Damn it.
“Tell you what?”
“You’ve been down here a few times now. More than a few times. And you’re here tonight. Should I regret giving you the keys?”
“Maybe I’m here because I’ve moved back now.”
When I lived in New York, I’d usually see Pete once or twice a month.
I’d drive down to Wuthering Garden from New York City and try to spend a weekend or something, working in his shop and generally helping him. He’s allergic to computers so I’d help him with his accounts and stuff.
But over the past few days, ever since I moved back, I’ve been here thrice.
He raises his eyebrows, not believing me. “Is that really why you’re here? Because you’ve moved back.”
Something angry moves in my chest and I clutch the bottle tightly. “They kicked her out.”
“Who?”
“Her ballet studio,” I reply, taking a long, angry gulp of the beer. “Blue fucking Madonna.”
You know what, I was right. This beer is shitty.
It’s doing nothing to calm me, relax my suddenly tightened muscles.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“Because of what she did.”
What she did.
That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?
She stole my car and now she’s paying for it. She’s paying for it even when it wasn’t her fault.
That angry thing inside my chest hisses.
Pete watches me for a few beats. “Are you going to do something about it?”
He knows all about that night.
I’m not the sharing type, but if I was going to share what happened that night with anyone, it was going to be Pete. Maybe because he knows about my dad. He knows what a piece of shit he is, and so when my father pressed those charges against her to manipulate me, I told Pete.
“I already did. If they want to stay open in Bardstown, in my town, they better make it up to her.” I take another gulp and can’t help but add, “She sneaks out every week. To go practice. She takes that shitty bus. All alone.”
“Well, I don’t think you’ve got a say in that.”
I frown. “I know. So I’ve been told.”
Why does everyone keep telling me that? That I don’t have a say in what she does or doesn’t do.
I know already, all right?
I fucking know and it fucking bugs me.
It makes me furious that I can’t do anything about this whole situation. It makes me furious that she was going to end up at juvie. And so I gave my father everything he wanted in exchange for him reducing those charges. And even with reduced charges, she ended up caged.
It makes me fucking furious that my father probably doesn’t even remember her name, the girl whose life he played with in order to get to me.
I thought at least at St. Mary’s, she wouldn’t be shut up in a detention center, among criminals.
She would have friends. She could see her brothers.
Yes, she wouldn’t be able to dance like she did before. But Tempest assured me — this I had to ask her — that she was still dancing. She still had plans of going to Juilliard when she graduates.
But for that fucking ballet studio to kick her out like that, for them to reject her as if she wasn’t the best student they ever had, the best fucking ballerina to ever come out of that shithole.
It makes me want to tear that place apart.
It makes me want to burn it down.
“She’s going there to teach herself,” I continue, my chest tight. “She’s doing it all alone.”
“And are you going to do something about that?” Pete asks.
“Yeah,” I say fiercely.
I’m going to help her make that audition video. I’m going to help her get into Juilliard because she belongs there. Because I’m not going to let anything else be taken from her because of what happened two years ago.
Before I remember what she did last week at that cupcake shop and again tonight, when she made me chase her down. I can’t help but chuckle slightly.
My fierce Fae.
I like that.
I like that she’s trying to stick it to me. That she’s trying to put me in my place. Like she did when she stole my car.
Not gonna lie though, I didn’t expect her to do that. Not my good girl Fae. But again I liked it.
I liked that she was trying to hurt me.
After everything, she has all the right.
“Well, trying to at least. She isn’t making it easy,” I continue.
Pete chuckles too. “Giving you a hard time, huh?”
“She dumped her drink in my lap,” I tell him and he hoots with laughter. “I didn’t have extra pants, all right? It was fucking embarrassing.”
That kills him.
That completely kills him and he’s wiping tears by the end of his laughter. “Remember what I told you? Back when she stole your car. She sounds like my Mimi. She put me through hell.”
“She put you through hell because you’re an asshole too.”
Grinning, he points his bottle at me. “You’re gonna have your hands full, boy.”
“Yeah, I’m not trying to put my hands anywhere near her, so.”
“Good luck trying to keep that promise,” Pete tells me.
“Fuck you.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to put my hands on her. In fact, I’d like that very, very much. I’m a guy, aren’t I? And an asshole at that.
She does it for me. She always has. Her tight ballerina body and those big blue eyes and that good girl braid.
And now with her feistiness she’s fucking irresistible.
But I won’t.
Because it’s better that way.
I’ve fucked up her life enough already. My father has fucked up her life enough. She didn’t deserve to get caught up in the war between my father and me.
She didn’t deserve to be used by the both of us and become collateral damage.
That’s why I stayed away from Bardstown for the past two years. That’s why despite my sister’s constant nagging, I never talked about her, asked about her, showed any interest in her.
Because for all my hatred for my father, I’m no better than him.
That’s why I’d promised myself that I’d never see her again.
I broke that promise though. Another promise I’ve broken when it comes to her.
But I’m not putting my hands on her.
Once this audition video is done, I’ll be gone. It’s not much, what I’m doing, but this is all I can do.
And then it will be just my father and I, and this war. And I swear to God, I’ll find a way to beat him, to get out of his clutches.
To win once and for all.
But for now, she’s caged because of me, isn’t she? So I’m caged with her too.
Every Thursday at midnight, he waits for me by the side of the road.