Rival

  And what Tate wants, Tate gets. Jared was whipped worse than cream when it came to that girl.

  I walked back down the track to the driveway leading in to it. My silver GTO sat along the side of the road, and I dug in my jeans for my keys with one hand while I ran the back of my hand across my forehead with the other.

  It was early June, and everything was already so miserable. The heat wasn’t bad, but the damn humidity made it worse. My mom had wanted me to come to New Orleans for the summer, and I gave her a big, fat hell-to-the-no.

  Yeah, I love sweating my balls off while her new husband tries to teach me shrimping in the Gulf.

  Nope.

  I loved my mom, but the idea of having the house to myself all summer while my dad stayed at his apartment in Chicago was, no doubt, a much better prospect.

  My hand tingled with a vibration, and I looked down at my phone.

  Speak of the devil.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I asked my dad as I came up on the side of my car.

  “Madoc. Glad you answered. Are you home?” He sounded unusually concerned.

  “No. I was about to head there soon, though. Why?”

  My dad was hardly ever around. He kept an apartment in Chicago. since his big legal cases kept him working long hours. While often absent, he was easy to get along with.

  I liked him. Didn’t love him, though.

  My stepmom had been AWOL for a year. Traveling, visiting friends. I hated her.

  And I had a stepsister . . . somewhere.

  The only person I loved at home was Addie, our housekeeper. She made sure I ate my vegetables, and she signed my permission slips for school. She was my family.

  “Addie called this morning,” he explained. “Fallon showed up today.” My breath lodged in my throat, and I nearly dropped my phone.

  Fallon?

  Putting my palm down on the hood of my car, I put my head down and tried to stop grinding my teeth.

  My stepsister was home. Why? Why now?

  “So?” I spat out. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Addie packed you a bag.” He ignored my question. “I talked to Jared’s mom, and you’re going to stay with them for a few weeks until my schedule frees up. I’ll come home then and get this sorted out.”

  Excuse me? It felt like the phone would crack under my fingers as I clenched it.

  “What? Why?” I yelled, breathing hard. “Why can’t I stay at my own house?”

  Since when did she get the run of things? So she was home. Big deal! Send her on her way then. Why did I have to be sent away?

  “You know why,” my dad answered, his deep tone threatening. “Don’t go home, Madoc.”

  And he hung up.

  I stayed planted where I stood, studying the reflection of the trees on the hood of my car. I had been told to go to Jared’s house, where Addie would bring me clothes, and not to go home until further notice.

  And why?

  I shut my eyes and shook my head. I knew why.

  My stepsister was home, and our parents knew everything. Everything that happened two years ago.

  But it wasn’t her home. It never was. It’s been my home for eighteen years. She lived there for a while after our parents got married and then disappeared a couple of years ago.

  I’d woken up one morning, and she was gone. No good-bye, no note, and no communication since then. The parents knew where she was but not me. I wasn’t allowed to know her whereabouts.

  Not that I fucking cared anyway.

  But I damn well wanted to be in my own house for the summer.

  • • •

  Two hours later I was sitting in Jared’s living room with his half brother, Jax, biding my time until their mom stopped watching us like a hawk. The more I sat, the more anxious I got to go find some distractions. Jared had a ton of liquor up in his room that I’d brought over from my house, and it was time to start my Saturday night warm-up. Jax was slouched on the couch playing video games, and Jared had left to get tattooed.

  “This is not how you handle it, Jason,” I heard Katherine Trent whisper-yell from the kitchen.

  My eyebrows shot up. Jason? That was my father’s name.

  She crossed the doorway as she paced, talking on the phone.

  She calls my dad Jason? Not weird, I guess. That’s his name. It just seemed weird. Not many people got away with calling my father by his first name. It was usually “Mr. Caruthers” or “sir.”

  Getting up, I inched into the dining room, which sat right off the kitchen.

  “This is your son,” I heard her say. “You need to come home and deal with this.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and leaned back against the wall right by the door leading to the kitchen. She was quiet for a while except for the sounds of dishes clattering. She must’ve been unloading the dishwasher.

