Rival

by Penelope Douglas

  “So what does she have on you?” I asked. “Besides this?” I held up the folder.

  He hooded his eyes and spoke hesitantly. “It was a payoff I negotiated. It was illegal and I could lose my license, to say the least. But it wasn’t a decision I made lightly, and I would do it again.” He looked straight at me. “Nonetheless, Fallon’s not asking for much. And I didn’t tell you any of this to hurt you. I told you so you could move forward. I didn’t force Fallon to leave. She texted me last night.”

  He tossed me his phone, so I could see his messages. Sure enough, the first text was from Fallon.

  “She’s not right for you.” His voice was like a distant echo as I stared at the words on his screen. “Her father, for starters . . .” He trailed off.

  And then I lost him. My stomach sank, I dropped the phone on the floor, and then laid my elbows on my knees, burying my face in my hands.

  I remembered this feeling. It’s what I felt years ago when they’d told me she was gone all of a sudden. When I saw her empty bed where we lost our virginity together. And when I couldn’t sleep, and I’d storm into the basement to play the piano.

  I didn’t want this again. I’d never wanted to feel that again. I inhaled a deep breath until my lungs ached so badly I thought they would burst.

  “Stop talking,” I cut him off from whatever he was talking about. “Just stop talking. Eighteen years?” I asked. “That means that you were seeing Katherine Trent when you were married to my mother.”

  His gaze dropped to his desk, and then back up to me. He said nothing, but I saw the guilt in his eyes.

  For Christ’s sake. What the hell was the matter with him?

  “Madoc,” he spoke low. “I’m sending you to Notre Dame early,” he told me in a resigned voice.

  What?

  He must’ve seen the confused scowl on my face, because he explained. “Things are going to get sticky here. With the divorce, Patricia will have no choice but to come home. You’ll stay at the house in South Bend until the dorms open up.”

  “Hell, no!” I shook my head, standing back up.

  As usual, my father stayed calm, not moving. “Fine, then go see your mother in New Orleans for the rest of the summer. You will not stay here. I want you to get perspective, and you need space.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. What the hell was happening? I didn’t want to go to Indiana for the rest of the summer. I barely knew anyone, other than some faculty my father had introduced me to here and there on our trips to sporting and alumni events.

  I wasn’t going. No fucking way!

  And I wasn’t going to New Orleans, either. My friends were here.

  “Madoc.” He shook his head at me like he could read my thoughts and was telling me no. “You will go, you will find a job or some volunteer work to pass your time, because right now I’m trying to protect you from yourself. I will pull my support, the tuition, your car, until you see the light. Distance is what you need right now. Do it, or you’re going to force my hand.”

  • • •

  In the span of a few short hours, I’d gone from disgustingly happy and excited about life to looking for a fight.

  Fallon hadn’t even taken anything she’d brought with her except the clothes on her back.

  It was all a lie, but then what did I expect? We screwed. It’s not like we talked about shit or had a date or had anything in common. There were other women to give me what she did.

  But everything felt wrong again. Just like before. The clouds hung too low, the house was too empty, and I wasn’t hungry. Not for food, not for a good time, not for anything except a fight.

  I didn’t care why I was mad. Hell, I wasn’t even sure why I was mad. I just knew I had to take it out on someone.

  I jumped in my car and sped over to Jared’s house, knowing I wouldn’t get pulled over. Cops never pulled me over. A perk of being my father’s son. My sweaty palms strangled the steering wheel as I jacked up Linkin Park’s “Numb” and hauled ass. My tires screeched to a halt in front of his house, and I jumped out of the car, not caring that Tate and her dad were under the hood of his car with him.

  “Your mom is messing around with my dad?” I shouted.

  All three of them spun around to face me.

  “Dude, what?” Jared looked confused, wiping his hands on a shop cloth.

  I stalked across the lawn, sticking my keys in my pocket while Jared met me halfway. “Your slut of a mother has been sleeping with my dad for years,” I snarled. “He’s been giving her money, and they’re like getting married and shit!”

