Bad. Ass.
But who was he talking about? Who was her?
“What is he talking about, Ms. Colby?”
Another loud sigh. I really hated her sighs. I had to listen to them a lot.
“I can’t be sure,” Ms. Colby hedged, but even in another room I thought she sounded like a liar.
“Liar,” Dante said to her. To a teacher. The vice principal, no less.
Bad. Ass.
“I need someone to explain this to me!” Dante’s mother exclaimed.
“They were picking on Scarlett again,” he said, voice pitched low now, so low I had to move closer to the room to hear him. “They always do. They call her trashcan girl. It’s messed up. And nobody does anything about it! Not the teachers. Not the vice principal. You all suck!”
His mother sounded like she might be choking on something and then she spit out, “You got into a fight over her? Are you kidding me?”
I felt sick with mortification and light with joy all at once.
He’d gotten into a fight for me.
But then, the pity in his voice.
Trashcan girl. Even he knew me as that.
It was the exact same reason I’d gotten into my fight. It always started with a mean singsong Hey, trashcan girl and ended with me hitting someone, or kicking them, or pulling their hair out, or ripping up their homework.
But this was the first time I’d ever heard of anyone else fighting for me.
It was something.
No. It was everything. Even enough to overshadow my embarrassment that he knew I was trashcan girl.
Of course he’d known what I was called. I shouldn’t have been shocked.
It was his grandmother, after all, that had rescued me.
I’d known the story from the time I could remember. My grandma always said every nasty thing she could think of when she was mad at me, which was a lot, and so it’d come up early and often.
When I was a tiny baby I was abandoned by my parents.
I hadn’t been left on the doorstep of an orphanage or church. I wasn’t abandoned in some frilly basket by a tearful mother.
Even that was too romantic of a story for me.
I was left in a trashcan. Meant to die, I figured. Or rather, Grandma told me I should figure as much when she was telling me the story.
Even my grandma didn’t know who my dad was, but my mom was her daughter, and she explained to me once, after I’d been nagging her for stories about my missing mom, that, “Some women should never be mothers. I’m one of those. And so was my daughter. She won’t come back. I guarantee it. You’re lucky I’m still around. I got nowhere else to go, or I’d be out of here, too.”
That was about as sentimental as we got in my family.
And even I knew that my grandma would have never taken me in if her friend from childhood, Dante’s gram, hadn’t insisted.
I didn’t know her well, but I did know that I owed his gram a lot. My grandma told me so all the time. When she got mad, I often earned rants that started with something along the lines of, “You should thank Mrs. Durant every chance you get. She was the one that talked me into taking you in. You can bet your bratty little ass it wasn’t my idea.”
I’d been found in the trashcan at some point, obviously. No one would tell me how old I was, but I was a baby for sure, a tiny one. Someone had heard me crying, called the cops, and I’d ended up on the news and in the local hospital.
Gram had seen the story on TV, and I don’t know all the details, but she’d put the pieces together and known that Grandma’s daughter had recently given birth, so she’d gone and taken a look at me.
One look, Grandma swears, and it was impossible to deny that Renée Theroux was my mother.
I thought that was weird. All babies looked the same to me.
But Gram and Grandma had been sure, Gram had pressed Grandma, and the rest was history.
Grandma had taken me in, made room for me in her tiny trailer. It did have an extra room. She liked to bring up how she’d liked that room. She’d enjoyed having an extra bit of space to herself where she could sew and store things. We had many, many conversations like that, where she reminded me of all of the reasons why I was a burden to her.
And I wasn’t ungrateful. The place was a dump, but it was a fact that it was better than a trashcan.
Even so, everyone around these parts knew the story, so from my first day of school to present day—I still hadn’t lived down the fact that I’d been thrown away like trash.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was, deep down inside, I knew I was trash. No one wanted me, that was a fact. What was that if not trash?
Needless to say, it was a sore subject, and it didn’t take much to make me lash out when I was teased for it, which was often.
Some days it felt like my life was nothing but one long fight.
But that day was different. That was the day I realized that I just might not be alone in that fight.
When Dante emerged from the office, triumphant from my perspective, considering all he’d gotten was suspended for fighting and then chewing out the vice principal.
I gave him an ear to ear smile.
He returned it with a small one of his own.
And that was it. He was my very first friend. It was that simple.
I look back on that pivotal encounter of ours often, and I always end up asking myself two questions.
Like most things in my life, they are at odds with each other.
Did that meeting save me?
Or did it ruin my life?
CHAPTER
FOUR
"Love is like war. Easy to begin, but very hard to stop."
~H.L. MENCKEN
PRESENT
Our layover was in San Francisco. It was only for twenty-four hours, just enough time to go out drinking and sleep before we hit the air again.
And boy was I going to drink.
It’d been a doozy of a day, and I was planning to throw one hell of a drunk.
