His lips pull north. “That’s two questions.”
I shrug. “It’s sort of related.”
He stares up at me for a second, like he’s deciding if he wants to answer or not, and then runs his fingers along my panty string tan line that runs horizontal over my hip to the front. I like to tan in panties just covering enough that my vagina is blocked from anything entering, so I bought the sluttiest panties I could find in several pair in case I go multiple times in one week but the line would always be the same. It never really occurred to me a guy would like it. “Yeah, but I guess that really depends on what your version of close is and mine. We don’t really hang out often if that’s what you’re asking. She’s a single mom to two kids. I help her when she needs help and watch them some when I’m off.”
“I don’t really know what I’m asking. I’ve never been close to my brother and sister. I’ve stayed out of their way and done my own thing for years. I came out here to try and make an effort for Presley and me to be friends, I guess, but she’s more interested in everything else than actually hanging out with me. I’ve spent more time with all of her roommates than her. I don’t know. She keeps blowing me off. Maybe we’re just not meant to be friends. Whatever. I don’t care.”
“If you didn’t care it wouldn’t piss you off,” he says, without much thought or emotion preceding the comment, aggravating me. This is why I don’t talk to people. They never feel the same or understand why you feel the way you do.
“Just forget it.”
“It’s simple. If she doesn’t make you a priority over shit that doesn’t matter it’s her loss. Surround yourself with people that actually want to be around you, family or not. That’s what I do. The rest aren’t worth the effort.”
Since that solves all of my problems . . . I roll my eyes. Lame. I’m over this whole talking shit. We that don’t give a damn when people treat us like we’re unimportant become the exact opposite—the most important. I got emotional for a second. So what? Happens to the best of us. I’m over it. No need to have a therapy session about it. I write my own rules. My life is great because I make it that way. “Thanks for that, country, but I don’t surround myself with people. People surround themselves around me. That’s the way it’s always going to be. Back home, I’m an important person.”
He pinches my nipples and pulls, sending a jolt of pain through my body. I refuse to whine about it, giving him the satisfaction of causing me pain. “Why is that, brat? Because you lucked out with being hot and know how to post slutty photos for everyone to see without following through on the tease? In case you haven’t figured out guys by now, we like unlimited spank bank material and flock to those that provide it. That doesn’t make you important. It makes you a free muse.”
I tense, feeling exposed, suddenly wanting that shower now. Needing time alone. He can make assumptions about me, but he doesn’t know a damn thing about me or my life or shit I post, and that’s the way I want things to stay. I live behind armor. I’ll never take off my mask for anyone. No one will make me bleed. No one will see my vulnerability. I’m aggressive because I want to be. He’s staring up at me, waiting for me to speak. I lean in, my lips so close to his. “Maybe a muse is all I want to be.”
I get off him and stand up, making my way to my clothes, already half-dressed when he grabs my shirt in my hand, keeping me from putting it on. “Where are you going?”
The muscles in my face tense on one side, creating a smirk of sorts, and I release the shirt, letting him have it, knowing I’m about to piss him off. “To shower and then find Gabby and Maddox. Might want to smooth that over somehow since they walked in on you giving it to me hard against the wall earlier. I’ll never tell. Question is—will they?”
And then I walk off in my shorts and grab his shirt off the floor on the way, heading through the basement as a slew of curse words like ‘motherfucker’ and ‘goddammit’ assault the atmosphere around me. I smile. Sometimes I love being seventeen.
Thirty-Three
Landon
“Psst.” Warm air fans across the front of my face and something touches me, causing me to stir and wake up. The second my eyes open to a face almost touching mine I jump, inhaling a gulp of air, becoming alert.
My heart starts racing over being woken from a dead sleep, realizing it’s Paxtyn standing over me from beside the bed, fully dressed from the naked state she was in when I passed out, which includes her hair pulled back with a Nike cap on her head. God, I am starting to miss being alone. I don’t think there is anything scarier than being woken up to someone standing over you in the dark like they’re seconds from driving a knife in you.
