. She sucks in a breath.
I’m doing the same. See red too. Her bottom lip is swollen and cut up. There’s a scrape on her right temple, the skin red and puckered. I grasp her by the jaw.
“Who the fuck did this? Was it Henry?”
She doesn’t answer. No shit she doesn’t. What I’m quickly learning is Leigh isn’t like the other girls. She isn’t compliant. Moldable. Predictable. Leigh is defiant, what I don’t want in my life. Defiance is dangerous.
“Why didn’t you wash this off?” She reaches out and fans her fingers on my skin.
“I was too pissed,” I grumble, resisting the impulse to cover her hand with mine. To beg for her to dig her fingertips into my flesh. To help me feel something other than the emptiness that’s lived in me since I was fifteen.
Jesus H. Christ, her fingers on my skin are like that first and last warm breeze of summer, heralding the change in seasons. I mentally shake off that thought. Fuck’s sake, I’m waxing poetry and all because a girl touched my face.
I step back, hoping she’ll get the message and stop touching me. If she did, she’s not listening.
Again, why did I believe Leigh would listen to a word or any nonverbal cue I gave her?
“It’s just cornstarch, silly.”
“Silly?”
“Tough guy?” A shrug and a tentative smile from her.
“That’s better.” I smile back.
Wait, the fuck? Are we flirting? Her fingers fall from my face, and she goes to the kitchen, returning with a damp cloth.
I mutter, “Thanks,” grab the cloth from her, and scrub off the cornstarch. “You didn’t answer my question, Leigh.”
“It’s none of your business.” She takes the cloth from me and tosses it into the washing machine. “I’m sorry for the prank. I set it up before you saved my life.”
She sinks onto the couch like dead weight. Am I missing something, or did Leigh sway?
“Leigh, are you okay? Are you in trouble?”
If she is, I’ll get her out of it after I pummel whoever messed with her beautiful face. Leigh Kim. Beautiful. Defiance. Beautiful Defiance. Fits her.
“Everything’s fine. Go back to school already. You, we, everyone at Cambridge, can’t affo
rd for you to miss a game because your grades are in the shitter.”
In the shitter? This girl and her mouth. She rests her head in her palms, shoves her fingers in her hair, and shakes out the inky strands. Her defiance is like a damn rock in my shoe, but Leigh looking worn down? It’s annoying as fuck that I care.
“I’m not leaving until you look me in the eye and tell me to piss off.”
Her fingers slide out of her hair. She rests her elbows on her knees, lifts her head, and tells me to piss off. I take a good look at her. Her cheeks are flushed, and not in a I’m-turned-the-fuck-on-by-you pink, but in a I’m-running-a-fever shade of crimson. I get down on my haunches in front of her and place the back of my hand on her forehead.
“You’re burning up.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Leigh, this isn’t the time to be defiant.”
“It’s not defiance. I’m being a sarcastic smart-ass.”
“Hey, watch the language.”
“Hypocrisy doesn’t suit you, Seven.”
“Fuck’s sake, Leigh, you’re sick. Probably swallowed cum-filled, pissed-in pool water.”
“Gross.” She wiggles her nose, looking adorable as fuck.
“Just saying.”
“Cum-filled, pissed-in pool aside, I’m fine. Go. Be gone. Piss off.” She shoves me away and flops onto her stomach on the couch, her face smushed into the cushion.
I’m ready to rip into her and either demand she tell me who fucked up her face or ask what she needs at the store that’ll help her feel better. Except I see what’s giving her the fever.
On the back of her thigh is a long gash. The skin is red and angry. I skim my finger over the cut. She smacks at me.
“Hurt, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Leigh, we need to get you to the hospital. There’s a festering infection on the back of your leg.”
“Don’t want to go.”
“Sorry, Defiance, but you don’t get a say in this.”
I help her to a sitting position. Help her poke her arms through the sleeves of her baggy sweatshirt and stick her skinny legs into a pair of sweatpants, too, that I found inside her bedroom.
After I slide her feet into her tennis shoes, I grab her by the waist, pull her up, and tug the sweatpants up until they’re hanging loose on her hips. Her head falls onto my shoulder. Her arms curl around my waist.
“Seven, I don’t feel good.”
“I bet you don’t.” I pick her up and hold her close to my body. “Don’t worry. The doctors and nurses will get you feeling better in no time. They’ll pump you full of miracle antibiotics and kill that mean-ass infection.”
“You’ve been sick like this too?”
“Yeah. Junior year, I was running after this kid and hit my knuckles hard on the side of this dude’s old truck. Split the skin. Rust got into the cut, and my body did not like that shit. My hand swelled up like a helium balloon.”
“Nice analogy.” Her hand settles on the spot over my heart. She gives me a pat. It’s like we’re old friends or something.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“Seven, why were you running after the poor kid?”
“He stole this old lady’s purse. Knocked her the fuck over.”
“Did you get back her purse?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. Punched the kid in the face with the knuckles that weren’t cracked open.”
“That’s nice of you, Seven. You’re her hero.”
“I did what any decent human being would do.”
“Where I grew up, the kids would have pilfered her purse down to the zipper and the lining.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“It is.”
“Are you glad you left?”
“Very. I don’t miss any part of my old life.”
“Nothing at all?”