  Jared’s eyes flared, and he knew I was looking for a fight. Mr. Brandt and Tate looked at me with wide eyes and open mouths.

  Tate looked down, talking more to herself. “I guess it makes sense. She’s been seeing someone and keeping it hush-hush.” She let out a nervous laugh. “Wow.”

  I sneered at her. “Yeah, it’s awesome,” I shot back sarcastically. “My mother crying when my dad didn’t come home at night. Me trying to figure out why my dad worked so much instead of making it to my soccer games.” I raised my hands and got in Jared’s face. “When what to my wondering eyes should appear but another gold-digging whore ready to make her career.”

  Jared didn’t wait another second. His punch slammed me square in the jaw, and I laughed as I stumbled backward.

  “Come on!” I urged him forward, the heat in his eyes full of fire.

  He rushed me, and we fell to the ground, scrambling over each other. He hovered over me, his fist missing my jaw. I growled and threw him over, swinging my fist into his face and bringing in my other fist across his jaw.

  “Stop!” I heard Tate yell. “Jax! Do something!”

  Jax? Oh yeah. He lived here.

  “Why?” I heard him ask.

  Jared’s hands wrapped around my neck, and he locked his arms as straight as steel bars, holding me as far away from him as he could.

  “Asshole!” I coughed.

  He barely unclenched his teeth. “Fucking dickhead.”

  Freezing water splashed my back, splashing around my arms and hitting Jared in the face.

  “What the . . . ?” I barked.

  The stream of water hit me in the face, and Jared released my neck to shield his head from the cold attack while I rolled off of him. We wiped the water out of our eyes and sat up, glaring at the hose-man until we noticed it was Mr. Brandt. And he looked pissed. His khaki shorts were splattered with water, and he had grease stains on his White Sox T-shirt.

  “Your parents are seeing each other.” He spoke low, a hundred- pound weight in every word. “Worst case scenario they break up. Best-case scenario, you’re stepbrothers.”

  “So?” I blurted without the good sense to shut up.

  He threw down the hose and yelled, “So what are you fighting about?”

  I swallowed, my mouth gone dry.

  Yeah, I forgot about that part. Jared and Jax were already my brothers as far as I was concerned, but having our families connected like that might be pretty cool.

  Unless the marriage didn’t work out. Which with my father’s history was damn well possible.

  But on the other hand, his marriages probably failed because of his affair with Jared’s mom. Now that they could be together, it might be forever.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

  Standing up, I couldn’t look at any of them, but I knew they were all looking at me. Why the hell did I attack my best friend? I had called his mother a slut, for crying out loud.

  All of Jared’s shit while Tate was in France came back. He’d missed her. He’d loved her, even though he hadn’t known it then. And he had been withering away without her. He fought. He drank. He screwed.

  And none of it made him feel any better.

  So why was I screwing up my life for a chick I didn’t even love? Who didn’t even deserve my attention?

  I could understand Jared losing control of himself for Tate. She was a good girl, and she fought fo
r him. And when that didn’t work, she fought against him. She never stopped showing him that she was there.

  But Fallon wasn’t Tate. She wasn’t even in the same league.

  All of this was so stupid. I had no reason to go off the rails just because she popped back into town and fucked with me again.

  Holding out my hand, I was relieved when Jared took it. I helped him up, hoping he took that as an apology. Jared and I didn’t need to get all girly. He knew I fucked up, and he knew that I knew it.

  “Oh, look.” I smirked. “Fixing your car again? That’s a Ford for you.”

  And I walked to my GTO, hearing Tate’s snort behind me.

  CHAPTER 15

  FALLON

  My father’s house had been fairly empty when I arrived two weeks ago. That was exactly what I’d been looking for. While some people craved distraction and noise, I craved quiet country roads and no one talking to me. The seventy-five-hundred-square-foot brick estate sat in a private cul-de-sac and was another example of a rich shit spending his money on something he rarely used.