  “No,” she answered. “One week. Tops. I love Madoc, but this is your family, and they need you. You’re not getting off the hook. I already have two teenage boys. You know what they do when I try to impose a curfew? They laugh at me.” I fought between smiling out of amusement and clenching my fists in irritation.

  “I’m here,” she continued. “I want to help, but he needs you!” Her whispers were futile. It was impossible to try to order my father around and be quiet about it.

  I shot a look to Jax and noticed that he’d stopped his video game and was watching me with a quirked eyebrow.

  Shaking his head, he joked, “I haven’t obeyed a curfew in my entire life. She’s cute about it, though. I love that woman.”

  Jax was Jared’s half-brother. They had the same father but different mothers, and Jax had spent most of his life either with their sadistic dad or in foster homes. Late last fall, my father had helped Katherine get Jax out of foster care and into her home. Jared and Jax’s father was in jail, and everyone wanted the brothers together.

  Especially the brothers.

  And now that Jared, who’d been my best friend all through high school, had found his soul mate and love of his life, he wasn’t around as much as he used to be. So Jax and I had grown closer.

  “Come on.” I jerked my chin at him. “I’m grabbing a bottle from Jared’s room, and then we’re going out.”

  • • •

  “I want to see your biggest balls,” I ordered in the deepest voice I could muster. My eyes were narrowed, and I had to press my teeth together to not laugh.

  Tate’s back straightened, and she slowly spun around with her chin down and eyes up. It reminded me of how my mother looked at me when I had pissed in the pool as a kid.

  “Wow, I haven’t heard that one before.” She widened her eyes at me. “Well, sir, we have some quite heavy ones, but they all take two fingers and a thumb. Are you that skilled?” She had an expression on her face like we were talking about homework, but I could see the smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

  “I’m so skilled,” I teased, my tongue suddenly too big for my mouth. “You’d be jealous of what I could do to that ball.”

  She rolled her eyes and approached the counter. Tate had been working at the bowling alley since last fall. It was almost a court-ordered requirement that she get a job. Well, not quite. It probably would’ve been court-ordered if Jared had pressed charges. This five-foot-seven, one-hundred-twenty-pound bit of nothing had taken a crowbar to her boyfriend’s car in one of her famous violent fits. It was pretty nasty and pretty awesome. The video was on YouTube and had practically started a feminist movement. People did their own renditions of it and even put it to music. They titled it Who’s the Boss Now?, since Jared’s car was a Mustang Boss 302.

  It was all a misunderstanding, though, and Tate paid for the damages. She grew up. Jared and I grew up. And we were all friends.

  Of course, they were sleeping together. I got no such perks.

  “Madoc, have you been drinking?” Tate put her palms on the counter and looked at me like a mom.

  “What a stupid question.”

&nbs
p; Of course I’ve been drinking. It’s like she didn’t even know me.

  Jerking her head up, she looked over to the lanes behind me, and I was afraid her big blue eyes would actually fall out of her head.

  “You got Jax drunk, too!” she accused, clearly pissed now.

  I twisted around to see what she was looking at, stumbling when my foot got caught in the legs of the stool next to me. I let a holler rip from my throat.

  “Whooooo!” I shouted, holding up the bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the air when I saw what Tate saw.

  A crowd of people was gathered in front of one lane, laughing and watching Jax run and do slip and slides down a bowling path. “Hell, yeah!”

  The bottle was torn out of my fingers, and I turned to see Tate stuff it under the counter, pressing her angry lips together and scowling.

  “Why is the whiskey gone?!” I imitated Captain Jack Sparrow and pounded my fist on the counter.

  Tate stomped down the aisle toward the door leading out to the lanes. “You’re in deep shit when I get over this counter,” she whisper-yelled at me.

  “You love me. You know you do!” I laughed and sprinted away through the maze of tables and chairs around the concession stand to where Jax played. A couple of other guys had joined in and flew down the lanes, much to the delight of the Saturday night crowd. At this hour, there weren’t too many families out and about, and the only people not entertained were the single dudes who spent their older years lamenting their beer bellies and how lucky they were to escape marriage. They just watched and shook their heads.

