“Bad experience?”
“He couldn’t figure it out,” Iris said. “We were kissing and then he stopped kissing. With his tongue in my mouth. And he struggled. And struggled. So to keep things moving, I reached back and he stopped me.”
“Tell her the next part,” Gi said.
“I am, you drunk bitch,” Iris snapped.
I started to laugh again.
“So Marcus lifted up my shirt to the back of my shoulders,” Iris said. “But he didn't take my shirt off. He pulled it up over my shoulders and left it there. Then he moved around me. Like his head and half his body. So he could see my bra to unhook it.”
“What?” I asked, trying to visualize that.
“Yeah.”
“Did he… get it?”
“Oh, he got it,” Gi said. “Later though.”
“Shut up,” Iris said. She splashed Gi. “He got my bra off finally but the moment had passed.”
“But a year later…,” Gi said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Iris said. “A year later we were at a party. He had a lip ring and a guitar.”
“And poof, Iris’s panties vanished,” Gi said.
I laughed harder. “How were his bra skills then?”
“Never got around to that,” Iris said. “It was sort of a…”
“Bathroom break kind of thing,” Gi said.
“Oh. Right,” I said. “Well, at least…”
My voice trailed off when I saw the Rulz approaching.
Behind them was Brando, Maverick, Roman, and Sutton.
Brando’s face was roughed up really bad.
I stood up and walked right out of the hot tub. “What happened?”
Pres did a double take at me and hurried to grab a towel. He wrapped it around me.
Barr grabbed Brando’s face. “Eyes here, man. Or I’ll make it worse.”
“Nothing you need to worry about, sugar,” Pres said.
I elbowed him. “I need to worry. Who did this?”
Brando looked at Kip and Barr for help on how to answer.
“It’s taken care of, girl,” Kip said. “We had to send a message.”
“Can’t fight for yourself?” I asked.
“Watch it now, love,” Barr said.
“Who did you fight?" I asked Brando.
Pres stepped in front of me. “Stop it, sugar.”
“Take your sugar and shove it up your ass, Pres.”
“Make me,” he said.
Something inside me decided to snap.
Slapping him would have been good enough.
Instead, I punched Pres in the face.
* * *
“That was a hell of a punch, love,” Barr said. “You sure you don’t want a smoke after that?”
“No,” I said.
“I’m not going to say Pres didn’t have that one coming, but damn… there’s a lot going on here…”
“There always is, Barr,” I said. “Just like when you all threw money together to win me over. And I was left stranded to figure it out for myself. Remember that? Oh, of course you do, it was just last fucking week.”
Barr took a deep drag off his cigarette and balanced it on the edge of the table.
He walked away.
I was on the opposite end of the outside patio area.
I felt bad leaving Gi and Iris high and dry in the hot tub, but I had to walk away.
Brando, Maverick, and Sutton had been in a fight. And not with each other. They were sent somewhere to fight.
And it was because of me.
I eyed the cigarette.
I then curled my lip and flicked it off the table as hard as I could.
That made me feel good for about two seconds.
“Get some ice on your hand, sugar.”
I turned and Pres stood there with a bag of ice.
His cheek had a little red mark.
That was it.
For the pain in my hand right then I expected him to be missing half his face.
But nope.
Not Pres.
Not the Rulz.
I was really starting to understand why everyone hated them and feared them at the same time.
When I didn’t listen to Pres, he moved toward me and grabbed my hand.
I tried to pull away but he sank his thumb against my middle knuckle and the pain made me freeze.
“That’s what I thought,” he said.
He put the ice on my hand, keeping his hand under mine.
“Nothing changes,” I said. “What I did. What I said.”
“Same for me, sugar.”
“You’re such a prick. You just bark orders and don’t care about anyone.”
“Yeah?”
“Just like your father I bet,” I said, going for a cheap shot.
Pres curled his lip. “You really want to say that?”
“Why not? He leaves your mother home to die alone, right?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“What are you going to do, Pres? You fucked up. You threw all that at me thinking it was going to get my legs spread for you. You lost the bet. And I know everything.”
“You think I told you that to get you to let me fuck you?” he asked.
“Why else would you tell me that then?” I asked.
Pres put his other hand to my back and pulled me close. He looked down at me.
“You’re out of your head, sugar. Really fucking bad. If I didn’t care I wouldn’t be doing what I am right now. I needed to know the truth.”
“What truth?” I asked.
“About who tried to hurt you.”
“So sending them…”
“Needed to be done.”
“Why didn't you go?”
“I wouldn’t have gone to fight.”
“Oh?”
Pres leaned down and put his lips to my ear. “I would have gone to kill.”