“There is this one guy. He kept me out of trouble. Lately, he’s too busy to pay me attention. A good thing. He can be a major pain in my ass.”
“That so?”
She smiles. “So.”
“He must be one cool dude.” Otherwise, she wouldn’t have that huge smile on her face.
“He is.”
She’s silent after that, and that’s how I know she’s worn out from the infection. I hold her closer to me.
I shouldn’t like how easy it is to want to like Leigh. For her to want to keep touching me. For me to want to tell her all of my goddamn secrets along with my heartaches.
Shoving aside these wants of mine, I make sure I have a firm grip on her before I grab her housekeys off the coffee table and exchange them with the truck keys in my pocket. Leigh pulls the front door shut after us, and I let us inside my truck.
“Seven, can I ask a favor?”
“Yeah.” I buckle her in, and soon, we’re barreling down the interstate toward the community hospital in the neighboring town of Delridge.
“If I pass out, don’t let them undress me completely. Tell them I’d like to keep my underwear and tank top on.”
“They’ll want to do a thorough head-to-toe check, Leigh. Make sure you don’t have other scratches on your body.”
“I’m eighteen, an adult. I have a say in what I show and don’t show.”
Her defiance is dangerous.
“Leigh.”
“Please. Be my advocate.”
Leigh begging? I should take advantage and demand she give me something in return for saving her ass, again, but I’m not feeling it.
“Okay, you have my word.”
“Thank you.”
She reaches over, grasps my hand in hers, and that’s when I know I’m in deep shit. The blood is pumping through my heart so fast and hard, I hear the damn beats in my ears.
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
I glance sidelong at her, not liking how weak she sounds.
“You doing this for me doesn’t make us friends. Not now. Not ever.”
I can live with that. I don’t want to be Leigh’s friend either.
7
LEIGH
I drift in and out of consciousness. Or am I asleep and having a nightmare?
At the moment, I don’t care. Seeing my parents again is surreal even if this is a dream or my imagination. Or a sick joke, baby girl. The arrogance in his tone grates on my nerves.
What right does he have existing in my head after I’ve shut out thoughts of him with his death?
I ball my hands at my sides and glare at the closed bedroom door. He’s in my mother’s bedroom. Tony’s men watch the apartment building and inform him of my dad’s comings and goings. It’s how Tony has easy access to my mother.
He comes in our apartment building through a back entrance from the alley. I followed him once when I suspected something was going on with my mother.
Around the time my dad left to go work his odd jobs in our crappy, crime-infested neighborhood and sometimes beyond Oakland to San Francisco’s Chinatown, my mother would push me out the front door and demand I go learn how to make dumplings with Grandma Chu.
Grandma Chu isn’t my real grandma, but I call her that because she spoils me, keeping tamarind candies special in the cupboard for me. There are also flat fortune cookies. Mochi too. It doesn’t take much to convince me to run off and visit with Grandma Chu.
After the third time in a week of my mom asking, curiosity got the better of me. I hung back by a dumpster and watched a man slip behind the apartment building using the alleyway in the back.
Unlike my father, who reminds me of a prince with his lean build and air of sophistication, this man looks like one of those fighters the elders watch on television at Grandma Chu’s.
He is taller than my dad’s five-feet-eleven inches, and has thick arms and a thick neck. Tattoos in bold colors cover his arms while his beard draws my attention to where he doesn’t have hair—his head. On his square face, his nose is crooked. Broken. Compared to my dad with his movie star good looks, Tony looks like a crimi
nal and sneaks around like one too.
The stretch of alleyway he uses to get to the back door is dangerous. Drug deals and prostitution happen back there. Only the clueless or the dangerous take that back route to get to the mini mart and liquor store at the other end of the alley.
Tony used my mother’s beauty and gentle soul for his own pleasures. Held his position as a police officer over my mother’s head. Threatened to destroy my family with his family’s wealth. Tony came from old money.
If he ever hears a peep on the streets of him associating with trash like us, he’ll get my dad on possession of a firearm. That was the threat he used to keep my mom in her place and what my mom relayed to me to keep me obedient. It’s unlawful for a felon to own a gun in the state of California.
I walk up to my parents’ bedroom door. My hands clench and unclench. My gaze strays to the glass paperweight on the windowsill. The blue octopus with its tentacles draped over a clear boulder is the prettiest thing in our small one-bedroom apartment.
My parents and I share their queen-size bed. I always knew when they wanted “alone” time. Dad and I would pitch a tent in the living room, and he’d tell me a story of how he and my mom met. His voice is deep and comforting.
I love the sound of his laughter when he gets to the best stories. They’re the ones of him and Mom pulling pranks on one another.
One involved cornstarch and food coloring. Imagine my dad’s surprise when he pulled a string on a box and it exploded with pink powder. Yes, that was a gender reveal for my dad courtesy of my mom’s creative brain. My mother was only nineteen when she gave birth to me. It’s crazy to think she was my age when she got knocked up.
Mom pleaded with me to keep what Tony was doing to her a secret from my dad. She demanded my absolute obedience. How could I refuse when she had tears in her eyes? My mom rarely cried. Isn’t in the business of begging, either. My father is a criminal. Show weakness around him and he’d take advantage.
Beautiful Defiance: Cambridge High Mayhem (Kiss Starter: Cambridge High Book 1) Page 3
