by Ella Fields
I didn’t know who’d stuck a naked selfie of me online, a video of me jacking off maybe, but I didn’t care. Dad hadn’t come home. He’d flown to London for Nightingale, and I’d hardly slept eight hours all weekend.
Neither was possible anyway, but you’d think I’d nailed a princess with the way they were all gawking. I’d never given Marnie the privilege of a naked picture of myself, let alone taking part in something as delicious as filming ourselves fucking.
Much to her dismay, all she’d received was the odd selfie or two. The most sordid was of her in a bikini. I was wearing a shirt. From memory, she was kissing my cheek, and I was glaring at her phone. Come to think of it, I was pretty damn sure that was most photos of us together.
It was a miracle she hadn’t dumped me long before the night that stole me from her.
As fate would have it, I wasn’t far from the truth.
One of the asswipes who’d been with Gary at Ray’s Little Pot of Sunshine just so happened to be filming a TikTok, and it just so happened to feature the moment Fern got real acquainted with her coffee in the background.
“Well then,” I said, watching Fern stare at her soggy lap.
“Yup.” Zeek, one of our running backs, pocketed his phone.
It wasn’t like I felt bad. After all I’d done and hadn’t done, it took a lot for me to feel any kind of guilt, yet… my muscles clenched.
“Hey.” Marnie’s perfume, one of her many Marc Jacobs favorites, infiltrated.
Zeek joined Silas down the hall, for which I was fucking grateful. Especially when Marnie’s teeth released her lip, and she gazed up at me with those dark brown eyes, looking unsure.
“Nice weekend?” I said, immediately wanting to bang my head into the locker behind me until my stupidity oozed out of my ears.
Her glossed lips curved, and she tucked some hair behind her ear. “I guess. You?”
Great. Small talk with someone I’d known for as long as I’d known my pubes. With someone I knew in varying naked ways.
Internally screaming, I forced my mouth into some semblance of a smile and nodded. “Sure, yeah.” Say something honest, I berated myself. Any-fucking-thing would do at this rate. “Uh, Dad worked all weekend, and Rhiannon was sick, so I just hung out with Henry.”
There, that wasn’t so hard.
But then Marnie’s brows furrowed. “You should’ve called me. I could’ve come—”
“Yo, Jude! I hear you owe that red-haired chick a new skirt,” Phin hollered, right as said red-haired chick walked through the throng of students in the hall.
Her head was held high, regardless of the snickering and the comments of, “Great video, so funny.”
I waited for her cheeks to redden, only half-aware of Marnie still standing beside me.
They didn’t. Red just walked on by without a care or a look in my direction until she’d found her locker.
Marnie was saying something, but rather than ask her to repeat it, I just nodded.
Accusation and anger raised her voice. “Wait, so you spoke to her over the weekend and not me?”
“What?” I almost shouted, giving her my full attention.
In doing so, I found a snake coiled and ready to strike. Her eyes were wet, her forehead scrunched with outrage, and her arms were clutching her tablet to her chest as if she were going to smack me with it if she didn’t hold on tight. “You just said you did.”
“I didn’t hear the question properly.”
“Oh, nice,” she said, sniffing as she rolled her eyes. “We’re not even back together, and you’re already not listening to me.”
Dear whoever is in charge of this shitshow, please roll my ass back home and make sure I stay the fuck in bed.
I’d learned the hard way that no one was coming to save me, and even if they did, the cost of help was a piece of your soul.
I no longer had anything to bargain with.
“Look,” I said, exasperated and unable to hide it.
Marnie’s eyes, aimed behind me, widened imperceptibly, and I flung a glance over my shoulder to see Fern coming back down the hall.
Frustration and something I couldn’t aptly name curled my fingers, my blunt nails scoring into my palms.
Red’s gaze fell upon me, and I waited for her to scowl, to give me anything other than the smile slowly shaping her tempting lips.
Without even knowing her, I had a foreboding feeling that this girl could ruin everything if I didn’t stop her.