And my girls were with me all the way. Leona knew more about Dante than the others, but Demi and Farrah knew enough to understand that I needed to go out and find some distraction.
San Fran was a bi-weekly stop for our static crew, and we knew just the bar to go to. It had cheap drinks, hot men, and was within staggering distance of our hotel.
The pilots insisted on going with us. They always did. Flight attendants were pilot catnip, and every girl on our crew was hot, so we were catnip times four.
Also, and much to my disappointment, Leona was dating the first officer.
She was young, only twenty-six, but just a little over two years ago she’d been through a really ugly divorce.
I’d gone through it with her.
And now she was finally dating again, but it was a fucking pilot.
Said pilot was with the captain buying us all a third round at the bar while we lounged on a long, red couch and blatantly scoped out the room.
It was packed with men, and even though we were in San Francisco, at this particular bar most of the men were usually straight.
“Never date a pilot,” I told Leona, for maybe the thousandth time, as I watched her not quite boyfriend smile at the female bartender.
“He’s a nice guy,” she defended. “I think it’s going well.”
“He’s totally into Leona,” Demi added.
“Of course he is,” I agreed. “Look at her. But it’s not about her or how he feels about her. He’s a pilot.”
Leona waved me off. “Time will tell. They can’t all be bad. There are exceptions to every rule.”
I decided to drop it. She wasn’t budging, and much as I hated it, she might just have to learn this one the hard way.
I nodded my head at a hipster dude at the bar. He’d gone so full-on hipster that he was borderline lumberjack. “I might give that one the time of day.”
Leona’s delicate nose scrunched up. It was pretty dang cute. Everything she did w
as cute. Normally I hated cute girls, but with Leona, it was just part of her charm. “You don’t like beards. You always say how they smell bad, how they’ve done tests on men with beards like that, and they always find shit in them. Literal shit.”
I giggled. “You said literal shit.”
“I did. That guy is not your type.”
“Who cares,” I shrugged. “He keeps staring at me. I like it.”
“He’s not the only guy staring at you. Why him?”
“Because tequila.”
Demi giggled. “That’s the best toast ever. We’re all getting shots of Patrón. Because tequila! This is happening.”
I nodded. The more the better. Leona thought that I was impaired and it was affecting my judgement, but the sad truth was that I wasn’t even close to being drunk
I needed to remedy that and quick.
Demi had just brought us all limes and shot glasses over brimming with tequila when Leona said quietly, her eyes aimed right over my shoulder, “Bastard at six o’clock.”
Fuck.
“Because tequila!” we all chanted the toast.
I did the shot and chased it with a deep gulp of my cocktail.
I’d won the last round. Dante was supposed to disappear after a defeat like that.
What was his fucking problem?
And I wasn’t even drunk. I downed the rest of my cocktail and still didn’t get there.
What a fucking lousy day.
I was so annoyed by that that when I turned to watch Dante approaching, I already had a few bullets in the chamber.
I began to stride toward him, deciding to meet him halfway.
“You’re back,” I said when I got close.
“I’m back,” he agreed. His suit was wrinkled, his hair mussed, but otherwise he’d recovered rather miraculously. In fact, if I was masochistically honest with myself, he looked edible.
“You sobered up fast,“ I drawled out grudgingly.
He shrugged. “Mostly. If it makes you feel better, I’m still a little drunk.” It did, barely. “Can we go somewhere quiet to talk?”
As he spoke his eyes moved over me.
I’d dressed cute, at least. Cute maybe wasn’t the word.
With the small possibility I’d see him again, I’d suited up for the night like I was putting on armor. Sex appeal as a weapon.
My light gray dress was edgy and sexy, with a sculptured bodice that hugged tight to my ribs and waist, a harness strap built-in bra that teased as much as it showed off, and a hi-low peplum skirt over a sleek mini dress.
My legs were bare, tan, and sky-high in a pair of cheerful yellow platform stilettos.
My look was hot and right on trend. It was a cheap as hell knockoff of a designer look, though only a discerning eye could tell it wasn’t name brand.
I hated that he’d been raised with just such an eye, and there was no way he wouldn’t spot the difference.
“How’s Tiffany?” I asked him, tone pleasant as could be considering that it was shaping the name I despised more than any other in the world.
He smirked. “She’s fine. She still hates you.”
“Oh?” I couldn’t keep the delight out of my voice or expression.
“Every woman I’ve ever tried to have any kind of a relationship with has good reason to hate you.”
“Good. The feeling is mutual.”
“That sounds like jealousy, tiger.”
I rolled my eyes, trying not to wince at his use of my other nickname. “How cute that you want to think so,” I bit back, “but you know me better. It’s a more simple hate I have for those stupid women. You know I never could tolerate idiots.”
“And you’re saying every woman I’ve dated is an idiot?”
“Every one of them that settled for my leftovers, yes.”
“Well, now, that’s all of them.”
“You’re a quick one. How’s your mother?”
