“Geez, Amber,” Chase muttered disapprovingly at my persecutor.
“What? It’s the truth,” Amber narrowed her eyes on me. She was really pretty with her short rich brown bob with red highlights. Her face was pixie-like with a cute nose and full lips underneath her huge eyes. She was definitely pretty enough to get all the attention of the boys at this table. She shouldn’t have had to fight me for it anyway.
But she did.
We both knew it.
Only I was the only one who knew why.
“I’m sorry about my rude friend,” Chase sighed, shooting Amber a look. Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally more and I recognized the pain she was trying to cover up.
She liked him.
“It’s alright, she’s right.” I had to stop with the pity party or I would never be able to keep my stone-cold-bitch rep up. I went through the routine I always did, the one where I stripped away my real feelings and replaced everything about me with what was expected of me. I sat up straighter, and pulled my wavy red hair over my shoulder where I knew it would look the most attractive, I put on an amused smile and then laughed. “Guess you guys are stuck with me.”
That was met with a murmured chorus of “We don’t mind,” from the guys around me.
Amber did not like that and with a snort of disgust, got up from the lunch table followed by her posse of high school socialites.
“She’s kind of annoying, right?” a guy from across the table asked.
I shrugged in response, but his amused tone made me lift my eyes to meet his and when I did I almost audibly sighed. He was one of those adorable kind of high school boys with curly, way too long shiny brown hair and a once upon a time broken nose. He was scrawnier than most of the guys around me and endearingly disheveled.
On closer inspection, he was less scrawny and more…. gangly. Like really long and lanky, which was my favorite type of guy, but only because they always seemed so cartoonish and I was oddly fascinated by very tall people.
“When did you get back?” tall guy asked casually.
Chase shifted next to me. This was an uncomfortable road we were about to walk down, he probably didn’t want his friend pissing me off and ruining his chances with me. If only he knew he had absolutely nothing to worry about.
“Uh, yesterday,” I mumbled.
“Whoa, and you’re already in school?” tall guy blurted in disbelief. “I would think you should get at least the rest of the week off.”
I laughed at his nonchalance about the whole thing. Good for him. “I’m pretty sure this is just all part of my mom’s never-ending scheme to punish me until the day I die.”
“Ah, I have parents like that,” tall guy nodded knowingly.
“I doubt they’re as bad as mine,” I sighed.
“Really? My name is Phoenix,” he laughed and the rest of the guys around him laughed too.
“Phoenix?” I smiled. He was kind of contagious.
“Yep. Phoenix. They’re total hippies. My little sisters have it worse than me; their names are Sparrow and Wren. But the baby, as in the newborn baby my forty year old parents conceived and then birthed… at home…. In the bathtub…. they named him Buzzard.”
I gasped loudly. It couldn’t be helped. “No they did not!”
He just nodded, laughing at my reaction. “It’s true. My sisters and I have already decided we are only ever calling him Buzz, but still, can you imagine my hippy mom with her dreadlocks and marijuana perfume chasing after him in the grocery store wearing all of her hemp clothes yelling ‘Buzzard you get over here!’”
I giggled at his story- giggled. The sounds felt strange and jumpy in my chest, but still they flowed out, exercising my ribs in a way that had been atrophied for way too long.
“I can totally see your mom doing that too,” Chase laughed with me. His hand had slipped to my lower back as if protecting me from falling backward off the slim bench.
“You’re right,” I gasped for air, this time in a good way, “six months of banishment and public school hardly seem bad at all compared to a lifetime of Buzzard.”
“So you see my point,” Phoenix nodded.
“Where were you banished to?” the guy next to me asked.
“Uh….” I stuttered. I was prepared to not deny rumors, but I hadn’t exactly prepared myself to come up with my own explanation. “Rehab,” I choked out in a lie.
“Really?” He couldn’t stop himself from the shock and I couldn’t blame him.
“Yep,” I looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes.
