Supreme benefits at supreme costs.
No one knew when their initiation would arrive, only that it did between the age of seventeen and nineteen.
If what’d happened with mine had spooked him, he didn’t let it show.
I glanced around but found no one sitting close enough to worry about. I felt the tattoo, now months old and completely healed, itch at my back. “I’ve told him, and he said some vague shit about keeping my mouth shut.”
Silas sat with that a minute. “No one’s seen Park around since anyway, and I highly doubt they will, so how are Chess Club to know?”
Silas and my father were the only ones, besides the man himself, who knew I’d technically failed my initiation, and that was how it needed to stay.
I bobbed my head, staring down into the black liquid in the weird mug. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Though I wasn’t sure it would, all I could do was hope. Stupid really, considering it so often got me nowhere good.
We drank in silence. Silas offered me a donut, but with images of that night still pushing at the seams of my mind, my stomach soured, and I declined.
He left when Cory called, and I said I’d take a cab back before ordering another coffee. It was worth sitting inside a room that reminded me of preschool.
I tore my eyes from the shelf of books behind me when a tiny bell chimed, and someone entered.
Nose deep in a book, Red walked over to the glittering purple countertop and took a seat without looking up once as though she had memorized the path, which spoke of familiarity.
Jesus Christ. Had Silas known she frequented this shack?
What a prick.
It was no secret, thanks to my lovely ex-girlfriend, that I’d made out with the girl everyone was dubbing as the school’s biggest nobody.
Yeah, so I hadn’t seen Red around much, or maybe I had, and I’d just never cared to really look, but the fact she wasn’t somebody didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. My eyes ran down her back, flooded with that fire-engine red hair, to those long, perfectly shaped legs. Not one little bit.
I made a mental note to dig up some old yearbooks when I got home.
Then I remembered January Denane supposedly lived next door, so it didn’t make me any type of genius to know Red was her sheltered as fuck daughter.
It all made a little more sense now. No one messed with January, and I was willing to bet that extended to her offspring, too.
A woman with graying blond hair exited the door marked for staff only, and with an affectionate smile, she reached out to lay a finger atop Red’s book to slowly push it down.
She laughed. Not the older woman, but Red, and fuck if I didn’t get an instant semi.
Raspy and far deeper than her candied-soft voice, it fluttered across the room to target me square in the dick. Something tightened inside my chest, and I downed some coffee to rid the feeling.
The woman was talking as she prepared Red a drink, dousing it in enough chocolate powder to eradicate any taste of the coffee underneath.
I should get up, I thought. I needed to leave before I was tempted to do something I shouldn’t, like cross the room to see if she still wanted to eat my face with her inexperienced mouth.
Then her entire frame stilled, and she swung her head my way, her expression one of pleased surprise.
Shit. I rummaged for my wallet, but she was too quick, the woman at the counter watching her sway those hips as she skirted tables and chairs to seat herself in the booth across from me. Taking a lengthy sip of her coffee, Red lowered the black, gold star dusted mug.
“Red,” I said, annoyed and excited. Annoyed she had the audacity to approach me, and annoyed that things began to throb downstairs.
Chocolate powder clung to her red lips. “Hi.”
Lips I’d kissed. Lips I’d licked. Lips I’d nipped. Lips that’d look so good wrapped around me, those big blue eyes searching mine to make sure she was doing a good job as she sucked me off.
Fuck.
I tore my eyes away from that damn mouth and glared at her.
She smiled and brushed her thumb over her lower lip, then licked it, wholly unaware, or maybe too aware, of the blood-rushing effect she had on me. “I wanted to say sorry, but I couldn’t find you at school.”
Because I’d made sure the likes of her couldn’t find me. I said nothing, merely stared, growing more infuriated by her presence, the second chance she’d blown with Marnie, and the hard-on in my pants.
I’d never been more thankful for a shitty laminate table in my life.
“What brings you here? I haven’t seen you here before.” When I remained silent, her smile slowly slipped, and she sat back. Upon her cheeks were faded freckles, but only a few touched her pert nose. “Jude?”
“Oh, I heard you,” I said, clearing my throat. Dragging a fingertip around the rim of my mug, I asked, “Tell me, Red. Are you aware of the strife you got me into after putting your lackluster lips on mine?”
“Lackluster,” she repeated, almost as if to herself. As if that was the part of my question that mattered.
As if she hadn’t realized just how much she’d fucked everything up.
She’d taken the last remaining thread I’d had to my previous life and snapped it as though she owned the fucking right.
It was time to make her understand. Perhaps then she’d learn not to accost gents in the hall and then act all doe-eyed and approach them willy-nilly as if she hadn’t pissed them the fuck off.
Pulling my wallet free, I stood. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay very far away from me.”
She blinked up at me, but I kept my eyes on the fifty in my clenched hand.
The bell over the door chimed, and male laughter entered, followed by, “Jude, bro, what’re you doing?”
A sinister smirk shaped my lips as my eyes met Red’s. “Nothing.” I set the fifty down, being sure to knock her half-full mug of chocolate coffee over. “I was just leaving.”
Red let out a shocked squeak as her school blouse and skirt, surely those ever-long legs too, were now drenched.
Garry and some other half-wit from the public school laughed as I brushed past them and headed home.
Inside, I dumped my keys onto the entry table and kicked off my boots.
“Henry?” I called, not smelling dinner. The house was dark save for flashing lights coming from the theater room opposite the study. I walked in to find my eight-year-old brother playing the Xbox. “Where’s Rhiannon?”
Henry kept playing, and I was about to snap at him when he jumped off the couch and tossed the controller to the Persian rug after his car crashed. “Ugh. She didn’t come today.”
“She didn’t…” I rubbed my mouth. “You’ve got to be shitting me.” Henry’s dark brows climbed into his forehead, his lips pinching. “Fuck the swear jar. She’s not even here.”
Rhiannon was fond of collecting all my spare change, and I swore she made me cuss on purpose most weeks in order to pay for her pedicures each weekend.
In the kitchen, I pointed at a stool at the island and set a pot on the stove. “Homework.”
“How do you know I haven’t done it yet?”
Opening the pantry, I walked in to find the macaroni. “Just do it.”
He groaned but had gone to retrieve it by the time I emerged with the box in hand. Once that was started, I left the room to call the bigger asshole of the house.