  Okay, my dad wasn’t really a rich shit. Well, kind of. But I still loved him.

  The house went for three million dollars, and when I questioned him about why he got a house when he could have gotten an apartment in the city, he gave me a geography lesson on why America is so well positioned from the rest of the world.

  “Before the invention of rockets and nuclear weapons that could fly long distances,” he’d said, “it was very hard for any nation to attack this country. We’re strategically positioned between two oceans with friendly allies to the north and south. And let’s face it”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“even if they weren’t friendly, we’re not really scared of Canada or Mexico anyway. Everywhere else, you have possible enemies surrounding you. Europe is a war strategist’s nightmare. Enemies can invade at any time, or threaten your buffer states. To attack America, one would have to sail over an ocean or fly a long distance. That’s why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They wouldn’t have had the fuel to get to the mainland. So . . .” He set the Shirley Temple he’d made down in front of me. “I pay to put a nice big buffer of land around my family and me, so I can see my enemies coming before they’re at my door.”

  By that point I knew what my father did for a living, and while I knew it was wrong, I never hated him for it. I hated that he made me stay with my mother so much, and I hated that there were long periods when I didn’t see him, but he trusted me and always spoke to me like an adult. He always used big words and never held my hand crossing streets. He taught me things and expected the best from me.

  To my thinking, when someone gave out their compliments and good opinions rarely, they meant more. My father was the only person on the planet whose respect and regard I cared about protecting.

  “So did you get what you want?” He strolled into the kitchen as I sat at the granite-top island working on my laptop.

  No “hi” or “how are you,” but I was used to it. I hadn’t seen him in a month, and he’d just arrived in town today.

  “Yes, I did,” I replied, not looking up from my work as he went to the refrigerator.

  “And your mother?” He plucked a frosted glass out of the freezer and went to the Guinness tap.

  “Still AWOL. But she’ll show up soon enough to contest the divorce, I’m sure.”

  I didn’t know why he was asking me about this. I had sent him an e-mail, letting him know everything was on schedule. He’d never been totally on board with my plan for a little revenge against those who had betrayed me, but he’d let me make my own choices and done what he could to help.

  “You’ll get caught in the cross fire,” he pointed out.

  I wiggled my fingers against the keys, forgetting what I had been writing. “Of course.”

  “Madoc?” he pressed, and I let out a silent breath, aggravated that he was asking so many questions.

  I knew what he wanted to know, though.

  “I changed my mind,” I explained. “I didn’t want him hit with this, after all.”

  “Good.” He surprised me, and I looked up, meeting his eyes. “He was just a kid, too, I guess,” he offered.

  I had returned to Shelburne Falls with the intention of releasing the media package once I’d proved that I had moved past Madoc, that he no longer had my heart or my head. Nothing went according to plan, though. Instead of humiliating Madoc, his father, and my mother, I’d taken the path of least resistance.

  I didn’t want Madoc hurt, because he didn’t deserve it. I had been hurt at sixteen when I’d stolen one of my dad’s cars and driven back to Shelburne Falls only to find Madoc with someone else. But as adult as our actions were back then, we were only kids. I couldn’t hate Madoc for making mistakes any more than I could blame our unborn child for being created.

  Madoc never loved me, but I knew he never wanted to hurt me, either.

  So I changed the plan. I got what I wanted, but I did it quietly without any embarrassment to him or his dad.

  I lowered my hands to my lap and picked at my cuticles. Nervous habit. I knew my dad didn’t like it. He and Mr. Caruthers were alike in many ways.

  I lightened my voice. “Ted should make parole.”

  “Fallon.” He shook his head in aggravation. “I told you not to involve yourself with that.”

  “He’s your uncle. Which means he’s my family.”

  “That’s not—”

  “When someone you love needs you,” I interrupted, “you suck it up.”

  I smiled at Tate’s words coming out of my mouth. I wished I’d gotten to know her more.

