Текст книги "Sweet"
Автор книги: Erin McCarthy
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
I watched him, unnerved. There was something hard about him, mysterious. His name suited him, unusual and intriguing. Annoyed with myself, I went into the kitchen, where Jessica was clearly laying out the situation for Tyler.
“So what are we going to do? Kylie and I were supposed to share and Rory and Robin each had their own room, but now there’s an empty room completely.”
“Can you guys just break the lease?” Riley asked. “I mean, what difference does it make? Everyone can move out.”
“My dad and Rory’s dad are the ones who signed the lease. I don’t think either one of us needs to piss our dads off any more.”
Riley frowned. “No. That’s no good.” He looked at me. “I guess you should find a replacement, since you’re the one moving out.”
Hovering in the doorway, I crossed my arms over my chest, miserable. “I’ll just move home and I’ll pay my portion of the rent. I can cover it with my paychecks from waitressing.”
I was trying to be fair. To not stick them with either a bigger rent or with a roommate they didn’t know and may not get along with, but Jessica’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Wait a minute. So you’d rather live at home with your parents who are like sixty years old, and your ancient, evil-eye-giving grandmother, while paying rent on a place you don’t live in, than room with Kylie and Rory? Okay, I call bullshit. What the fuck is going on?”
When she put it like that, it did sound insane. “Nothing is going on. I just need time to . . . reevaluate.”
But Jessica was tenacious. “There is something going on and you need to tell me what it is.”
Phoenix strolled into the kitchen, scratching his chest, and went to the fridge. “I think if she wanted to tell you she would have already,” he commented.
That about summed it up.
“And who asked you?” Jessica said, whirling to glare at him as she yanked Jayden’s empty plate out from in front of him and started scrubbing it aggressively in the sink.
“Just an observation.”
“Well, mind your own business.”
“I think Robin would probably say the same to you.”
They stared at each other and I felt the tension between them. Phoenix being in the house obviously upset the balance of Jessica being house princess. She was a strong personality, and she enjoyed being the only girl in the house. Somehow Phoenix was challenging her, and it was obvious to Riley, too. He held up his hand.
“Alright, chill out. Both of you.”
“Please don’t fight because of me,” I pleaded, feeling even more horrible with each passing second. “Just please don’t.” And to my horror, I started crying, tears welling up and rushing out of both eyes silently.
Everyone looked at me in shock and no one seemed to have a clue what to say. I wasn’t known for being particularly emotional. Fortunately, Easton intervened. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to draw me?” He tapped the canvas Tyler had propped on the floor next to the table. “When are you doing that?”
“Now,” I said, taking an empty seat next to him and wiping my face, concentrating on drawing my breath in and out, slowly, evenly. “I just need some space.”
That was definitely a metaphor.
Jessica went into the other room, clearly agitated, and Riley followed her, murmuring in a low voice. Tyler encouraged Jayden to go outside and shoot hoops with him. It left me at the table, methodically squeezing my oils into my paint tray, Easton across from me, bouncing up and down on his chair, and Phoenix leaning on the counter eating rice straight out of the container.
He was watching us, but I ignored him. Yellow, pink, blue. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. If I just focused on one thing at a time, I could function.
And it actually felt good to have my brush in my hand, the smell of the acrylics familiar and soothing. I felt calmer.
There was a knock at the back door and Easton jumped. “Who is that?”
“It’s probably my girlfriend,” Phoenix said. “Or my ex-girlfriend if this conversation doesn’t go well. She’s supposed to come over.”
So of course the gorgeous bad boy had a girlfriend, despite his incarceration.
Phoenix opened the back door and I have to admit, I tried to pretend I was busy working, paintbrush in my hand as I used a bold magenta to do the outline of Easton’s head. But I snuck a glance up at the girl who walked into the kitchen and I tried not to be judgmental. She looked hard. Older than she probably was. Bad dye job, turning naturally brown hair bleach blond, drying the texture out. Lots of eyeliner. Bad skin. Her jeans were too tight in the waist and too big in the butt. Not the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen but maybe she was super sweet. And who was I to judge?
“Hey,” she said and tried to kiss Phoenix.
He shifted out of the way and rejected her effort. “Why didn’t you come see me when I was locked up?” he demanded with no other greeting. “Not once. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, Angel.”
Oh, God, seriously? Her name was Angel? I threw up a little in my mouth. I couldn’t think of a name less suited to a girl who looked like she could beat the shit out of me if I looked at her wrong. Carefully, I set down my paintbrush and pushed my chair back. Clearly this was a private conversation and I had enough drama of my mine. I didn’t want to be involved in someone else’s.
