Last night, I fucked his best friend.
Or … his best friend fucked me.
Goddamn it.
Tess looks up at Chasm before she even bothers glancing my way.
“Your father and Justin are friends—” She stops, as if she’d meant to add something more to that statement and then thought better of it. “They’re friends?” she repeats, swallowing back whatever else she’d planned on saying.
“I honestly have no idea,” Chasm admits, shaking his head. “I guess they used to be friends in high school, too?”
Tess exhales sharply, nostrils flaring, and then turns to me.
“How was your visit?” she asks politely, and I offer up a sort of loose shrug in response.
What can I say? That Justin Prior was infinitely more likable and personable than she is? Or should I tell her that I’m fucking terrified of the guy? That he gives me the creeps? That he has her son trapped in a basement or a tomb or a wine cellar, and I’m the only person that can save him?
Which of those things should suffice?
“It was okay. He seems nice.” I turn and head for the stairs, even as I feel her eyes on me from behind.
“Maxx, you stay out of her—” Tess starts, and then pauses to clear her throat for a second. It’s an extremely inopportune place for her to stop talking. I look up at the curving staircase to see X staring down at me with wide, green eyes and gritted teeth. “You stay out of her room tonight.”
“I wasn’t in her room,” he whispers. “We were playing games on our phones. In our own beds. Well, I was in Parrish’s bed …” Maxx stops talking as soon as he sees the effect that Parrish’s name has on Tess. She full-on shudders, and her eyes empty of all of that fire from a minute ago.
“Either way,” she murmurs, taking off down the hall toward the kitchen. I can hear Paul from here, talking to Laverne loudly on the phone. I know he’s talking to Laverne because he stutters a lot—which he never does otherwise.
“Let’s go before this gets even weirder,” I murmur, and the boys precede me up the stairs. The three of us end up in my room, but not before dumping our electronics into Parrish’s. I leave my book bag in the bathroom, covered with a towel, the fan on, same old, same old. Maybe we’re being too obvious, I don’t know, but I just need a break.
Maxx runs over the room quickly with the bug detector while I sit on the edge of the bed and Chasm hovers nearby, scratching at the back of his head with an uncertain expression on his face.
“Clear,” Maxx confirms, and we all let out a collective sigh of relief.
“How was it?” Chasm blurts, moving closer to me and dropping his arm by his side. He looks like he wants to touch me, but also like he isn’t sure if he should. That hurts me. That kills me. I wrap my arms around myself and squeeze tight, just to feel like I’m being hugged. “Little Sister, that was risky as fuck. What if he took you and we never saw you again?”
“It was worth it—for Parrish. I’ll do anything for Parrish.”
“Not get yourself killed you won’t,” Chasm snaps back, and I lift a glare up to his face.
“I offered myself to Justin in exchange for Parrish’s release.”
“You what?!” they both blurt at the same time, exchanging another frantic look between them. In a sudden, weird way, I feel like this could work. Like, all of us and Parrish. We could … this group of ours … God, what am I even saying here? Again, Dakota. Is this an anime? Is this a kick-ass reverse harem novel like, uh, that one with a mysterious cult that kills teenagers? “The Secret Girl”?
No. The answer is no. It is not.
“He would never want you to do something like that,” Chasm snarls, yanking on his hair. It’s mostly black still, but some of the temporary dye has been rubbed off his yellow lightning bolt from all the frantic tugging he’s doing. “Why would you even try a stunt like that? We’ll find him.”
“And then what?!” I shout, standing up and then cringing as I realize how loud I’m being. I wish we could play music, but that would mean bringing tech into my room, and that just won’t do. I crack my door, just to make sure there’s no one outside of it. Kinda hard to sneak down here, seeing as Parrish and I are the only people in the family with rooms at this end of the hallway. “Then what?” I whisper, turning and finding Chasm right next to me.
I want to kiss him so badly that it hurts.
My eyes drop to his lips, to the silicone-covered spots where his lip studs should be, and then back to his sharp gaze.