I put my good hand to his chest and pushed away. “No. I don’t want to hear that. No more of that bullshit, Pres. You want to beat people up, go ahead. You want to boss people around to go fight your battles, I don’t care. You want to kill someone? Go. Let me know how that works out. But you stay away from me now. This is over. It was all fake to begin with and that was that. We were fucking with each other. I pulled you closer and I let myself get closer to you for the same reason. To win. And you know what? We both lost, Pres. All of us. Which is why I'm leaving.”
“You're not leaving, sugar,” he said.
“Fuck your orders. I’m leaving.”
Pres closed in on me. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I said no.”
“I said fuck you.”
Pres touched my hips. I tried to jump back but he lifted me up.
He sat me on the table and put his body against mine.
“You’re worried about real, sugar? It’s more real than anything you’ve ever known or felt.”
“Pres…”
He slammed his lips down to mine.
The kiss was quick but had meaning.
“Don’t ever say anything was fake,” he said.
I blinked fast.
No, Tinsley… no way you’re shedding tears at this exact moment…
I sucked in a breath and held it.
“You’re staying and nothing is fake,” Pres said. “And this is my fault and I'm going to fix it.”
“Your fault how?”
He shook his head. “Doesn't matter.”
“Nothing does to you,” I said.
“Except you, sugar,” he said.
Pres then growled and ran a hand through his hair.
He turned and all but ran away.
I jumped off the table.
I had never seen him like that before.
Almost flustered?
I was confused and pissed off.
My heart and mind were twisted up. And my body thrown into that mix. Not sure what I wanted or when or why.
I slammed my right hand to the table, forgetting it
was the hand I had used to punch Pres.
“Fuck!” I screamed as tears filled my eyes.
I left the bag of ice on the table and ran toward the beach.
It was oh so convenient the way all these mansions were built right against the shore. To go from the hot tub to the ocean in the blink of an eye. These rich and privileged assholes all around me, not knowing what it was like to really live on the edge of life.
Knowing what was waiting for me when I left BFH... which was nothing.
Literally nothing.
I walked into the ocean until it was knee high and I stood there, crying.
Sobbing, letting the sound of the waves mask the sound.
“I gave everything to Bray.”
I sucked in a snotty breath and looked back.
Iris was walking toward me, a large towel wrapped around her body.
“Where’s Gi?”
“Asleep,” she said. “She passed out. Hard. She always does that. She goes from Gi to drunk… then to Gina… and Gina falls asleep to keep from throwing up.”
“Is she safe?” I asked.
“She’s on the couch,” Iris said.
“We should go back.”
“Did you hear what I said, bitch? I'm trying to open to you.”
I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. “Bray…”
“Yeah. Bray.”
“Everything…?”
“Everything, Ti.” Iris lifted her eyebrows.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“He was the new boy. And so fucking hot. It took a couple years until we finally noticed each other the way I had dreamed of. He was everything to me. I was beyond obsessed. I was like a stalker. I even practiced signing his last name because we were going to get married. It was that intense.”
“We’ve all been there.”
“Not like this, Ti,” Iris said. “Trust me on it.”
I reached for Iris and put an arm around her. I had never seen her this vulnerable before.
“That’s why when Gi brought up the name I got pissed,” she said. “It wasn’t done in harm though. You’d figure by now I should be able to talk about him. About everything that happened.”
“First love,” I said. “That’s a hard one to get over.”
“What about yours?” she asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if that was true first love. It just ended so bad…”
Iris nodded. “Mine too.”
“How bad?” I asked.
Iris swallowed hard. “He moved away.”
“Oh, Iris…”
“That wasn’t it though. Before he left, he slept with someone else.”
“What?”
Iris shut her eyes and nodded. “That was his way of making sure there was no doubt between us. Or maybe that’s what I tell myself.”
“I want to call him a bad name right now but I don’t want to offend you.”
“I’ve said them all,” she said. “Twice. It still doesn’t take away how I felt. How I feel.”
“I’m so sorry, Iris. That’s such a shit thing to go through.”
“And since then, I haven’t bothered,” Iris said. “I don’t want to feel that way ever again. So I guard myself. I enjoy myself. I know what I like and what I want. I’m not afraid of it. But that other stuff? I can’t. If I hold someone’s hand, I compare it to Bray’s hand. If I kiss someone and it’s got that feel of something more than just making out, I compare it to Bray. And when he used to kiss me on the beach. Just to kiss me, you know? Not trying to do anything else. Fuck, it still bothers me.”
Iris put her fingers to the corners of her eyes.
She was crying.
I pulled her closer and hugged her.
“Thank you for telling me,” I whispered. “I totally understand it better now. Why you got so pissed. I would have gotten pissed too.”
Iris laughed. “I guess so. But there’s more, Ti.”
“What else happened?” I asked.
Iris pulled away from me. She shook her head. “With Bray? Nothing. That was that. That motherfucker left town and I never heard from him again. And I never want to hear from him again. I hope he’s fat and miserable.”