“Who are you?” she asked angrily, shooting me a glare as the noisy scraping sound of the chair made her aware of my presence.
“I’m just going in the other room,” I said carefully, not wanting to go a round with her. I had no doubt I would lose, especially in my current emotional state. Easton obviously felt the same way. He bolted into the living room without a word.
“Good,” Angel said, playing with the ring in her nose.
“She doesn’t have to leave,” Phoenix said, gesturing for me to stay. “This is only going to take a minute. So what did you want to tell me, Angel?” He crossed his arms and leaned on the kitchen counter.
I stood up anyway, despite his words.
“I’m pregnant.”
I couldn’t prevent a gasp from leaving my mouth. Yeah, I should have left the room. But Phoenix didn’t react at all. His face never revealed any surprise, and the only movement he made was to flick his eyes over her flat stomach.
“You don’t look six months pregnant to me.”
“I’m not. I’m only two.”
He’d been in prison more than five months. Jessica had said that. I knew that. What I didn’t know was why I cared one way or the other about it being his baby, but I felt horrified for him that he’d been cheated on, and a little bit of relief that he wasn’t the father.
“Then I don’t need to know that.” Phoenix went and opened the door. “Bye, Angel.”
“Don’t you even want to know what happened?” She looked disappointed. “Who the father is?”
“No. All I wanted was to know for sure that we’re broken up, and we clearly are, so good luck. Lose my number.”
“You’re an asshole,” she said.
I wasn’t sure how he qualified as the jerk in this situation, but I kept my eyes on the canvas as she stomped out the back door, and he slammed it loudly behind her.
“Well, now I guess we’re even,” he said.
I glanced up, curious to see if he was going to rage or look upset. But he didn’t. He looked . . . neutral. “Even how?” I asked.
“Now we both know each other’s personal business.”
I finished my brush stroke. “True. And I’m going to stay out of it, like you did with me.” I just wanted to paint, to lose myself in the wet sound of sliding paint.
He came over and looked down at my canvas. “You don’t need Easton here to paint? You’re doing it from memory?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
He watched me for a minute, and I didn’t actually mind. I didn’t need quiet or solitude to paint pop art and it felt good to lose myself in the narrow focus of creating lines on canvas. But while I wanted to respect his privacy, I also knew that it had to have hurt him that his girlfriend hasn’t visited him in prison, that she had cheated on him. I also felt guilty that I was a cheater, that if it ever came out, I would be the one causing pain. I hated that.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, glancing up, hoping he would understand.
“For what?”
I didn’t want to be specific. I didn’t think he would appreciate that. “For what I heard. For what you heard.”
“That you heard it? Or because it happened?”
“Both. But mostly that it happened. It hurts, I know. And I’m sorry.”
Phoenix shrugged. “I’ll live. I’ve survived worse.”
I wanted to say that she wasn’t good enough for him anyway, that she was a liar and a cheat and a shitty girlfriend who didn’t deserve him, but did I really know that? And if I was no better than her, did I have any right to say anything?
“Sometimes we do stupid things.” Very stupid things. Sometimes we needed forgiveness.
“Yeah. Some of us more than others.” Phoenix pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “I’ve never painted before. I sketch. It must be hard to get the subtlety of the lines and the shading in paint.”
“You sketch?” I asked, amazed, then not sure why.
He nodded. “And I do tattoos. I guess the difference is with oil paint you layer on top, right? With a tattoo you do a little, but mostly it’s about precision and shading.”
“Do you have pictures of your work?” I asked, curious to see it. The idea of tattooing someone with a needle scared me. There was no retracting a mistake.
Sort of like life.
“Nah. But I did the original design for my cousins’ arm tat, the one they all have, and I did Tyler’s dragon on his leg.”
“Cool. That dragon is beautiful.”
“Thanks.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “We’re a fucked-up family, you know. We haven’t always gotten along, depending on whose mom was hooking the other on what drugs.”
“Why aren’t you living with your mom?” I finished the outline of Easton and started shading in his strong features. Even in the brilliance of yellow and magenta, I wanted to capture the deep sensitivity of his eyes.
