And in truth, so was I. My head was still swimming from the liquor I’d tried drowning in the night before, but there was no way I could sit around all day with nothing but my thoughts keeping me company.
Tate going to France for a year.
Standing in the front yard in her bra, lighting fires.
I shook the images from my head.
“Then hit the gym and sweat out the hangover,” I ordered. “I need a distraction.”
Why did I just say that? Now he would know something was wrong, and I didn’t like people knowing my shit.
“Is Tate gone?” he asked, almost timidly.
My shoulders tensed, but I kept my tone even as I watched her come out of her house in a new shirt. “Who’s talking about her? You throwing a party or not?”
The line was quiet for a few seconds before he mumbled, “Uh, huh.” He sounded like he had more to say but wisely decided to shut his damn mouth. “Fine. I don’t want to see the same people we saw last night, though. Who are we inviting?”
Looking over at the Bronco pulling out of the driveway and the f**king blonde driver that didn’t once turn around to look back, I clenched the phone to my ear. “Blondes. Lots of blondes.”
Madoc exhaled a quiet laugh. “You hate blondes.”
Not all. Just one.
I sighed. “Right now, I want to drown in them.” I didn’t care if Madoc connected the dots or not. He wouldn’t push and that’s why he was my best friend. “Send out texts and get the drinks. I’ll grab some food and head over in a few hours.”
I twisted around when I heard the purest little moan coming from the bed. The Purdue girl—I forgot her name—was waking up.
“Why not come over now? We can head to the gym and then gather supplies,” Madoc suggested, but my eyes were hot on the bare back of the girl in my bed. Her squirming had nudged the blanket down to the top of her ass, and her face was turned away from me. All I saw was the skin and her sunshine hair.
And I hung up on Madoc, because my bed was the only place I wanted to be at right then.
Chapter 2
The next few weeks were like cave diving with a perfectly good parachute that I refused to use. School, my mother, Jax, my friends—they were all around for me to grab onto, but the only thing that got me out of the house every day was the promise of trouble.
I dragged my irritable, pissed off ass into English III, trying to figure out why the hell I still came to school. It was the last goddamn place I wanted to be anymore. The hallways were always crammed with people but still seemed empty.
My appearance was shit, too. My left eye was purple, and I had a cut across my nose from a fight that I didn’t remember. Plus, I’d torn the sleeves off of my T-shirt this morning, because I couldn’t breathe.
Not really sure what I was thinking, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
“Mr. Trent, don’t sit down,” Mrs. Penley ordered as I strolled into class late. Everyone was already seated, and I stopped to look at her.
I liked Penley about as much as I liked anyone, but I couldn’t hide the boredom that I was sure was all over my face.
“Excuse me?” I asked as she scrawled on a pink slip.
I sighed, knowing exactly what that color meant.
She handed me the paper. “You heard me. Go to the Dean,” she ordered as she stuck her pen into her high bun.
And I perked up, noticing the bite to her bark.
Being tardy or truant had become a habit, and Penley was pissed. It had taken her long enough, too. Most of the other teachers had already sent me out the first week.
I smiled, euphoria washing over my body at any possibility of mayhem. “No, ‘please’ with that request?” I taunted, snatching the paper out of her hands.
Hushed laughter and snorts broke out around the classroom, and Penley narrowed her dark brown eyes on me.
She didn’t falter, though. I’d give her that.
Turning around, I tossed the pink slip into the trash and threw open the wooden door, not caring if it closed behind me as I left.
A few gasps and whispers filled the air, but it was nothing new. Most people veered away from me these days, but my defiance was getting old. At least to me. My heart didn’t race anymore when I acted like a dick. I was thirsty to up the stakes.
“Mr. Caruthers!” I heard Penley calling, and I turned around to see Madoc walking out of her classroom, too.
“It’s that time of the month, Mrs. Penley.” He sounded serious. “I’ll be right back.”
The outright laughter roared from Penley’s classroom pretty clearly this time.
Madoc wasn’t like me. He was a people person. He could serve you a pile of shit, and you’d ask for ketchup.
“You know?” He ran up beside me and jerked his thumb in the opposite direction. “The Dean’s that way.”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Alright, alright.” He shook his head as if to clear away the brainfart that I’d actually go sweat up in the Dean’s office for who knows how long. “So where are we going?”
I dug my keys out of my jeans pocket and slipped on my sunglasses. “Does it matter?”
