“Where’s Rhiannon?” I said as soon as he’d answered.
“She’s sick.”
I gritted my teeth and flinched away from one of the only remaining family portraits in the house. It hung outside the downstairs bathroom, and given the fact most bedrooms had their own, it was no wonder he’d forgotten to have this one removed.
Unless he hadn’t forgotten at all. Once upon a time, he did love her, and she’d supposedly loved him.
Then we moved here, and somehow, all that went to shit.
“Henry’s been home alone for hours.”
Dad mumbled something to someone, then came back. “I thought you’d head home right after school.”
“I had training.”
“Oh,” he said, remembering some things hadn’t changed. “He’s fine, isn’t he? Just make sure he showers before you send him to bed.”
“Or you could come home early enough to make sure he does for yourself.”
“Jude,” he said through a sigh. “Don’t bloody start. I have a list of shit a mile long that still needs tending to.”
So he’d sleep at the office again. I knew his game, mainly because I played it well myself. Well, at least I’d thought I had. “Sure, bye.”
I ended the call and headed back to the kitchen, hurrying to the stove when I saw the water about to boil over. Giving the pasta a stir, I cussed again when water scalded my thumb and sucked on it.
Henry laughed. “Rhia’s gonna be so mad when she hears how many dollars she’s missed out on.”
His laughter, a common yet changing sound, made the dark patches appear brighter, if only for a minute. I grabbed two bowls. “I’ll give them to you if you don’t tell her.”
His lips rounded with his eyes. “Really? That’s at least five whole bucks.”
“Finish your homework and your mac, then we’ll talk business.”
“Deal.”
Once Henry had showered, and I couldn’t hear any noise coming from his room, I went to check he’d fallen asleep before taking a shower myself.
Locked inside the confines of the bathroom, I leaned a hand against the wall and closed my eyes. They reopened with a start when I felt myself begin to sway. I needed a good fuck and a weeklong nap.
I’d have to settle for sleeping alone.
Traipsing naked into my dark room, I saw my phone light up where I’d tossed it on the nightstand.
I peeled back the black silken sheets and fell onto the bed with my phone and squinted at the screen in the dark.
Marnie: Heard what you did to Fern. I’ll see you on Monday.
So that was how it would play out, I surmised, and glanced at the door to make sure I’d left it cracked open.
I’d moved rooms some weeks ago. My old room was in the other wing of the house. But as Dad grew busier, Henry’s night terrors grew more frequent, and I got sick of stubbing my toes on shit in the middle of the night as I raced to Henry’s room when his screams woke me, and he cried for a mother who was no longer here.
So I moved closer to him, and as a result, farther away from Elijah Delouxe.
Not that it mattered. I was willing to bet he didn’t sleep even when he was here. At least, not in the room he once shared with Mom.
In the end, I chose not to respond to her text message.
A little tit for tat never hurt. Treat them mean, keep them keen. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Etcetera, etcetera.
Excitement kept me awake for minutes that yawned into hours, chasing away bone-deep exhaustion. That wondrous drug named hope was alive and well once more. Possibility swarmed, stinging every brain cell and keeping my eyes trained on the filigreed ceiling.
I could almost taste it—the reality that would be mine again. I could, and I would, get that missing piece of my old self back.
I would get her back.
Rolling over, I noticed a faint orange glow coming from across the giant hedge outside. It seeped into the cracks of my navy-colored drapes and brought her startled blue eyes and squeaking gasp to the forefront of my mind.
Fern, Marnie’s text had said.
My naughty, nosy neighbor.
I whispered her name, puzzled over it. Odd yet fitting. In the way she was also fittingly odd as fuck.
Still, I much preferred Red.
Jude
Monday brought with it a whole lot of staring as I slipped inside the arched oak doors of shithole academy and waded through the loitering mongrels to my locker two halls over.
I didn’t know who’d stuck a naked selfie of me online, a video of me jacking off maybe, but I didn’t care. Dad hadn’t come home. He’d flown to London for Nightingale, and I’d hardly slept eight hours all weekend.
Neither was possible anyway, but you’d think I’d nailed a princess with the way they were all gawking. I’d never given Marnie the privilege of a naked picture of myself, let alone taking part in something as delicious as filming ourselves fucking.
Much to her dismay, all she’d received was the odd selfie or two. The most sordid was of her in a bikini. I was wearing a shirt. From memory, she was kissing my cheek, and I was glaring at her phone. Come to think of it, I was pretty damn sure that was most photos of us together.
It was a miracle she hadn’t dumped me long before the night that stole me from her.
As fate would have it, I wasn’t far from the truth.
One of the asswipes who’d been with Gary at Ray’s Little Pot of Sunshine just so happened to be filming a TikTok, and it just so happened to feature the moment Fern got real acquainted with her coffee in the background.
“Well then,” I said, watching Fern stare at her soggy lap.
“Yup.” Zeek, one of our running backs, pocketed his phone.
It wasn’t like I felt bad. After all I’d done and hadn’t done, it took a lot for me to feel any kind of guilt, yet… my muscles clenched.
“Hey.” Marnie’s perfume, one of her many Marc Jacobs favorites, infiltrated.
Zeek joined Silas down the hall, for which I was fucking grateful. Especially when Marnie’s teeth released her lip, and she gazed up at me with those dark brown eyes, looking unsure.
“Nice weekend?” I said, immediately wanting to bang my head into the locker behind me until my stupidity oozed out of my ears.
Her glossed lips curved, and she tucked some hair behind her ear. “I guess. You?”
Great. Small talk with someone I’d known for as long as I’d known my pubes. With someone I knew in varying naked ways.
Internally screaming, I forced my mouth into some semblance of a smile and nodded. “Sure, yeah.” Say something honest, I berated myself. Any-fucking-thing would do at this rate. “Uh, Dad worked all weekend, and Rhiannon was sick, so I just hung out with Henry.”
There, that wasn’t so hard.
But then Marnie’s brows furrowed. “You should’ve called me. I could’ve come—”
“Yo, Jude! I hear you owe that red-haired chick a new skirt,” Phin hollered, right as said red-haired chick walked through the throng of students in the hall.
Her head was held high, regardless of the snickering and the comments of, “Great video, so funny.”
I waited for her cheeks to redden, only half-aware of Marnie still standing beside me.