  “Fallon’s home. Don’t go home.”

  I swallowed down the whiskey that kept creeping back up and threw my head back. “Woohoo!” I bellowed, before pounding down the light-colored hardwood floor, leaping onto the lane on my belly and sliding down the alleyway.

  My heart pounded, and excitement bubbled in my chest. Holy shit! These lanes were crazy slippery, and I just laughed, not caring that Tate was pissed at me or that Jared’s fist would leave a permanent mark on my face for messing around at his girlfriend’s work. All I cared about was what got me from one moment to the next.

  I can’t go home.

  The crowd cheered and yelled behind me, some of them jumping up and down. The only way I could tell was because I felt the vibrations under me. And when I rolled to a stop, my legs dangling into the next lane, I just lay there, wondering. Not about Fallon. Not even about whether I was too drunk to drive home at this point.

  I wondered out loud, “How the hell am I going to get up?”

  These lanes were slippery. Duh. Couldn’t stand up, or I’d slip. Shit.

  “Madoc! Get up!” I could hear Tate’s bark from somewhere near me.

  Madoc. Get up. The sun’s up. You have to leave.

  “Madoc. Get. Up!” Tate shouted again.

  I snapped to. “It’s okay,” I grunted. “I’m sorry, Tate. You know I love you, right?” I jerked to a sitting position with a hiccup. Then I looked up to see her walking on the median between the lanes.

  Like a boss.

  She put her hands on her hips, a stern set to her eyebrows. “Madoc, I work here.”

  I winced, not liking the disappointment in her voice. I always craved Tate’s respect.

  “Sorry, babe.” I tried standing up, but I only slipped again, a deep ache settling on the side of my ass. “I already said sorry, didn’t I?”

  She squatted down and wrapped her arms around one of mine, hauling me up. “What’s wrong with you? You never drink unless you’re at a party.”

  I lodged one foot in the gutter and wobbled until Tate pulled me closer to her and I was able to set the other foot on the median.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.” I gave a half-smile. “I’m a joker, Tate. I’m . . .” I waved my hand in the air. “Just a . . . joke—a joker,” I rushed to add.

  She continued to hold me, but I could feel her fingers ease up underneath the hem of my short-sleeved T-shirt.

  “Madoc, you’re not a joke.” Her eyes were serious again but softer this time.

  You don’t know what I am.

  I held her eyes, wanting to tell her everything. Wanting my friend—someone—to see the real me. Jared and Jax were good friends, but guys didn’t want to hear that shit, and we weren’t that observant. Tate knew something was wrong, and I didn’t know how to tell her. I just wanted her to know that underneath it all, I wasn’t a good guy.

  “I do stupid things, Tate. That’s what I do. I’m good at it.” I reached up slowly and tucked the few stray hairs from her ponytail behind her ear, lowering my voice to a near whisper. “My father knows it. She knows it.” I dropped my eyes and then looked back up. “You know it, too, don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer. Only studied me, the wheels in her head turning.

  My hand fell to her cheek, and I remembered all the times that she had reminded me of Fallon. I stroked Tate’s cheek with my thumb, wishing she’d yell at me. Wishing she didn’t care about me. How much easier it would be to know that I didn’t have anything real in my life.

  I held her sweet, unknowing face and leaned in closer, smelling her barely-there perfume as I brought my lips closer.

  “Madoc?” she asked, her voice confused as she watched me.

  Tilting my head down, I planted a soft kiss on her forehead and then leaned back slowly.

  Her eyebrows were pinched together in worry as she stared at me. “Are you okay?”

  No.

  Well, sometimes.

  Okay, yes. Most of the time, I guess.

  Just not at night.

  “Wow.” I took a deep breath and smiled. “I hope you know that that didn’t mean anything,” I joked. “I mean, I love you. Just not like that. More like a sister.” I burst into laughter and hunched over, barely finishing the sentence as I closed my eyes and held onto my stomach.