I felt him shift toward me on the bench. Oh no, he was going to ask more questions.
And then I felt the cool gray eyes of mystery guy on me. I couldn’t explain how I felt his stare before I saw him approach the table, it wasn’t like we had a connection of any kind or I knew him at all. But then Kenna’s laughter floated through the air and drew my attention before I could stop myself.
They were joining us. His arms were wrapped around her waist and she was looking up at him, laughing with careless grace at something he had said. She rose up on her tip toes and pressed a sweet kiss to his jawline before taking her seat next to Phoenix. Mystery guy followed suit and since I could apparently not stop watching the two of them interact, his cold gray eyes found mine in a look of disgust? Or maybe pissed off disbelief?
Please let it be something neutral like just surprise.
Ugh. I shouldn’t care either way.
“Ryder, what is up?” Chase asked next to me, all happy smiles and friendliness.
“Same,” he shot back.
He was pissed. Damn it and it was because of me. Seconds ago Kenna had his face lit up like a freaking Christmas tree. One look at me and all happiness faded from the room.
What is up with him?
“Who’s your friend, Chase?” Ryder nodded in my direction and I gulped back more of those irrational fears.
“Ryder this is Ivy. Ivy Pierce, Ryder Sutton and his lovely girlfriend Kenna Lee,” Chase offered politely. “With the exception of the lovely Kenna, no offense,” he nodded to Kenna and she just shook her head at him, “we are every important part of the soccer team. “Keeper,” he pointed to Phoenix. “Striker,” he pointed to himself. “Midfield,” he finished with Ryder.
“I know Kenna,” I said quickly before things got even more awkward.
“Didn’t you guys meet this morning?” Kenna asked, her pretty slanted eyes narrowing on me cautiously.
“Uh, not formally,” I practically whispered. Ryder hadn’t taken his cool gaze off me and I felt like I was shrinking under the weight of it. But there was no attraction there, no undressing me with his eyes or even less than admirable thoughts floating around in their gunmetal depths.
“I dumped my coffee on her this morning,” Ryder explained with a small sarcastic twist to his lips. “I unfortunately tried to tie-dye her shirt the color of coffee and French Vanilla creamer.”
I sat stunned, frozen by this sudden inside joke we shared. Luckily Kenna interrupted with an inside joke of her own, “Mrs. Tanner’s fave.”
Ryder broke his gaze with me immediately to stare into his loyal girlfriend’s eyes. They shared a secret laugh and the hollowness inside me spread from the hole in my heart to my fingertips.
“How’s your first day back?” Kenna asked politely. I knew she didn’t like me. She couldn’t like me. But she was a nice enough girl to pretend in front of other people.
“Same,” I sighed. I felt like I was folding into myself, becoming my own version of a black hole. Soon I would be completely sucked into the void of darkness that was my soul, pulling in everything and anything around me.
Guy next to me felt like this was a perfect opportunity to jump back into our earlier conversation. “So what was the stint in rehab for anyway?”
Classy.
All conversation stopped at our table and every eye slid cautiously to me. This was a lie. This was a lie. I wasn’t an addict, except to maybe hope. Yes, I was only
addicted to hope for life after my eighteenth birthday.
“Everything,” I muttered. I didn’t feel up to the task of picking out one of the many reasons to go to rehab. I had lots of vices; I didn’t want to give any one of them up just to prove a fake addiction. “Seriously, you name it.”
The table was quiet for six entire seconds as the heavy information sank into all those around me.
“Sex,” Ryder said clearly in the wake of the awkward silence.
“What?” I sputtered.
“Sex, were you addicted to sex?” he clarified. He settled his gray eyes on me again, their depths becoming pools of liquid silver. But still, he was mocking me, calling my bluff. There was nothing sparking in the air between us and I couldn’t help but be intrigued. What was different about him? Why wasn’t he pulled into the same bullshit every other man on the planet had to suffer from?