So, as fast as lightning, my foot kicked out at her ankle, then retreated.
Red tumbled to the marble floor, her tablet flying across it and sliding into some dude’s leather shoes.
Her long legs splayed, skirt flying up to grant us a brief preview of lace-trimmed black panties bedecked with apricot polka dots. They hugged half her ass, and annoyance festered when I realized every wanker in this shithole, including myself, could now see just how perfect those creamy globes were.
She muttered something while sitting up and pulling her skirt down, and pushed her long curled locks from her face.
The shock faded. Everything turned deathly quiet. Then laughter erupted, and people began clearing out as the first bell rang.
Marnie squeezed my arm, turning her face into my bicep to muffle her giggles.
Slowly, as if she wasn’t a spectacle everyone was still staring at, Fern pulled herself up onto her feet. Her legs wobbled like that of a newborn foal in those heels, and I half-thought she might topple over again all by herself. Someone had the decency to collect her tablet and hand it over.
I didn’t stick around to see if she’d finally gotten the message. Clutching Marnie’s hand in mine, I walked her down the opposite hall to class.
“I don’t care if you’re drunk. You’re still an asshole,” Marnie said through her teeth as she tried to haul me out of her car.
“Would you fucking stop it?” Using too much strength, I tugged my arm free and fell back across the center console of her Jeep, wincing when something dug into my back. “Mother of an extraterrestrial fucker.”
“Did you seriously just call me that right now?”
“No,” I said. “Your stupid ass c—”
“Unbelievable,” she spat, then shouted, “Out! Get out right fucking now, Jude, before I call the cops and have them come help me.”
The cops wouldn’t do shit when they saw who they were dealing with. Thankfully, even in my inebriated state, I refrained from mentioning that out loud, but I couldn’t help but goad. “Go ahead,” I said, a loud yawn following. “If you want to be that dramatic, who am I to stop you?”
“Dramatic?” A fist came down on my shoulder, followed by a thud to my back. I curled into myself, bearing the assault with gritted teeth. “You just have to ruin everything, always. Every damn thing.”
Who would have thought a night out to celebrate us and our attempt to “reconnect” would wind up with me being beaten up by the girl I loved? Sure as fuck not me, or else I’d have kept my ass at home and told her to come blow me instead.
Nothing says celebration better than seeing your spunk dribble down your girl’s chin.
But alas, Melanie had just turned eighteen, and one cannot turn eighteen without showing people who don’t give a damn about you how special you are.
I’d made one comment. One. If you asked me, Melanie had it coming, crapping on about how awesome it was she’d been accepted into Harvard, and how she couldn’t believe it.
I’d just blurted the truth, which never fucking ended well, but whatever.
“Telling everyone Melanie bought her way into her dream school,” Marnie muttered now, pulling at my eight-hundred-dollar jet black T-shirt so hard, I felt some of the stitching snap. “Just who do you think you are, anyway?”
“Well, it’s true,” I cried. “Not to mention obvious to everyone with how late her acceptance letter to Hogwarts came.” I snorted then, peering up at her to whisper conspiratorially, “She’s a muggle, Marns, not a true
wizard.”
She stilled at that, laughter creasing her eyes and flattening her lips.
Finally, she released me to drag a hand through her hair. It swished back over her bare shoulders, the breeze knocking strands across her cheek. “I miss you.”
“I’m right here, baby,” I said, climbing out of the car and throwing my arms out with a grin.
She smiled, but it didn’t linger long. “Sometimes, like right now, you are.” With a loaded exhale, she rounded the car. “Good night, Jude. Don’t offend the trees when you walk up the drive.”
Watching her leave, I stood there a moment, leaves twirling across the empty road. No light could be seen thanks to the houses behind me and across the street sitting too deep within their properties, shrouded by trees. Said trees bent toward one another, swaying and twisting.
Digging my keys out of my pocket, I held them up to the sensor at the gates and waited for the side gate to click open.