The fear running through my veins from the disturbance in sleep reminds me of the first time my niece stayed with me in my trailer after I got it. I just so happened to wake up as I rolled over to her standing in the fucking corner of my room silently, her long dark hair hanging down each side of her face like that psycho chick on The Ring that was always coming out of shit wet. I had to remind myself of her age somewhere in the panic because I almost lost my shit on her. Turns out she was scared to wake me up but couldn’t sleep. She knows to just get in the damn bed now. “What the fuck, Paxtyn!? That’s creepy as hell.”
“I requested an Uber,” she whispers over me, like someone could actually hear her down here when all of the bedrooms, including the stairs to the second and third floors, are across the house on the main floor. “I just wanted to tell you bye before I left.”
My brain finally starts working and I reach over to turn on the bedside lamp. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re not leaving until tomorrow.”
“I decided to go back early.” Her expression changes to one I can’t place. Something is up with her. I thought she was back to herself with that bitchy little attitude she went to shower with earlier today before we went to town with Maddox and Gabby, where I again, made it clear to keep their fucking mouths shut. You don’t realize how nice a bedroom door is until you don’t have one. At this rate everyone in the damn house is going to know I’m fucking Presley’s seventeen-year-old sister, who is technically jailbait. It’s too bad that for me her pussy is good enough to risk prison. I just don’t give a shit. That’s Maddox’s biggest problem. He cares too much.
The way I see it—the good things in life have consequences. Doing bad shit is fun. If it’s appealing enough to participate in, you gotta take the bad with the good. In the end, if I’m sitting in a prison cell over something I did, I’ll have the memories of the fun I had on the way there.
We were gone today for hours. I’m not one to find the ‘fun’ in hanging with two chicks while they shop and shit, but in some weird way, it was. It felt like junior high all over again as me and Maddox tagged along with them—a time when I thought having a girlfriend was appealing and commitment to one girl at a time was something I did, like everyone else in my grade. Parents dropped us off at the mall or the movie for an hour or so while we did exactly as we did today—walk and talk.
Fun. That’s almost laughable. That word hardly exists in my life anymore. I wasn’t moody and bitching and cussing, which basically means the same thing. Maybe it was tolerable because we ate at a place with sports on the dozens of televisions and bar food like burgers and wings. When we got home the other four were gone. When it became evident they had made plans for a double date, the alcohol started flowing, Paxtyn initiating it. It finally hits me that she’s serious. “Cancel the Uber.”
“What? I can’t. I already booked my flight. I don’t belong here, Landon. It’s less awkward this way. I just didn’t want to leave without saying anything to you. You’re the reason this trip wasn’t a total blowout. Gabby too.” She leans in and kisses me, reminding me how full her lips are, and silky soft. Then she smiles as she pulls away. It’s a real one. The girl is too hot to be seventeen. “So thanks. Take care of my v-card.”
V-card. Fuck. I’d almost forgotten. Almost. I thought this shit was going to go down tomorrow
. I was prepared for awkward, considering the circumstances. Every other girl I’ve slept with I just tell to get the fuck out when I’m done. Not the case here. This wasn’t how I saw it playing out. My mind is spinning. I can’t think straight. What I do know is that a girl that looks like she does is not getting a fucking Uber. That whole system has serial killer and human trafficking trap written all over it. Our parents taught us not to get in cars with strangers. “Cancel it. I’ll drive you,” I tell her, already sitting up and throwing my legs off the side of the bed, leaning over to grab my boxer briefs off the floor.
She stands to her full height as I shove my legs in my underwear, showing off the skin-tight leggings and the lowcut casual top that’s showing way too much cleavage. Jesus. I almost wish she was self-conscious about her amazing tits. Then they’d stay covered.
Had I known she was going to leave tonight I would have stayed up and made it last. “You don’t have to do that, Landon. I know how to get myself to the airport. I got myself here, remember? It’s one in the morning. Go back to sleep so I don’t regret waking you up. You said you were leaving to go back home tomorrow evening before you have to go back to work.”