“Absolutely,” I sat up straighter, my confidence gaining with each moment he held my gaze. “But I refused treatment; I prefer to live in denial.” I laughed.
“You’re basically like the female version of Tiger Woods,” Ryder stated but his eyes danced with amusement.
“Exactly,” I nodded, offering him an amused smile that lacked any of its usual flirtatious traps. “But it’s my cross to carry.”
“Nuh-uh,” guy next to me grunted in complete disbelief, like I was the holy grail of damaged daddy issues. He scooted closer to me on the bench and I couldn’t help myself, I clung to Chase. I was destined to this sort of depraved, user lifestyle, but nothing could make me willingly give myself over to creepers. I had standards.
Not very many standards….
But there were some levels of crazy I just couldn’t mess with.
“Back off, Hayden, she’s not serious,” Chase barked at him. I was really beginning to like Chase. He tossed his floppy hair out of his eyes in disgust and then turned his deep blue eyes on his friend. “And it’s disgusting that you would be attracted to somebody else’s real problems.”
“I’m just messing around, man,” Hayden laughed. “I wasn’t serious either.”
“Right,” Chase rolled his eyes and his hand went from my lower back to all the way around my back.
He was strong, and protective and I melted into him. But it was all fake. He was under a spell, nothing more. This would fade….
And I would be left with an attachment that meant nothing.
“Hey, want to go with me to the Biology Lab? I have to drop off some extra credit,” Chase leaned in so he could ask me quietly. He held my gaze in his searching blue eyes, looking for something, making sure I was Ok.
“Yes please,” I whispered, trying to show him that I was fine. I wasn’t. I wasn’t anywhere close to being fine, but it didn’t really have anything to do with sleazy Hayden or even the fact that I had been sent away for treatment, just not of the addictive-behavioral type.
It did have a lot to do with the behind the scenes of my life, the ones that nobody could see, the ones that hurt and cut the deepest and screwed me up until I was a walking disaster of bipolar emotions and feminine insecurities.
But mostly it had everything to do with the gray eyes staring at me across the table like they knew me, like they saw through all of the pretty façade of my life and cut to the empty, lost part of me. But most of all it had to do with the fact that he saw me; Ryder saw me and didn’t care.
What the hell was I supposed to do with that?
I followed Chase from the lunch room, letting him lead me by the hand and I decided that I had to find out. Even if it meant that eventually I would turn on the glamour and he would be sucked in just like everybody else and all of his appeal would crumble around him…. still, I had to know.
Chapter Four
“Ivy, is that you?” My mother called from her bedroom.
“Yes,” I called back wondering if she was expecting someone else. I walked over to the windows that looked out at the busy downtown street and watched Chase pull back into traffic. I half wondered what had taken him so long to leave. I lived with my mom in a trendy midtown loft and because of the busy one way streets, Chase couldn’t park and walk me to the door like he had originally planned.
That was fine with me. We weren’t on a date; he was just taking me home from school. Although I wondered if my nonchalance about the whole thing hurt his good-boy ego. The stress of that thought had me glancing at the cherry wood upright piano that sat three feet to my left, pleading with me to play it. To take out my nervous energy on the ivory keys and unforgiving demands of Tchaikovsky.
“How was your first day back?” My mother asked as she walked out of her bedroom. She looked stunning in a short black cocktail dress and six inch stilettos. She was fastening a diamond chandelier earring with two well-manicured hands and perfected the concept of elegance.
“It sucked,” I sighed and then turned my back on her.
I walked over to our immaculate eat-in kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water out of the stainless steel fridge. I noticed a note on the counter from the cleaning lady and had to grip the counter to keep from rolling my eyes. I hated everything about this apartment, about our clothes, about our possessions…. about our lifestyle.
It was honestly disgusting.
“Ivy, ladies don’t say ‘sucked,’” my mother chastised.