The house was quiet, every light out and the scent of teriyaki chicken staining the air from dinner. How like Rhiannon to make one of my favorites when I wasn’t home.
Still, the idea of eating anything right now made me want to hurl, courtesy of too much bourbon and weed.
I settled for a tea, taking it upstairs with me to check on Henry, who’d fallen asleep with his arm and leg dangling off the bed. I set my mug on his nightstand and situated his limbs back on his bed, leaving his door cracked and the lamp on.
The tea was warm when I exited the shower. I was less wasted but still far too drunk to go to bed. I’d eventually learned not to pass out when I was drunk if I could avoid it but rather, to wait a little while to let reality seep back in first.
A buzzkill indeed, but I was ever so thankful the next morning.
After stumbling into some briefs, I plucked up my book and headed for the balcony.
I wasn’t sure why I’d thought I could read when just attempting to made my head spin. I tossed the book inside the French doors and reclined on the deck chair.
Across the hedge, the moon bounced off the roof of a black Porsche. January’s car.
Finishing my tea, I wondered when it would be Fern’s turn, or if January planned on keeping her weird little Red tucked away from our world forever.
Pondering why it’d taken me so long to notice the second tier’s daughter in the first place, flashes of that ass and her luscious mouth infiltrated.
The most devious of our kind always laid low, waiting for an opportune moment to attack.
The memory of her lips diving onto mine, the desperate twitching of her hands upon my cheeks, seared. Jumbled pieces attempted to click together, but they fell away before I could make sense of them.
Fern Denane made no sense to me at all.
I made to get up and search for those yearbooks, but I stilled at the bob of a shadow.
Without removing my eyes from the balcony across the hedge from mine, I reached for a white decorative pebble from the potted cacti behind me.
A soft glow emanated from behind her drapes. I wasn’t sure if she was awake, and I had no idea what time it was. Wanting to placate and reassure Marnie, I hadn’t so much as laid eyes on Red all week.
So I threw the rock at her doors.
Fern
A sharp clack upon the glass door had me dropping my diary into the top drawer of my nightstand and rising from the bed.
Opening the curtain, I discovered a shirtless male wrapped in moonlight and shadow across the hedge.
I gave my head a quick shake, sure I was dreaming. Had he not intentionally spilled coffee all over me and then tripped me in front of half the senior class?
No, I might have been obsessed, but I wasn’t stupid. Both those things definitely happened, and the message behind them was clear—stay away.
So when he curled his finger in his direction, beckoning for me to go to him, I immediately dropped the curtain.
It had to be another trick.
Then another tap sounded, louder this time, and I worried he might crack the glass if he didn’t stop it. Opening the door in my sleep shorts and a loose tank, I crossed my arms over my chest as if that’d solve the problem of being braless.
“Wanna play, Little Red?”
Leaning into the doorframe, I struggled to make out his expression in the dark and with the distance. “I’m not so sure I’m fond of your games, Judy.”
“Judy?” he said, aghast with a bark of laughter. His head tilted, green eyes piercing. “I dare you to come over here and call me that.”
“I’m good where I am.” Though I couldn’t deny the electricity that zapped my heart at the mere idea of stepping foot in his domain.
“Fern,” he said, soft and without that dark humor. “Come to me.”
My name had never sounded so good, and my breath froze at the velvet loaded demand. Toes scrunching over the door runner, I forced myself to stay where I was. “How do I know you won’t do something horrible again?” I didn’t know why I bothered asking after what he’d done, after he’d embarrassed me the way he had, but I did know I still wanted him.
I’d probably always want him.
Maybe I needed to let him mess with me enough to rid that desire.
“I guess you’ll just have to take a chance and see what happens.” He was grinning now, those perfect pearly whites flashing under the glow of the moon and stars.
If his actions hadn’t been enough, then those words said it all. He was playing with me.
I was the toy, and he was the spoiled brat.
