by Ella Fields
She nodded, dragging the toe of her black high heel over the gravel. “I wasn’t ready.”
“But now you are,” I said more than asked.
Marnie lifted a petite shoulder, then pursed those plump lips. Lips I’d missed having wrapped around the shaft of my cock. Lips I longed to see rise into a smile at something stupid I’d said.
A heart-shaped red bow, Red had thinner lips but no less juicy.
I shook my head and straightened with a sigh. “Kay, well, as riveting as this is, I have places to be.”
“Yeah?” Marnie asked. “Like where?”
“Like none of your business.”
She laughed, and my chest clenched. “Jude, I just caught you making out with another girl, and you’re not even going to say you’re sorry? Or explain yourself?”
“It’s pretty self-explanatory,” I clipped without thinking, then hurried to needlessly remind her, “You broke up with me.”
“Because you’ve changed.” Her voice softened then. “You don’t talk. You hardly smile, and when you do, it’s insincere and always snide or mocking.”
“I talk plenty.”
“Not about whatever happened.”
I swallowed and fished my Ray-Bans from my shirt. “Nothing happened.”
“Really, Jude?” She groaned. “See? This is exactly what I mean.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I meandered to my car.
She followed. “But there is. All those meetings and your mom…”
I whirled on her. “She left.”
Her eyes, wet with unshed tears, studied me as though she couldn’t understand.
“Happy?” I said, knowing she wasn’t.
She confirmed it when she stepped back, and said, “No, Jude. No, I’m not happy. Moms don’t just leave, and neither do happy boyfriends. If you can’t open up to me, then you clearly don’t trust me.” I was about to call bullshit when she added, “The worst part is, you don’t care enough about me to even try.”
Glancing around to the gathering masses heading to their cars, I gritted, “I’ve been trying.”
She scoffed. “Kissing someone else is trying?”
I could say nothing to that. I had no idea why I’d even humored the girl. Typically, chicks that desperate didn’t interest me in the slightest. But Red—fuck knows what her real name was—didn’t seem desperate.
No, she didn’t seem anything other than hungry. She was, and made no secret of it, fucking starving.
I watched Marnie round her car with my heart slowing. “Wait.”
“For what? An apology that isn’t coming?”
Frustrated, I blurted, “I’m failing to see why you even wanted to talk to me in the first place.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
I walked closer, feeling my chest heat with fear as I dared to ask, “Do you want me back or not?”
Chewing her lip, she eyed my mouth. “I thought I did. Until I saw you with her.”
There was nothing I could do to fix that. All I could do was watch her climb inside her car and leave.
I checked my phone again for the tenth time since practice had ended.
Nothing.
“You keep staring at that thing as if it’s going to grow wings, and it just might.”
I grunted, pocketing my phone when what I really felt like doing was tossing it onto the rapidly fading asphalt.
Maybe then I’d stop fucking caring so much.
Though Marnie would argue that was the problem—that I didn’t give a shit about anything.
She was right, and she was so very fucking wrong.
I’d tried to call her all night, but as predicted, she didn’t deem me worthy of her precious time.
The dirt was soft from the burst of rain that’d left as fast as it had arrived. Storms and bipolar weather were just some of the wondrous benefits of living on the island.
Silas kept pace with me, heading to his car and smacking the key fob. “Coffee?”
I peered down at my shoes, then at my car, and headed to his.
I’d rather dirty his interior than my own. “Drop me back after.”
He chuckled as if he knew, and yeah, he’d known me long enough to pick up on what my father thought was an odious obsessive-compulsive trait when it came to cleanliness.
The way he’d watch me and remark on things in that toneless way of his made it clear he was concerned about who it was I might take after.
Too bad his opinion, of which once meant everything to me, now meant sweet fuck all.
I’d fucked it all up in more ways than one.
And that crazy redheaded chick was the reason I might never be able to fix part of it.
Ray’s Little Pot of Sunshine wasn’t our usual haunt, but Starbucks was closed until the weekend thanks to their machine undergoing maintenance.
“The coffee at Ray’s is better anyway,” Silas said, pulling away from the closed drive-thru and back out onto the road.
I didn’t believe him until we’d found a booth inside the small boutique. It was more bookstore than café with mismatched mahogany and white shelves slotted between tables and lining the far wall underneath the fading golden business name.
“The walls are bright blue,” I said, blinking at them.
Silas shrugged and thanked the waitress for the coffee and three giant donuts she set down. “So?”
I tugged my coffee closer, then lifted the spotted mug to my lips and sniffed it.
Silas laughed. “You’ve lived here for how long, and you’ve never been here?”
“Pretty sure my mom used to bring Henry here,” I said, just now remembering. “Storytime.”
Silas stared at his mug for a moment, then nodded. “How’s he doing?”
“Much the same,” I admitted. “And Elijah gives not one fuck.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” I raised my brows, and Silas sipped his coffee. “He knows now, right?”
Both members of Nightingale, or Chess Club when mentioned at school, Silas’s parents had made sure he was aware of what was expected of him. He knew what was to come, but just like me, he wouldn’t know exactly what it would cost him until it was time—and too late.