“I apologize,” I mumbled. I forced myself to turn around and face her. It took a huge effort on my part and an even greater effort to look in her forest green eyes without cowering. I was her spitting image, it was our strong genes that kind of took over any mixing of DNA and molded us into replicas of each other. One day if I had a daughter of my own she would be just another carbon copy of me. Good thing I would never, ever, ever have children. That was so not in my life plan.
“So, tell me about your first day back,” my mother asked with way too much enthusiasm.
“Why are you so dressed up?” I deflected. We were supposed to have dinner together tonight. I wouldn’t be all that upset about the loss of mother-daughter bonding time but I was terrified for whatever man had to put up with my mother for the rest of the evening.
And possibly through the morning.
“Oh, right,” my mother sighed looking down at her ensemble as if she just realized how dressed up she was. Her eyes darted around the room never quite reaching my face. “Uh, Nix is in town. He has some sort of business thing tonight and we’re going to dinner first.”
My fingers found the edge of the granite counter again and I instinctively dug in, gripping it tightly until the pads of my fingers started to tingle with numbness. I concentrated on my breathing, steadying my ragged breaths and forcing myself to remain calm. I had to remain aloof; I needed to keep the perfect disguise of cool indifference. I couldn’t let her see my fear, or my anxiety, or any of the other hundreds of emotions spinning like a self-destructive tornado inside me.
“Are you meeting him somewhere or is he coming here?” I ground out, barely keeping the bite of anger out of my tone.
“He’s coming here,” my mother said slowly. She was watching me carefully, her eyes sweeping the length of me, waiting for me to fall apart again.
But I would never fall apart again.
I learned my lesson the first time. I couldn’t be real anymore. I couldn’t show anything beyond the plastic casing I wrapped myself tightly in or they would know; they would see something immediately.
And I would have to pay.
Eighteen. Trust fund. Two years. Breathe. Just breathe.
“He wants to see you,” my mother continued. Her smiled tightened just a fraction into a practiced ease that meant that she felt the volatility of the moment as acutely as I did.
“Good,” I breathed carelessly. “I want to see him too.”
My stomach started twisting in the aftereffects of my lies. I felt lightheaded and dangerously close to trembling. I could not let her see me struggle for calm. She had to believe I was relaxed, or at least as resigned to the situation
as she told me I had to be.
“Good,” she smiled wider, her expression becoming natural once again.
The twisting got worse until bile was rising in the back of my throat. I turned my back on her, my fingers instantly finding the counter again and digging in until the edge cut into my skin and I could have winced from pain.
“Why don’t you change then, he shouldn’t see you so…. disheveled,” she remarked callously. “What did you do? Spill on yourself today? I saw a boy drop you off earlier, I’m surprised he took any interest while you looked like that.”
I held in my gasp of indignation. It was just my shirt, my dark shirt that barely showed any signs of stains, that was ruined. Something in the room was slowly sucking out all of the oxygen leaving me lightheaded and disoriented.
I gasped for breath.
I needed to hold it together.
I couldn’t lose it.
Not again.
“I spilled coffee,” I explained in my practiced patience. “I’ll go change. When will he be here?”
“Soon, sweetie. Why don’t you wear that new red dress I bought you?” she suggested.
I paused for a moment near tears. “I don’t have to go with you, do I? I’m just really tired from school today and I have a lot to catch up on from the quarter that I’ve missed so far.”
“Oh, no, you’re not going with us. I just know Nix would appreciate it if you put some effort into yourself when you’re around him,” she explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
She was my mother. My mother. Why was this Ok to her? Why couldn’t she see how wrong this was?
A million different responses flashed in my head, all of them intending to get me into trouble. “You’re right,” is what I said instead. “I’ll go change now.”
“Ivy,” she stopped me before I could get to the sanctuary of my bedroom. I turned to acknowledge her and faked a yawn, just in case she noticed the glassiness to my now tear filled eyes. “I’m glad you’re home, sweetheart. I missed you.”
The Rush (The Siren Series) Page 3