I stand and pull the waistband up my legs, letting it slap against my skin at my hips, and then grab my jeans from earlier, pulling them on as my eyes burn into hers. “I said cancel it. I’m driving you whether it shows up or not. If you want the driver to waste a trip that’s your choice.”
She holds her hands back in surrender. “Fine. If you insist. I was trying to be nice.”
“We don’t do nice,” I tell her as I walk to my duffel bag and grab the first shirt I see, putting it on. “No sense in starting now.”
She grabs her purse and fishes her phone out of it, already navigating around the screen as she looks down at it. I shove my wallet and phone in my pockets and pick up her suitcases, already making my way through the basement. She’s wearing tennis shoes, but I can still hear her footsteps behind me all the way to the main floor. I set the suitcase and carry-on by the door and look at her. “Meet me at Maddox’s truck.”
She goes out the door and I jog up the stairs, quietly passing Riggan’s room, and then tiptoe run up to the third floor, opening Maddox’s door. He’s wrapped around Gabby like he’s scared she’ll disappear. I shake my head. That girl has always had his ass by the balls. I smack him in the shoulder so that he knows it’s me, unlike that shit Paxtyn was doing. “Maddox, I need your truck keys.”
He groans, both him and Gabby stirring, and he finally rolls over, rubbing his eyes. “For what? What time is it?”
“Drive the kid sister to the airport.”
Gabby jerks forward, now fully awake, the shirt on her way too big to be hers. “She’s sneaking off in the middle of the night? I thought she was leaving at like lunch.”
“That makes two of us.”
Gabby tosses the comforter back and scurries out of the bed. “Where is she? She’s not leaving without telling me bye. The bitch.”
I almost laugh. “Maddox’s truck.”
At least he chose one with a backbone. Makes me proud as pussy whipped as he is. Out of all the girls that live here, I like her the most. She’ll never know it. Girls don’t need that kind of power. I can tell she’s the strongest. Doesn’t put up with bullshit. Maddox is intimidating to the average person. His anger is unstoppable when he locks up the ‘good guy’. His strength is lethal. He’s bigger than all of us. When he’s jealous over her you’d think he was in the middle of a ‘roid rage. Gabby is like a five-foot ninja when she’s walking fast like she’s doing right now to head down the stairs, and she’s the only person that can break him down to nothing. It’s difficult to watch.
Maddox is still half asleep, yawning as he turns on the small lamp and grabs his keys off the nightstand, handing them to me, already looking for a pair of shorts to put on over his underwear, no doubt going to find his girl. “Thanks. I’ll fill it up with gas.”
He wipes his eyes once his shorts are on, nodding. “What’d you do to her?”
A laugh slips. My reputation precedes me. “Fuck you.”
He smiles. “Like it’s really that far-fetched. You’re a dick to girls. I have no idea how you get so much pussy. Oh, right, every girl you sleep with runs her mouth about your monster-sized dick.”
I roll my eyes. I have my reasons. “I have no control over that. I’m driving her to the airport. She was going to get an Uber. I’m being a fucking gentleman.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “Only because you want farewell pussy.”
“Good pussy is hard to find.”
He stares at me. “Who said you have to let it go?” On that note, I turn around and walk for the door. “Landon.”
“Don’t start, Maddox.”
“They aren’t all your mom,” he says on a sigh, halting me in my steps at the top of the stairs as I stare down at them. My blood runs cold, hand clenching around his keys, letting the metal dig into my palm. None of my friends have brought it up in years. I love my mom and would do anything for her, which is why I pay some of her bills since she helps my sister as much as she does. She’s never been a bad mother, has always provided for me and my sister, been loving, and still tries to be just that—a mother. But me and my mom haven’t had a close emotional relationship in years. She knows our relationship is what it is and why, and that’s not my fault. I’m not sure if it’ll ever change, but she won’t give up trying to salvage it either. “Some girls know how to say no. Based on her looks and body, I’m going to say there are probably plenty of guys that try. Virginity at seventeen looking like her says something.”