Supreme benefits at supreme costs.
No one knew when their initiation would arrive, only that it did between the age of seventeen and nineteen.
If what’d happened with mine had spooked him, he didn’t let it show.
I glanced around but found no one sitting close enough to worry about. I felt the tattoo, now months old and completely healed, itch at my back. “I’ve told him, and he said some vague shit about keeping my mouth shut.”
Silas sat with that a minute. “No one’s seen Park around since anyway, and I highly doubt they will, so how are Chess Club to know?”
Silas and my father were the only ones, besides the man himself, who knew I’d technically failed my initiation, and that was how it needed to stay.
I bobbed my head, staring down into the black liquid in the weird mug. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Though I wasn’t sure it would, all I could do was hope. Stupid really, considering it so often got me nowhere good.
We drank in silence. Silas offered me a donut, but with images of that night still pushing at the seams of my mind, my stomach soured, and I declined.
He left when Cory called, and I said I’d take a cab back before ordering another coffee. It was worth sitting inside a room that reminded me of preschool.
I tore my eyes from the shelf of books behind me when a tiny bell chimed, and someone entered.
Nose deep in a book, Red walked over to the glittering purple countertop and took a seat without looking up once as though she had memorized the path, which spoke of familiarity.
Jesus Christ. Had Silas known she frequented this shack?
What a prick.
It was no secret, thanks to my lovely ex-girlfriend, that I’d made out with the girl everyone was dubbing as th
e school’s biggest nobody.
Yeah, so I hadn’t seen Red around much, or maybe I had, and I’d just never cared to really look, but the fact she wasn’t somebody didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. My eyes ran down her back, flooded with that fire-engine red hair, to those long, perfectly shaped legs. Not one little bit.
I made a mental note to dig up some old yearbooks when I got home.
Then I remembered January Denane supposedly lived next door, so it didn’t make me any type of genius to know Red was her sheltered as fuck daughter.
It all made a little more sense now. No one messed with January, and I was willing to bet that extended to her offspring, too.
A woman with graying blond hair exited the door marked for staff only, and with an affectionate smile, she reached out to lay a finger atop Red’s book to slowly push it down.
She laughed. Not the older woman, but Red, and fuck if I didn’t get an instant semi.
Raspy and far deeper than her candied-soft voice, it fluttered across the room to target me square in the dick. Something tightened inside my chest, and I downed some coffee to rid the feeling.
The woman was talking as she prepared Red a drink, dousing it in enough chocolate powder to eradicate any taste of the coffee underneath.
I should get up, I thought. I needed to leave before I was tempted to do something I shouldn’t, like cross the room to see if she still wanted to eat my face with her inexperienced mouth.
Then her entire frame stilled, and she swung her head my way, her expression one of pleased surprise.
Shit. I rummaged for my wallet, but she was too quick, the woman at the counter watching her sway those hips as she skirted tables and chairs to seat herself in the booth across from me. Taking a lengthy sip of her coffee, Red lowered the black, gold star dusted mug.
“Red,” I said, annoyed and excited. Annoyed she had the audacity to approach me, and annoyed that things began to throb downstairs.
Chocolate powder clung to her red lips. “Hi.”
Lips I’d kissed. Lips I’d licked. Lips I’d nipped. Lips that’d look so good wrapped around me, those big blue eyes searching mine to make sure she was doing a good job as she sucked me off.
Fuck.
I tore my eyes away from that damn mouth and glared at her.
She smiled and brushed her thumb over her lower lip, then licked it, wholly unaware, or maybe too aware, of the blood-rushing effect she had on me. “I wanted to say sorry, but I couldn’t find you at school.”
Because I’d made sure the likes of her couldn’t find me. I said nothing, merely stared, growing more infuriated by her presence, the second chance she’d blown with Marnie, and the hard-on in my pants.
I’d never been more thankful for a shitty laminate table in my life.
“What brings you here? I haven’t seen you here before.” When I remained silent, her smile slowly slipped, and she sat back. Upon her cheeks were faded freckles, but only a few touched her pert nose. “Jude?”
“Oh, I heard you,” I said, clearing my throat. Dragging a fingertip around the rim of my mug, I asked, “Tell me, Red. Are you aware of the strife you got me into after putting your lackluster lips on mine?”
“Lackluster,” she repeated, almost as if to herself. As if that was the part of my question that mattered.
As if she hadn’t realized just how much she’d fucked everything up.
She’d taken the last remaining thread I’d had to my previous life and snapped it as though she owned the fucking right.
It was time to make her understand. Perhaps then she’d learn not to accost gents in the hall and then act all doe-eyed and approach them willy-nilly as if she hadn’t pissed them the fuck off.
Pulling my wallet free, I stood. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay very far away from me.”
She blinked up at me, but I kept my eyes on the fifty in my clenched hand.
The bell over the door chimed, and male laughter entered, followed by, “Jude, bro, what’re you doing?”
A sinister smirk shaped my lips as my eyes met Red’s. “Nothing.” I set the fifty down, being sure to knock her half-full mug of chocolate coffee over. “I was just leaving.”