Would he touch me reverently, or toss and discard me as soon as he was bored? I wasn’t sure why he was doing this; all I knew was I had his attention.
And as I stepped back inside, slipping my feet into my flip-flops before ducking back out and taking the stairs to the verandah below, I remembered how hot the shame of being his victim had felt.
It singed in a way that would leave a mark, but his actions also validated something I’d been curious about since that stolen kiss outside the dorms at school. I’d managed to crawl beneath his skin, and call me desperate—we already knew I was—but I’d much rather live there than not exist to him at all.
I’d found a gap to slip through in the hedge years ago near the rear of our yards.
The sound of the ocean grew closer as my flip-flops crushed the grass. I failed to remember the last time I’d wandered to the sand behind the low fence, hidden by birch trees and small dunes.
Before my father had left, he’d often take me to visit the ocean and build sandcastles with me. I vaguely remembered visiting on my own sometime after he’d gone, but I hadn’t been able to see through my tears long enough to build anything.
I could hear the lapping, the quiet hum of the sea that surrounded our entire world.
He was out there, somewhere, and perhaps looking at the water was a reminder of that.
Of the fact I remained in our high society fueled bubble while he’d found pastures far richer than anything money could buy.
Slipping through the break in the violently wrapped branches, I slunk into Jude’s backyard and almost tripped over a long-forgotten seesaw.
It squeaked, but I wasn’t worried about January discovering I was gone. She was notorious for drugging herself to sleep, and she wouldn’t wake until exactly seven hours after knocking herself out.
As though he’d watched me, Jude had left the French doors of his back porch open.
Stepping over a soccer ball and walking up the hedge-lined sandstone steps, all I could make out was a dark house. No tall boy with midnight hair and jewels for eyes.
He was nowhere to be seen, even when I quietly stepped inside and clicked the doors closed behind me.
My eyes, adjusted to the dark and with the help of the moon, took in every shadowed feature. The miniature museum the Delouxes called home was old money meets new furniture. Brown leather and rich burgundy rugs filled the large living area leading outside to the porch I’d just left. I soon encounte
red the kitchen, a monstrosity of marble and stainless steel.
Kicking off my flip-flops at the base of a winged staircase, I glanced around, knowing there were two sets in a house this large. I had no idea where the other was, nor where it would lead. Just as I had no idea where this one would take me.
Even so, I wrapped my hand around the cool wooden railing, the marble steps smooth from being abused by many feet. They narrowed in the center but fanned out at the top, where I stood on a landing and glanced around. Leafy plants in giant pots perched on either side of arched bay windows that overlooked the backyard.
An owl screeched outside. Every hair on my body began to rise. Maybe this was a trick, after all.
Then the sound of a hinge protesting broke the quiet, and I headed in that direction. A game of cat and mouse. Beast and bird. He wanted me to grow comfortable with his detachment. All the more satisfying when he was ready to pounce.
I couldn’t help but notice how bare the walls were, how even the smallest of homey touches failed to have a presence in this cold and empty house.
Only, it wasn’t empty.
I crept by a cracked open door. A faint light shone inside, and I knew the room belonged to Henry, Jude’s little brother. I also knew his dad wasn’t home, that he hadn’t been home in days, or else I might have reconsidered this lunacy.
Who was I kidding? I’d absolutely still be here, chasing a poltergeist intent on mocking me.
A sexy as fuck poltergeist, I thought, coming to a dead stop when I rounded the corner to find Jude leaning in the doorway to what I guessed had to be his bedroom.
Shirtless and pantless.
Wicked as sin.
His arms unfolded from his chest, his pecs and abs twitching as he straightened. “So glad you could make it.”
Struggling to keep my eyes from his charcoal briefs, his very tight briefs, I blinked and cleared my throat. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He chuckled, the sound quiet and whispering over my skin like a warm evening breeze. “You’re too much fun.” I frowned, but he stepped back, gesturing to the dimly lit room behind him. “Do come inside.”
