“You are a minor child,” she says instead, taking the wrong tactic with me. I don’t do well following blind orders. “If I say you are going on the talk show with me, then you’re going.” I watch as she both metaphorically and literally digs her heels in. “Your kidnapping might not have been all that traumatic for you, but it destroyed me. I can handle a lot of things, Dakota, but disrespect isn’t one of them.”
I’m seething on the inside right now, but what can I do? What the actual hell can I do? Tess used her money and her lawyers and her influence to separate me from the Banks. Now, she’s throwing that weight around so that I’ll advance her career, too. I don’t feel like a daughter to her, just a pawn, something to be played with, to be pushed around a board until I’m in just the right spot.
“I’d like this dress please,” I breathe, my voice husky with anger.
“It’s too flashy,” Tess says, but then, as if she’s realized she’s pushed me as far as she’s going to get me, she backtracks. “But if it’s the one you want …”
I slam the changing room door closed before she can finish.
Nothing about my life is what I want.
Nothing.
The next morning, I get up early of my own accord. I still hate it—and I still don’t understand why nobody in this weird family sleeps in on weekends—but there’s just something uncomfortable about sleeping four hours past everyone else in the house. Like, when I finally get up and pad downstairs for a drink, I’ve got mussy bed hair and the whole Vanguard family is dressed and ready for a corporate conference or something.
Today, I waltz in dressed in a cropped Genshin Impact t-shirt and jeans to find Maxx, Chasm, and Parrish all seated at the dining table together. Kimber isn’t far off, as usual, schmoozing all over Chasm. Somehow, her fixation with him bothers me more than usual. Is it because we almost kissed? Because he’s been tutoring me? I don’t know.
“Oh, look, it’s the orphan,” Kimber quips with a rude sneer, but I am just not here for that shit today.
“Orphan would imply that I have no family at all, not two sets that both want me so badly they went to court over it.” I pad into the kitchen and reach for the handle of the fridge before glancing at my supposed sister to find her face red as the boys all pause in whatever they’re doing to watch the exchange. “And anyway, if I were an orphan, do you really think that’s something to poke fun at? Are you heartless?”
Kimber shoves up from the table, blond curls bobbing with the motion. She looks between me and Parrish, me and Parrish. It’s like she expects him to stand up for her. Instead, he leans back in his seat like he’s enjoying the show.
“Are you seriously going to sit there and let her talk to me like that?” Kimber growls at him, and he gives a loose shrug.
“If you’re going to dish it, you should learn to take it. Nobody likes a bully, Kimber.”
With a scream of rage, she shoves away from the table and goes stomping off, but only so far as the entrance to the hall. She whirls around, her face twisting in an expression of teenage fury. It’s okay, I’m used to it. I’m still in that stage myself.
I take the carton of milk—probably the same one that Parrish was drinking from yesterday—and turn around to face her, carefully unscrewing the top. Knowing that he’s watching me, I lift the milk to my lips and chug some.
“Gamer bitch,” she spits, as if that’s an insult of any kind. I smile as I lick the milk from my upper lip. The sound of a chair scraping across the floor briefly draws my attention, and I notice that Parrish is looking sharply away from me, jaw clenched tight, teeth gritted. I return my attention to Kimber’s smug face.
“Listen, I already told Tess that I don’t want the free nose job. She said you were desperate for boobs, so … have at it. You can take my surgery slot, although I think it’s weird as fuck that you’d let your dad put breast implants in you.”
“It wouldn’t be him, it’d be his colleague!” she screeches back at me like a wild animal, turning and tearing down the hall with angry tears brimming. I let her go and then take another drink of milk as someone slow-claps at the table.
“Well done, Little Sister,” Chasm purrs, cocking his head to one side. His lightning bolt hair draws my attention, but my gaze stays for his pierced mouth. His mouth is about as stupid as Parrish’s muscles. Just … ridiculously stupid. “Wasn’t sure you had it in you.”
“Weren’t you? The syphilis must’ve already turned your brain to mush. Let me know when you get dick pus so we can form a diagnosis.”
“Why don’t you come and give me a personal check-up?” he asks, squeezing the front of his jeans. I ignore him and finish off the milk, looking around for the garbage can before I remember that the Vanguard family has a trash compactor. Like, who needs a special appliance just to turn their garbage into a Wall-E cube? I’d only ever seen one before playing The Sims on my laptop.
“STD free, so … thanks but no thanks,” I respond, feeling my blood heat with the threat of battle. If Chasm wants to start shit with me today, then let him. I’m ready. I sort of thought we were becoming friends, but I guess not.
“Morning, Dakota,” Maxx says, which is a nice change of pace from Parrish’s apathy and Chasm’s lewdness. I pretend not to care that he’s here, but that little flutter in my belly says otherwise. I haven’t seen in him in a month, not since the night of the party. Although we have been hooking up online to play games now and again.
“Morning,” I reply, resisting the warm flush I feel when he glances back at me, flashing that pretty smile of his. “Is Maxine in town?”
X shakes his head in response, but I’m not surprised. Maxie already told me she was drowning in her studies and that she wouldn’t be able to come back until next week. Still, it was worth the ask. I’d do anything to share a coffee with her right about now.
“I still can’t believe you’re dating her sister,” Chas says, pointing between me and Maxx while Parrish continues to stare out the French doors toward the gray sky above the lake. His face is distant and contemplative, but when he finally turns back to glare at me, there’s an edge of cruelty to his features.
Something about me scares him, and the only way for him to deal with that is to lash out. I brace myself for impact.
“Why?” X asks, leaning back in his own chair. He’s wearing a lime green, white, and black jacket with the words Wright Family Racing scrawled across the back. From what little I could find about him on social media, his family is big into motocross. They race nearly every week, and even have their own custom painted toy hauler to travel in. “It wasn’t a coincidence. I sought Maxine out after the news story broke, and we bonded.” He shrugs his shoulders as Chas lets out an annoying horse-like snort.
My eyes tear away from Parrish’s with great difficulty. To be quite honest, I could probably stare at him all day and forget to be bored. He’s got that sort of face, one that brings immense pleasure just by looking at it. And I hate that. I hate that I can’t let his ugly personality blind me to all that pretty. I suppose I really am just a mammal by nature, huh?