He leans in toward me, his words a quiet hiss that I doubt anyone can hear but me.
“I’m into my stepsister. That’s a problem.”
And then he sits back up and perches his chin on his hand, elbow resting against the window as he gazes out at the high desert landscape. I’m too shocked to say a damn thing in response. Instead, I end up sitting there and staring at him until the house comes into view.
By house, of course I mean a fucking mansion.
As soon as I see it, I realize I’ve underestimated the Vanguards, that Danyella was right when she said wealthiest person on campus in regard to Parrish. The house is enormous, an abstract reality in the middle of a beautiful desert landscape. It looks obscene to me, to be quite honest.
Parrish looks back at me, as if to get a gauge on my reaction.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he murmurs under his breath, but how can I not be? He just admitted that he’s into me with words for the very first time. Of course, I didn’t really need to be told that. Words are cheap; actions are all that matters. With every action he’s taken recently, he’s been telling me how he really feels. Have I been doing the same? Am I into him in a way that’s deeper than the physical?
“We’re here,” Tess says, trying and failing to inject cheer into her voice. She sounds like she’s on her way to a funeral. She doesn’t look back at us, focusing instead on driving the SUV—it’s not even a rental, just another car that they own—as Paul wraps up yet another phone call.
As we come around the last bend in the driveway, I see some sort of luxury coupe in a metallic silver parked near the front door.
“Shit,” Parrish murmurs just a split-second before Tess slams on the brakes and we all go flying against the constraints of our seat belts.
“Your mother is here?” she hisses to Paul, whipping her head over to her husband in just such a way that he almost recoils. He manages to get himself together and reapply that haughty surgeon tone of his before responding.
“When she heard we were coming, she cancelled her annual trip to Grenada to be here.” Paul and Tess just stare at each other as I try to imagine what it might be like to take an annual vacay to the West Indies. Jesus, these people are extra as fuck.
“To meet Dakota?” Tess queries, casting a quick glance back at me. She looks nervous which makes me nervous. Tess is like Elsa on steroids, the grand supreme ice queen. If Paul’s mother strikes such fear in her, then I better steel myself for some serious drama.
Also … “I’m into my stepsister. That’s a problem.”
How can I not be obsessing over that?
Paul murmurs something so quietly to Tess that I can’t hear it. Whatever. If it’s about me, I probably don’t want to know anyway. She parks the car beside the silver coupe, and we all climb out, groaning and stretching and in most cases, bitching.
“God, I hate it here,” Kimber grumbles, pulling on one of her blonde curls as she scowls up at the house. “The Wi-Fi is shit, and I can’t get a signal on my phone.”
“Oh, the trauma,” Parrish spits back at her, and then the two of them get into some sort of physical tussle that has me raising my eyebrows. What was it that Tess told me on my second day in Washington? “We do not resort to physical violence in this house.”
Hilarious.
I ignore them while Paul deals with the altercation, following Tess into the front door after she punches in the key code.
“Hello?” she calls out, lifting her sunglasses up and perching them in her hair. She looks around the relatively small bottom floor without going into any of the bedrooms, and then goes up a set of stairs on the left. I go with her because … what else am I going to do? I can’t use my secret phone around her, and she monitors everything I do on the one she gave me. For all the use it has, it may as well be a paperweight. “Laverne?”
“There’s no need to shout, I’m right here,” a woman snaps as we round the corner at the top of the stairs. The woman—I’m assuming this is Laverne Vanguard, Parrish’s paternal grandmother—glares at us from her spot at the head of the long dining table, a glass of wine in her left hand.
“Laverne,” Tess says, as pleasantly as possible. There’s an edge to it though that scares me. Fantastic.
Parrish is right behind me. Actually, when he comes up the stairs, he pauses way too close to my back, and I swear that we’re vibing off of each other. It’s as if there’s this magnetic pull between us. All I want is to be close to him, as close as I can get.
