I’m shaking now, completely and utterly confused by this hot-cold shit. How am I supposed to interpret this?
“You said you were going to bury me, remember? What else can I do but fight back? We could call a truce, if you want.”
Parrish studies me for a moment, his fingers lightly massaging the back of my head. It feels good, too good actually. I could stand like this for hours, my hands resting on the front of his t-shirt, that citrusy smell of his playing tricks on my senses.
“That could work,” he muses, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “But you have to correct the lie: we both know I have a huge dick.” I give him a look and he laughs. “Well, I do. Just the other night you were feeling me up; don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
He’s referring to that moment in the bathroom. While I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘feeling him up’, I did get a bit of a handful …
“If I find some way to correct the micropenis rumor, you’ll lay off a little?” I ask, heart thundering, wondering what’s going to change between us after this moment. I mean, we’re having a thing right now, aren’t we? The way Parrish is staring down at me, I can tell that this is a pivotal moment for us.
“Say it, and I’ll leave you alone,” he says, lifting up a hand and offering me his pinkie finger. “Pinkie promise.”
I give him a skeptical look in response. As if your heart isn’t thundering like crazy right now, Kota. Hah. If I can’t even lie to myself, how am I supposed to stand here in front of Parrish and act like I’m unaffected by his presence?
“Say what?” I reply with a sigh, reaching up to curl my pinkie around his. We hook fingers and my pulse goes crazy, blood roaring in my head, dizziness sweeping over me and leaving me wavering.
“Tell me I have a huge dick,” he replies, and I cock a brow. “That’s it, all you have to say, and I’ll leave you alone.” I narrow my eyes at him. Like I said, I enjoy a good idiom. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
My gaze shifts over to his desk, to where his phone is lying, propped up and resting in just such a way … I tear my hand from his and scramble over to it, snatching it before he can stop me. Just as I thought: the fucker’s recording this.
“You royal piece of shit,” I grind out, ducking into the hallway just in time to slam into Tess.
Oh.
What fantastic timing.
“Royal piece of shit?” she queries, looking up and over my head at her stepson. “What’s going on over here?”
Quick as lightning, Parrish snatches the phone from my grip and does … something with it. When Tess holds out her hand, he passes it over with a scowl, giving me a look that quite clearly says keep your mouth shut. Not like I was about to cop to making out with my stepbrother. What would Tess do if she were to find out? I have a really good feeling that I don’t want to find out.
After a moment of scrolling through Parrish’s phone, Tess hands it back and does her best to smile at me. Still, there’s something in her gaze that bothers me. It must bother Parrish, too, because his mood takes an even deeper nosedive into the abyss.
“Tell your daughter to stay the hell out of my room,” he hisses, as if he wasn’t just trying to film me saying he had a big dick. Likely he’d make a nice little cut of the footage and post it online. I hate him. I should’ve kissed Chasm at the lake.
I scowl but say nothing. Tess is saying enough for me, giving Parrish a stern look that’s leagues better than the one she had on just a few minutes ago. She senses something developing between us, doesn’t she? I feel suddenly itchy and disturbed by the idea, like I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
“Your sister,” Tess inserts forcefully, and I swear, both Parrish and I cringe a little, “should not be in your room without your permission.” And here it’s my turn to get a stern look. “But don’t refer to her like that, you know better.”
“Refer to her as what? The stranger that she is?” Parrish questions, and then he slams the door closed and Tess gives a deep frown. She might be overbearing and controlling, but she also spoils her kids. It’s a toxic combination.
I can see it as she turns to me, looking me over with that same, sad desperation. Despite that, Tess has yet to give me more than fifteen minutes of her time this entire week.
We stand there in the hallway, just staring at each other for a moment. I wish we weren’t though, because the longer I stare at her, the more I see of myself in her face. That bothers me, immensely.
“I know he comes across a certain way …” Tess begins, her familiar raven-black eyes shifting to one side, toward the window at the end of the hall that shows off a sliver of lake. “But he’s really a sweet boy.” She looks back at me, and I do my best to stifle a snort.
“I’m sure he is,” I choke out, thinking of Parrish snatching Kimber’s phone and chucking it out the window. A real peach. A rotten one. Teeming with maggots. “We’re just … clashing a bit.” And by clashing a bit, I mean … fighting and then kissing? Somehow, I really, really, really seem to like the fighting and kissing. In that order, too.
I could never tell Tess that. I’m sure of it. She isn’t the type of parent to say well, you two aren’t related, and you just met, so it’s okay if you want to … Do what? Date? When we live in the same house? When we’re calling the same woman ‘mother’? I want to scream.
Instead, I make myself smile. If I get hurt, and I smile, then I can remember who I am. When I react, I feel like I’m hearing a stranger use my mouth, like I’m Mia Patterson with a quippy comeback instead of calm, cool, chilled-out Dakota Banks.
Tess puts her hand on my shoulder, giving the barest of squeezes.
“You’ll figure it out.” She gives me a sly half-smile that I almost want to return. But then I remember that she offered me a nose job for my birthday, and the urge dies before it can take root. “I’ve somehow learned to live with Paul,” she says, giving a slight tilt of her head. I should laugh, probably, but instead I just stand there.
The silence stretches strangely between us as Tess reaches up to adjust her glasses. I’ve literally never seen her wear them before, not this whole time I’ve lived here. A whole three weeks. When I still have years to go before I can escape. This is going to drag, that’s for sure.
“Well, I’ve got a deadline,” she posits, and then just stands there awkwardly for a minute. Out in public, Tess Vanguard puts on the persona of a deeply confident and impossibly successful person. In private like this, she sort of fits the stereotypical shy and hermit-like writer, the type who’d happily live in a cave in the middle of the woods and let an owl fly their manuscript into the publisher.
Looking at her, I decide that there’s only one side of that persona I like. If having both facets is what it takes to be a writer then it is most definitely not a career choice I’d ever entertain.
“I should probably get started on my homework,” I say, just before I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. A moment later, Chasm appears with an iPad tucked under his arm. He looks pissed at me, but he gives an award-winning smile when Tess glances his way.
“Parrish has locked himself in,” she says, gesturing with her chin in the direction of her son’s room.