“I don’t know where she is. She didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
So not only had his girlfriend cheated on him when he was in jail, his mom disappeared and neglected to tell him? I wasn’t sure I could be so casual about it. In fact, I knew I couldn’t. My parents were all about family. They loved me and my older brothers in a way that was almost smothering, and I was grateful for it. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “She’ll turn up eventually. But Riley and Tyler are being cool and letting me stay here.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Family seems important to them.”
Those fingers increased their rhythm, but the rest of him stayed completely still. The only movement seemed to come from those anxious fingers and the intensity of his stare as his eyes raked over both me and the canvas. I was never still. My mom had always commented on that. I fidgeted and shifted and couldn’t stay in a chair longer than ten minutes without creating a reason to get up for a task before sitting down again. I struggled to sit through movies, and I hopped up and down off a bar stool, going out on the dance floor and outside to smoke cigarettes I didn’t even like. Even now I was bouncing my knee hard up and down and chewing rapidly on a piece of gum. His immobility fascinated me.
Which may explain why I said, “Do you want to paint? I have another canvas and brush.”
Again, there was no reaction. I wondered what it would take to draw emotion out of him. “Nah, I don’t want to waste your supplies.”
“It’s a cheap canvas. It was only five bucks.”
But he just shook his head. Then a second later he asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“What?” I almost dropped my paintbrush. “No. Why?”
His phone slid across the table toward me. “Then give me your number.”
“Why?” I said again, which was a totally moronic thing to say. But I didn’t get any vibe he even liked me, let alone was interested in me.
For the first time, I saw the glimmer of a smile on his face. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly before he controlled it again. “Why do you think?”
For a split second, I felt like myself, and I said the first thing that popped into my head. “So you can send me honey badger videos?” I joked, because it seemed like a safer response. He was just out of prison and he had just broken up with his girlfriend ten minutes earlier. So not a good idea to get involved with him. I wasn’t up for dating anyone, let alone him.
“Yes. And kitten memes.”
“Well, in that case.” I took his phone because I wasn’t exactly sure how to say no. It seemed super rude, and I doubted he was actually going to ask me out. He would probably send me a typical guy text of “hi” or “what’s up?” and I could say “hi” back or “nothing” and we’d be done with it. Guys put no effort at all into communication or pursuing a girl. If you didn’t go into a huge long text of explanation of what you were doing and dug deep into their text to get an adequate response back, the conversation just died. A big old waste of time, that’s what most texting with guys was.
So I typed my number into his phone with my name. It was an old smartphone, with a cracked screen, like he had dropped it on the pavement. I set it back on the table.
Tyler came back into the kitchen and looked over my shoulder at my work. “Hey, that’s cool so far. You got Easton’s nose just right.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Phoenix palm his phone and put it back into his pocket, tossing his hair back. Then he just stood up and left.
My phone buzzed in my own pocket as Tyler went to the fridge and started rummaging around. I pulled it out and saw it was a text from a number I didn’t recognize. When I opened it, there was a honey badger video. “At your request” was the message.
I smiled for the first time in what felt like weeks.
Way better than writing “hi.”
USA Today bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has gone on to pen more than forty-eight novels and novellas in the paranormal, contemporary romance, and young adult genres. A RITA Award finalist and an American Library Association winner of the Reluctant Young Reader Award, Erin is a member of Romance Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, and Ohioana.
Titles by Erin McCarthy
A DATE WITH THE OTHER SIDE
HEIRESS FOR HIRE
SEEING IS BELIEVING
The Fast Track Series
FLAT-OUT SEXY
HARD AND FAST
HOT FINISH
THE CHASE
SLOW RIDE
JACKED UP
The Vegas Vampires Series
HIGH STAKES
BIT THE JACKPOT
BLED DRY
SUCKER BET
The Deadly Sins Series
MY IMMORTAL
FALLEN
THE TAKING
The True Believers Series
TRUE
SWEET
Anthologies
THE NAKED TRUTH
(with Donna Kauffman, Beverly Brandt,and Alesia Holliday)
AN ENCHANTED SEASON
(with Maggie Shayne, Nalini Singh, and Jean Johnson)
THE POWER OF LOVE
(with Lori Foster, Toni Blake, Dianne Castell, Karen Kelley, Rosemary Laurey, Janice Maynard, LuAnn McLane, Lucy Monroe, Patricia Sargeant, Kay Stockham, and J. C. Wilder)
FIRST BLOOD
(with Susan Sizemore, Chris Marie Green, and Meljean Brook)
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SWEET
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InterMix eBook edition / October 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Erin McCarthy.
Excerpt from Believe copyright © 2014 by Erin McCarthy.
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