Red let out a shocked squeak as her school blouse and skirt, surely those ever-long legs too, were now drenched.
Garry and some other half-wit from the public school laughed as I brushed past them and headed home.
Inside, I dumped my keys onto the entry table and kicked off my boots.
“Henry?” I called, not smelling dinner. The house was dark save for flashing lights coming from the theater room opposite the study. I walked in to find my eight-year-old brother playing the Xbox. “Where’s Rhiannon?”
Henry kept playing, and I was about to snap at him when he jumped off the couch and tossed the controller to the Persian rug after his car crashed. “Ugh. She didn’t come today.”
“She didn’t…” I rubbed my mouth. “You’ve got to be shitting me.” Henry’s dark brows climbed into his forehead, his lips pinching. “Fuck the swear jar. She’s not even here.”
Rhiannon was fond of collecting all my spare change, and I swore she made me cuss on purpose most weeks in order to pay for her pedicures each weekend.
In the kitchen, I pointed at a stool at the island and set a pot on the stove. “Homework.”
“How do you know I haven’t done it yet?”
Opening the pantry, I walked in to find the macaroni. “Just do it.”
He groaned but had gone to retrieve it by the time I emerged with the box in hand. Once that was started, I left the room to call the bigger asshole of the house.
“Where’s Rhiannon?” I said as soon as he’d answered.
“She’s sick.”
I gritted my teeth and flinched away from one of the only remaining family portraits in the house. It hung outside the downstairs bathroom, and given the fact most bedrooms had their own, it was no wonder he’d forgotten to have this one removed.
Unless he hadn’t forgotten at all. Once upon a time, he did love her, and she’d supposedly loved him.
Then we moved here, and somehow, all that went to shit.
“Henry’s been home alone for hours.”
Dad mumbled something to someone, then came back. “I thought you’d head home right after school.”
“I had training.”
“Oh,” he said, remembering some things hadn’t changed. “He’s fine, isn’t he? Just make sure he showers before you send him to bed.”
“Or you could come home early enough to make sure he does for yourself.”
“Jude,” he said through a sigh. “Don’t bloody start. I have a list of shit a mile long that still needs tending to.”
So he’d sleep at the office again. I knew his game, mainly because I played it well myself. Well, at least I’d thought I had. “Sure, bye.”
I ended the call and headed back to the kitchen, hurrying to the stove when I saw the water about to boil over. Giving the pasta a stir, I cussed again when water scalded my thumb and sucked on it.
Henry laughed. “Rhia’s gonna be so mad when she hears how many dollars she’s missed out on.”
His laughter, a common yet changing sound, made the dark patches appear brighter, if only for a minute. I grabbed two bowls. “I’ll give them to you if you don’t tell her.”
His lips rounded with his eyes. “Really? That’s at least five whole bucks.”
“Finish your homework and your mac, then we’ll talk business.”
“Deal.”
Once Henry had showered, and I couldn’t hear any noise coming from his room, I went to check he’d fallen asleep before taking a shower myself.
Locked inside the confines of the bathroom, I leaned a hand against the wall and closed my eyes. They reopened with a start when I felt myself begin to sway. I needed a good fuck and a weeklong nap.
I’d have to settle for sleeping alone.
Traipsing naked into my dark
room, I saw my phone light up where I’d tossed it on the nightstand.
I peeled back the black silken sheets and fell onto the bed with my phone and squinted at the screen in the dark.
Marnie: Heard what you did to Fern. I’ll see you on Monday.
So that was how it would play out, I surmised, and glanced at the door to make sure I’d left it cracked open.
I’d moved rooms some weeks ago. My old room was in the other wing of the house. But as Dad grew busier, Henry’s night terrors grew more frequent, and I got sick of stubbing my toes on shit in the middle of the night as I raced to Henry’s room when his screams woke me, and he cried for a mother who was no longer here.
So I moved closer to him, and as a result, farther away from Elijah Delouxe.
Not that it mattered. I was willing to bet he didn’t sleep even when he was here. At least, not in the room he once shared with Mom.
In the end, I chose not to respond to her text message.
A little tit for tat never hurt. Treat them mean, keep them keen. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Etcetera, etcetera.
Excitement kept me awake for minutes that yawned into hours, chasing away bone-deep exhaustion. That wondrous drug named hope was alive and well once more. Possibility swarmed, stinging every brain cell and keeping my eyes trained on the filigreed ceiling.
I could almost taste it—the reality that would be mine again. I could, and I would, get that missing piece of my old self back.
I would get her back.
Rolling over, I noticed a faint orange glow coming from across the giant hedge outside. It seeped into the cracks of my navy-colored drapes and brought her startled blue eyes and squeaking gasp to the forefront of my mind.
Fern, Marnie’s text had said.
My naughty, nosy neighbor.
I whispered her name, puzzled over it. Odd yet fitting. In the way she was also fittingly odd as fuck.
Still, I much preferred Red.
Jude
Monday brought with it a whole lot of staring as I slipped inside the arched oak doors of shithole academy and waded through the loitering mongrels to my locker two halls over.