  “I don’t get the joke,” Tate scolded.

  A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, and Tate and I looked up.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Jared’s big and angry daddy voice ripped through the bowling alley, making my ears ache.

  But as I turned around to face him, I accidentally stepped back onto the slippery lane.

  “Oh, shit!” My breath caught as I slid, and I stupidly kept my weight on Tate, which was too much for her. Backward I fell and into my lap she stumbled. We slammed to the floor, hitting the wood hard. I’d probably bruised every damn inch of my ass, but Tate was cool. She landed on me. That was cool for me, too.

  But when I looked over at my best friend standing at the start of the lane, looking at us with murder in his eyes, I pushed Tate off me in disgust.

  “Dude, she slipped me whiskey and tried to date-rape me!” I pointed at Tate. “She keeps it under the counter. Go look!”

  Tate growled and crawled back up to the median, her messy ponytail hanging by a prayer.

  “Jax!” Jared yelled to the lane at my right where Jax was crawling back up the lane. “And you.” Jared’s eyes shot bullets at me. “Get in my car now.”

  “Ooooh, I think he wants to give you a spanking,” I singsonged to Tate as she stomped down the median to her boyfriend.

  “Shut up, doofus,” she spat back.

  CHAPTER 2

  FALLON

  “Was that your first kiss?” he asks, pulling his head back to look at me. I keep my gaze down and clutch the kitchen counter behind me. This feels wrong. He’s pressing my back into the countertop, and I can’t move. It hurts.

  Just look at him, I will myself. Look up, you idiot! Tell him to back off. He doesn’t see you. He’s a user. He makes you feel dirty.

  “Come here.” He grabs for my face, and I cringe. “Let me show you how to use that tongue.”

  This feels wrong.

  “Fallon?” The soft, feathery voice broke through my dream. “Fallon, are you up?”

  I heard a knock.

  “I’m coming in,” she announced.

  I opened my ey
es, blinking away the fog of sleep from my brain. I couldn’t move. My head felt separated from my body, and my arms and legs were molded to the bed, as if a ten-ton weight sat on my back. My brain was active, but my body was still sound asleep.

  “Fallon,” a voice sang out to me. “I made you poached eggs. Your favorite.”

  I smiled, curling my toes and clenching my fists to wake them up. “With toast to dip?” I called from underneath my pillow.

  “White toast, because multigrain is for pussies,” Addie deadpanned, and I remembered I’d told her those very same words about four years ago when my mom married Jason Caruthers and we came to live here.

  I kicked the covers off my legs and sat up, laughing. “I missed you, girlfriend. You’re one of the only people in the world I don’t want to cut.”

  Addie, the housekeeper and someone who’d acted more like a mother to me than my own, was also one of the only people that I didn’t have hang-ups about.

  She walked into the room, carefully maneuvering a tray full of all the things I hadn’t eaten in years: poached eggs, croissants, freshly squeezed orange juice, a fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries and yogurt. And real butter!

  Okay—so I hadn’t tasted it yet. But if I knew Addie, it was real.

  As she set the tray over my legs, I tucked my hair behind my ears and grabbed my glasses off the bedside table.

  “I thought you said you were too cool for hipster glasses,” she reminded me.

  I dipped a wedge of toast in egg yolk. “Turns out I had a lot of opinions back then. Shit changes, Addie.” I smirked at her happily as I took a bite, salivating more as the warm saltiness of the yolk and butter hit my tongue. “But apparently not your cooking! Damn, girl. I missed this.”

  Addie is far from a girl in looks but more so than anyone I know in personality. She’s not only a valuable housekeeper, but she proved to be the lady of the manor that Mr. Caruthers needed. She took care of things the way my mother didn’t. Of course, Addie and Mr. Caruthers weren’t sleeping together. She was a good twenty years older than him. But . . . she took care of everything. The house, the grounds, his social calendar outside of work. She anticipated his needs, and she was the only person he’d never fire. Seriously. She could call him a fuck-up, and he’d just roll his eyes. She made herself invaluable, and because of it, she called the shots in this house.