That had us both smirking, though mine died as soon as I saw his.
His mother was a crazy harpy, so much so we’d always just naturally united against her. Well, back in the day we had.
Nowadays there wasn’t a cause on earth righteous enough to unite us.
“Same as ever,” he replied. “Crazy as shit, and evil as Satan.”
I didn’t ask about his gram. I didn’t need to. We still talked every week. She was the only reminder I had of him that was worth keeping in my life.
Everything else I’d left behind.
“How’s that director you were seeing?” he asked me, his mouth shaping into a grin that made me want to slap him.
He was mocking me, yet again. I had been seeing a director, no one terribly famous, but one that was successful enough. It’d been more of a friendship behind the scenes, holding hands for the camera sort of thing.
He’d just come out of the closet publicly.
To say that I was not happy to know that it’d amused Dante was a vast understatement.
What I hated, more than anything, was to be the butt of someone’s joke. Especially his.
I have a terrible temper. Even I am scared of it. And that famously destructive temper came out to play.
It was just as well.
The more I hurt Dante now, the better chance I had of getting rid of him.
I didn’t know why he’d come, and I didn’t want to.
No reason was good enough to drudge up all of these old, filthy feelings.
What I wanted to do—what I needed to do—was scare him off.
I smiled at him. My most vicious smile.
The one that cut him deep enough that we were both covered in the blood.
Saturated and dripping with it.
“How’s Nate doing?” I asked him, the words doled out slowly for better effect.
A wise person once said that in a relationship you should keep the fights clean and the sex dirty.
I don’t do that. Neither does Dante. We never have.
We do everything dirty. And I’d just taken the dirtiest jab of all.
Left hook. I felt it right in my own gut. That’s how I knew it was a solid hit.
He stopped smiling, stopped looking at me, his head dropping, eyes aimed down at his feet. “Are you even sorry for what happened with him?” The question came out of him with excruciating restraint. Softly and slowly, each word drawn out.
I was. Wrenchingly so. Kept me awake at night sorry.
Have you ever chewed up someone’s heart and then spit it out?
Doesn’t sound too bad? Maybe thinking this person is your worst enemy?
But what if it wasn’t? What if it was one of your dearest friends? Someone who worshipped the ground you walked on unconditionally.
I’d always had a gift for the irrevocable, and what I’d done to Dante’s best friend, Nate, had been just that.
But I’d die before I admitted it to him.
“Does he miss me?” I asked instead.
God, that one was so bitchy even I felt the sting of it.
Dante took a very deep breath and straightened. He squared his jaw and stared me down. “Can we call a truce for the night? We really do need to talk. And not here. Somewhere private.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” I drawled back. “This wouldn’t be the most elaborate thing you’ve ever tried just to get me into bed.”
His face turned hard with disdain. “Trust me, that is not why I’m here.”
Another, even stronger, flash of temper curled through me, urging me towards destruction.
It was almost funny how we could set each other off with just a few words, the wrong look, the incorrect tone.
We were landmines for each other, and he’d just stepped squarely onto one of mine.
Any show of indifference from him, be it fraudulent or fair, was unbearable to me.
Boom. Explosion.
I felt moved by two overwhelming urges in equal parts.
I wanted to slap him silly and fuck him blind.
I res
trained myself from doing the first with no small effort.
But I actually considered doing the second. Only for the most twisted reasons, of course.
I was gaging things, trying to decide which action on my part would be more hurtful to him.
Because I wanted to hurt him.
As usual, I wanted to make him bleed.
And of all the things you could say about us, about how he felt about me, and how I felt about him, each of us knew that going to bed together again would hurt us both.
A double-edged sword.
I’d take my licks, I decided. It’d be worth it to inflict a bit on him.
It was a sad, tragic fact that I’d take three times my share of the damage just to give him his third of it.
“Fine,” I said curtly, barely looking at him. “Let’s go somewhere. Where are you staying? Take me to your hotel room.”
He nodded jerkily. “That works.”
“Let me say goodbye to my friends. You stay here.”
“You aren’t going to introduce me?” he asked my back.
“Fuck you,” I said casually, and strode away.
“You’re going somewhere with The Bastard?” Demi asked, sounding scandalized. She didn’t know the whole story, but she knew enough. “But I thought you hated him.”
“Oh I do.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Leona asked, her eyes on Dante.
“I’m a big girl. I got this.”
None of them tried to stop me. They all knew me too well to even think of getting in my way when I was in this mood.
“Text me when you’re in safe for the night!” Leona called to my back.
I waved a hand at her that I would, and left with The Bastard.
CHAPTER
FIVE
“Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.”
H. L. Mencken
I couldn’t help but mock Dante as he flagged down a cab. “Aw. Look at you, taking a taxi like a normal person. The poor little rich boy’s still in denial? Still think you’re just like the rest of us?”
He ignored me, though going by his stiffened posture, it was clearly still a sore spot for him.