“Me too,” I said.
“I told you… I guess I just see it for myself now.”
“See what?” I asked.
“You, Ti.”
“Me? What about me?”
Iris wiped away more tears and smirked. “Falling in love.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’re in love, Ti. And it’s a crazy and dangerous kind of love. The kind that changes your life. The kind that ruins lives. The kind that makes everything different.”
“Iris… I don’t love them… how can you love more than one person and have it actually be a real thing?”
“That’s the other part you don’t get,” Iris said. “It’s only one. It’s always been one.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. I was starting to get annoyed now. I thought we were sharing this deep, friend moment and now it felt like Iris was playing one of her bitch games on me. “If it’s just one… then who?”
“That’s for you to figure out,” Iris said. “I better go check on Gi.”
Iris walked her way out of the ocean and I turned, leaving my back to the ocean.
Which was risky.
The waves hit me, sending me stepping forward.
There were a lot of things I could have yelled at Iris right then.
To piss her off. To make myself feel better.
But I was silent.
Because she was right.
I was in love… and I was so fucking screwed because of that love.
seven
seven
The couch was way more than enough for all of us to sleep on comfortably. And the blankets Barr threw at us were maybe the best blankets ever created. So soothing that not even Gi’s snoring woke me up. What did wake me up though was everything else that had happened. The fact that I was in Barr’s bedroom. And that I was with Gi and Iris. That Iris confessed to me about her first love. And then of course leaving me with the little nugget that it was so totally obvious I was in love with the Rulz. Or more specifically, one of them.
So the question was, who?
The blue eyed bad boy in Kip? Made sense since he was the one I had come so close to sleeping with.
Or was it Barr? The wild one. The smoker. The one who was a genius at a piano. Who captivated my heart before the other two even stood a chance.
Or… Pres. The tallest. Strongest. The one who protected everyone and everything. The one I punched in the face. And argued with. The first one who I met. That day on the beach when he beat someone up and threw them into the ocean like they were a broken seashell and had no other purpose in life other than to be tossed around by the waves.
It was maddening.
And there was no convincing myself that it was wrong.
I pulled the blanket up to my chin and looked around the dark and quiet room.
It was hard to even call the place a bedroom.
It was a loft apartment. Bigger than the apartment Mom and I lived in.
My eyes scanned the darkness, looking up, and I saw Barr.
Standing at the railing that kept him from falling from the loft area where that big bed of his was.
He was smoking a cigarette.
I froze in place, not wanting to give away that I was awake.
I watched intently as he smoked in the darkness.
He must have had the doors open behind him because the smell of the smoke wasn’t potent at all.
Barr disappeared back to his bed.
My toes curled and I bit my lip.
My mouth felt super dry and my head was threatening a headache.
I slowly pushed the covers off my body and moved off the couch without disturbing Gi and Iris.
As I walked to go around the couch, I had to stop.
I covered my mouth to keep from screaming.
<
br /> Kip was on the damn floor.
Sitting on the floor with his back against the side of the couch.
Like a protective dog sleeping on the floor next to their owner’s bed.
You own him, Ti… just like Gi and Iris said…
I stared down at him and swallowed hard.
The more I thought about it the more it seemed true. Just by the way Kip always looked at me. I swore he loved me. He never said it though. And he had no reason to love me. We didn’t know each other well enough to fall in love.
But you are in love, Ti…
I almost felt bad for him, sleeping in the position he was in. He was going to wake up with a stiff neck and a hurting body.
My hand started to reach for him but I stopped myself.
Why? Why fucking bother? After what he and the other two assholes planned…
I stepped over Kip and left him to sleep.
I snuck to the fridge and got a bottle of cold water.
It helped with my dry mouth but not much for my headache. That was just going to be a day long souvenir thanks to the drinks.
When I turned from the fridge, I jumped again at the sight of Pres standing across from me. Hands gripped tight to the counter, staring so intensely at me, I started to shiver.
I felt exposed to him.
Standing there in a tight spaghetti strap shirt and my panties.
Nothing else.
My other pieces of clothing were on the couch. I didn’t exactly expect to get a bottle of water and have to go through the Rulz to do so.
Then again… what else was I supposed to expect?
“You scared me,” I said.
“You okay, sugar?” Pres asked.
“Fine. Just getting water. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I’ll sleep when I feel like it.”
“Okay then. Well, I feel like sleeping now. See you in the morning.”
I side stepped. My eyes didn’t leave Pres for a second.
Pres touched his cheek where I had punched him. “When are you going to do something about it?”
I paused. “About what?”
“Everything, sugar.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
I stepped forward, feeling weirdly protected by the marble counter top island that kept Pres and I apart.
Plus, the height of the counter kept the lower half of my body hidden.
Like it matters, Ti…
UNTamed: a bay falls high novel Page 6