Like that thought hasn’t occurred to me, dipshit.
Long distance fuck buddies don’t make sense, and girls rarely keep things that way for long before they want to turn it into something else. I don’t want any semblance of a dating relationship. She lives in California. She’s also in high school. She’s going to want to go to proms and high school parties and shit. I’m past that point of my life. I don’t want to settle down but I’m not going back to high school either.
I live in Mississippi. And almost every time I’m home Presley talks me into coming to Miami on my two weeks off. The only reason I don’t give her shit about it more than I do is because we do work on band stuff a lot, like we did back before Abby died, and that’s a part of my life that I miss even if we never have another shot at making it. For me it’s about the brotherhood, the passion for what we do, and just living life with no regrets.
I accepted a long time ago that I’d likely be out on that rig for the rest of my life like my dad has been, which brings me to thoughts of my dad and why I still keep my distance from my mom. He used to work on a rig in the gulf like me. Moved up. Was making good money still. Comfortably supporting a family, at least. Then all the shit happened with my mom in high school and he prefers to stay gone. He’s been working overseas since. Twenty-eight days on and twenty-eight days off. I only see him about two weeks every other month, and that’s if he doesn’t take on a relief shift when someone asks off, which he does more than he doesn’t.
I work six months out of the year in the Gulf of Mexico, limited to Wi-Fi as long as it’s working or the phone on the rig. I don’t need the constant headache of what a girl is doing back home while I’m out in the middle of the ocean. A weekend fling is more than enough for me. It’s best to walk away and live with the good memories of that one time that I met a girl almost identical to me, age gap be damned. I inhale, already lifting my foot to step down. “It’s a risk I’m not willing to take,” I tell Maddox, and then start walking down the stairs. This is the only me I’ll ever be. No girl is going to destroy me.
Thirty-Four
Paxtyn
The ride has been quiet, Landon staying to himself as he drives and stares straight ahead. I’ve played on my phone since we left the house after I said goodbye to Gabby and we exchanged numbers. She came running out the door in an oversized tee shirt and
sleep shorts and hugged me. Then I got scolded for trying to ‘sneak off’. The only person I’m sneaking off from is my sister. She doesn’t deserve a goodbye since she keeps casually forgetting about our plans together. It took a second to come out of my temporary state of shock over having a girl clinging to me and register that it wasn’t a dream. Then it melted through me like heat. The only friend that’s ever hugged me is Navy, but we’ve been friends forever. That bitch is stuck with me for life. I didn’t think Gabby would care I was leaving. It felt good.
I shuffle through my phone playlist of downloads to listen offline, looking for something to play. Instead of taking the time to connect my Bluetooth to the truck system for one ride, I just plugged in my USB cord. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He usually at least says something, even if it’s a smartass comment. I’ve thought over and over that maybe he’s aggravated he’s driving me, but I tried to tell him to stay behind. I meant it. I know how to take care of myself.
Eastside by Benny Blanco, Halsey, and Khalid starts to play through the speakers. “He used to meet me on the eastside, in a city where the sun don’t set,” I sing to myself, knowing every word of this song, my head swaying from side to side to the beat of the music as I scroll through Instagram, checking out my friends’ photos from the weekend. Lots of parties that I missed.
That feeling like someone is staring at me hits and I look to my left at Landon, who is glancing between me and the road, reminding me that I’m singing like I do in my car when it’s just me. “Shit, am I being too loud?”
His serious demeanor finally breaks into a half smile as he turns into the airport, following the signs to the parking garage and passenger drop off. “No. Interesting, but not loud.”
He passes the drop off point in front of the automatic doors that lead into the airport, causing my head to follow as it blurs by my window. “Hey, you can just drop me off there. It’s much easier. Then you can just circle around to leave.” He ignores me, still driving down the road. “Landon.”
Finding Fate Page 26
