“Good, because you are. You’re like a vicious wild animal that bites the hand that dares to pet you. Because that’s all you’ve ever known. Biting and snapping your teeth at the world. But as Mimi would say, it’s not your fault. It’s the world’s fault. Because the world has bitten you back.”
I clench my teeth. “Are we done here? Because I’ve got a fucking problem.”
“What is your problem, boy?”
“My problem, old man, is what if it happens again?”
“What happens again?”
I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I don’t even know why I came.
I don’t know why I keep coming to Pete whenever I’ve got a problem. I went to him when my father fucked her over two years ago. I went to him when I found out I fucked her over again and got her pregnant.
And I’m here tonight too.
He never helps.
But the thing is that I’ve got no place to go. And if that doesn’t burn, that the only place I can go to is a fucking garage and the only person I can talk to is a fucking old man who’s still in love with his wife and needs a beard trim, then I don’t know what will.
I swallow, curling my fingers into the chair. “What if she falls in love with me again?”
“Why’s loving you such a bad thing?”
“Aside from the fact that one time she did, and I broke her heart because I was too wrapped up in my shit?” I swallow, my throat feeling tight. “And then my father used her to get back at me. In case you didn’t know, my father is still alive. As much as I’d like to kill him, I’m not going to do that because that might also kill my mother. Who somehow still loves that sick fuck. So nothing’s changed. She needs to stay away from me, from us. From Jackson men. We don’t know a thing about love or being decent human beings.”
Pete stares at me for a moment, rubbing his bushy white moustache, before muttering, “You know why your father used her to get to you?”
“Because he’s a psychopath who only cares about what he wants and because he saw it as an opportunity.”
“Yes. But he’s also smart,” Pete tells me. “He was smart enough to know that you’d do anything for that girl. You’d give up soccer. You’d give up your scholarship, your whole plan of getting into the pros to stick it to him. He knew that.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So you’d give up your fucking soul for that girl. And your father knew that. So what does that tell you?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”
Pete smiles. “It tells you that you might know a thing or two about love after all, you clueless bastard.”
My chest contracts again. Like a boulder is sitting on it.
A giant fucking wrecking ball. A ticking time bomb that’s going to explode.
But I ignore it. I ignore it all and scoff at Pete. “I made that deal with my father because she didn’t deserve to be used. Not again. She didn’t deserve to be punished for something that she did because she was hurting. Because I hurt her. Not everything is about love.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, kid.”
You love her, don’t you? You love our baby.
The pressure on my chest increases at her words but I ignore that too.
It doesn’t matter if I love our baby or not.
She’s a part of me. Of course I love our baby.
But that doesn’t mean I’m free to love anyone else. I don’t have time for it when I have to protect Fae, protect both of them, from my father.
That’s why I’m doing all this, aren’t I?
That’s why I’m working for him. That’s why I go every time he calls. I attend every goddamn meeting. I sit in on every conference call he makes like a good boy.
I’m giving him every little thing his villainous, corrupt heart desires because I want him to be happy enough to back off, to leave me alone.
I never want him to find out about Fae and our baby. I know he’ll use them as pawns if and when he can.
And it has worked.
He’s a psychopathic toddler. You give him what he wants and he’ll move on to something else.
My father has no clue. He doesn’t know what I do with my time off. He doesn’t care as long as I show up for work and give him what he wants.
But you know what? I don’t know why I’m freaking the fuck out right now.
Nothing has changed.
I promised that I’d protect her from my father and me and that’s what I’m going to do. Unlike last time, I’m going to keep her heart safe from me.
Because no matter what she believes, I can’t love.
I am that rabid fucking animal that bites. Because that’s all I know. That’s how I’ve survived this world. That’s how I’ve survived the man who brought me into this world.
“Thanks for nothing,” I say to Pete, stepping back from the chair, ready to leave. “And I’m buying you a new chair that won’t kill your back. That fucking thing you have right now needs to go to the dump.”
And then I turn around and walk out.
But not before I hear his laughing words. “I’ll throw it in the dump the day you throw away that sweater of yours. The one with that fucking mustang on it that you still keep in the trunk of your car.”
Asshole.
All the girls at my school are in love with him.
Which is nothing new because every girl at Bardstown High loved him too.
And his dark magic is still alive at St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers.
They are in love with him, with his Mustang.
His sparkling vampire skin and his long dark hair. They think his gunmetal gray eyes are so cool, and the way he walks with long, effortless steps makes them swoon.
Even though they watch us with giggling eyes and snickering lips. Even more so now than before because my belly’s showing. And well, I’ve had to make uniform adjustments. Meaning, I don’t wear one because those skirts are not made for expanding bellies.
Anyway, I know they love it that he drops me off and picks me up from school. I heard a bunch of them talking during lunch one day.
My girls especially love that. That he waits.
“Oh look, our gorgeous villain is here,” Poe sing-songs. “Waiting for his Fae.”
My breath catches in my throat. Because I was talking to Wyn about our English lit homework as we were climbing down the steps after finishing for the day and I hadn’t seen him yet.
Although to be honest, I should’ve known.
He’s somehow never late, even though he comes straight from work.
I narrow my eyes at Poe though. “Don’t make me regret telling you that.”
I don’t even know why I did.
Since I don’t live with them anymore, we try to catch up as much as we can during lunch and any other free time that we get. And since Reed Roman Jackson is such a big topic, all our conversations circle around him, and since I’m an idiot, I let it slip one day that he calls me Fae.