  I returned my gaze to the computer and started typing again, signaling that the conversation was over. He stood there for several seconds, taking sips of his beer every so often and watching me. I refused to look at him or let him see my shaking fingers. There were things I would never tell my father, no matter how much I loved him.

  He wouldn’t know that I’d lost five pounds in the past two weeks or that I’d had dreams every night that made me never want to wake up.

  I clenched my teeth and blinked away the burn in my eyes, typing nonsense just so I could look like I had my shit together in front of my dad.

  “Nothing that happens on the surface of the sea can alter the calm of its depths,” my father would say, quoting Andrew Harvey.

  But the depths weren’t calm. A black hole had opened up in the center of my stomach from seeing Madoc again and it was sucking me in little by little. The sky got blacker every day, and my heart beat slower and slower.

  “You’re going to ruin me, Fallon.”

  I punched the keys harder. I had no idea what I was writing for the summer course I’d picked up to keep busy.

  My father walked toward the doorway but stopped to look at me before leaving. “Do you feel better now?”

  I swallowed the ache. At least I tried to. But I tipped my chin up anyway and looked at him head-on. “I never expected to feel better. I just wanted them to feel worse.”

  He stood there in silence for a moment and then walked out.

  • • •

  A week later, I came out of the shower to see that I had missed calls from my mother and Tate.

  I clenched the phone in my hand, wanting to talk to one of them but knowing I shouldn’t and knowing I should talk to the other but not wanting to. Neither had left messages, but Tate had texted after the call.

  Need a roommate at NW?

  My eyes narrowed, but I smiled a little despite myself. Without hesitation I called her back.

  “Hey, there you are,” she answered, laughter in her voice.

  “What’s this about a roommate?” I lay back on my bed, my wet hair splayed across the sheets.

  “Well,” she started, “my dad finally accepted that I really want to go to Northwestern—and I do. I just didn’t tell him that I’d changed my plans because of him. Anyway, he won’t let me live with Jared. He’s insisting on the full college
experience and wants me in the dorms the first year.”

  “You listen to your daddy. That’s cute,” I teased, although I envied her having such an involved parent.

  She snorted. “People don’t deliberately piss off my father. Especially Jared.”

  My face fell immediately at the mention of her boyfriend. Madoc aside, I had threatened Jason Caruthers with exposing Jared’s mom. I wondered if he knew. It didn’t sound like Tate did. I didn’t think she would have forgiven me easily for that—and I was surprised to feel a sudden pang of guilt at having betrayed her friendship.

  “So,” she continued, mischief in her voice. “Are you in the dorms this year?”

  “Yeah, and I happen to have a double I’m using as a single.”

  It was perfect actually. Tate and I got along, and for some reason, I was looking forward to school starting now.

  “A single? You don’t want to be in a single. It’s soooo lonely,” she drawled out with exaggeration.

  I laughed.

  But I was still unsure. Tate meant Jared. And Jared meant Madoc. I couldn’t be around him.

  He wouldn’t want to be around me.

  “Tate, I don’t know. I mean, I’d love to have you as a roomie—but to be honest, Madoc and I don’t get along. I just don’t think it’s the best situation for us to run into each other.”

  “Madoc?” She sounded confused. “Madoc would only be around Jared’s apartment if he ever came to Chicago for visits, which I’m not sure is going to happen. Madoc’s off the radar these days.”

  I sat up. “What do you mean?”

  “He got sent to Notre Dame early. His dad has a house there, I guess, so Madoc went there until school starts and the dorms open up next month.” She hesitated, and another wave of guilt racked me.

  He was gone.

  And he was probably sent away from home because of me.

  She continued. “It’s probably for the best. With Madoc’s dad and Jared’s mom getting together, Madoc was pretty pissed. He and Jared got in a fight, and no one has talked to him in weeks. We’re all just giving him some space.”

  Shit.

  What about Lucas? Has Madoc come home to spend time with his little brother at all?