“So what are you going to do with the money?” Madoc asked as he checked out his new ink.
We’d blown off school and tracked down tattoo artists that didn’t ask for I.D. We found a place called The Black Debs— “debs” being short for “debutantes” —which hadn’t really made sense to me until I’d looked around and noticed that the entire staff was female.
We were under eighteen, so not legally allowed to get tattooed without a parent’s consent, but they didn’t seem to care.
Some chick named Mary had just finished “Fallen” across Madoc’s back, except the “e” was inked to look like flames. Kind of looked like an “o” to me, but I didn’t say anything. He wasn’t asking questions about what my tattoo meant, so I wasn’t going to open a can of worms.
“Only so much I can do with the money right now,” I answered, grunting as the needle sliced through my skin over a rib. “My mother put most of it in a college fund. I can have it when I graduate. But I was able to get some of it now. I’m thinking of buying a new car and giving the GT to Jax.”
My maternal grandfather had passed away last year, leaving me some land and a cabin near Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. The cabin was falling apart, and it didn’t have any real sentimental value to the family, so my mother agreed to let some interested developers buy it. She put most of the money into the bank under lock and key.
I actually felt proud of her for insisting. It wasn’t normal for her to make such responsible, adult decisions.
But I wasn’t at all interested in going to college, either.
I didn’t want to think about how things were going to change when I finished high school.
My phone rang, and I silenced it.
I closed my eyes, while Crossfade’s Cold played in the background, and reveled in the sting of the needle carving into me. I hadn’t tensed up at all, and I hadn’t thought about much of anything since walking into the shop. My arms and legs felt weightless, and the ton of shit on my shoulders had faded away.
I could get addicted to this.
I smiled, picturing myself ten years from now covered in tattoos, simply because I liked the pain.
“You wanna take a look?” Aura, my tattoo artist adorned in dreadlocks, asked when she’d finished.
I stood up and walked to the wall mirror, eyeing the words on the side of my torso.
Yesterday Lasts Forever. Tomorrow Comes Never.
The words came out of nowhere in my head, but they felt right. The script was just illegible enough not to be easily read, and that’s what I wanted.
The tattoo was for me and no one else.
I squinted at the little droplets of blood spilling off the end of “Never”.
“I didn’t ask you for that,” I pointed out, scowling at Aura through the mirror.
She slipped on some sunglasses and stuck an unlit cigarette in her mouth. “I don’t explain my art, kid.” And she headed out the backdoor. To smoke, I would assume.
And for the first time in weeks, I laughed.
Gotta love a woman that can hand you your own ass.
We paid and picked up some food, taking it back to my house. My mother had texted and said she was going out with friends after work, so I knew I’d have the place to myself for a while. When she drank, she didn’t come home until she was numb.
And then—to dampen my mood further—there was a care package from France inside my front door.
It was addressed to Tate’s dad and must’ve been sent here accidentally. My mom had unknowingly opened it, thinking it was ours, when she was home for lunch. She left it for me with a note to take it next door when I got home.
But not before my f**king curiosity got the better of me.
After Madoc had gone into the garage, so we could eat while we worked, I peeled back the flaps to the cardboard box and immediately slammed them shut again. A fat, raging fire burned in my blood, and I was hungrier than I’d been in weeks. I didn’t know what was in that box, but Tate’s smell was all over it, and it was leveling me.
My brief high from the tattoo slowly seeped out and was instantly replaced with piss and vinegar.
I dumped it on her father’s front door step before charging back over into my garage to drown myself in car work.
“Hold up the flashlight,” I ordered Madoc.
He leaned further under the hood as I tried to unfasten the spark plugs from my car. “Stop struggling with it,” he complained. “Those things can snap easily if you’re not careful.”
I stopped and tightened my grip on the wrench, narrowing my eyes at him. “You don’t think I know that?”
He cleared his throat and looked away, and I could feel the judgment all over him.
Why was I barking at him?
Looking down, I shook my head and forced down more pressure on the plug. My hand immediately gave way, and my body lurched forward when I heard the snap.
“Shit,” I grunted and threw the wrench under the hood where it disappeared somewhere in the mess.
Motherfucker.
I gripped the edge of the car. “Get the extractor.”
Madoc leaned back to the tool bench behind him. “No ‘please’ with that request?” He echoed my own words as he grabbed the attachment so I could pry the spark plug out.
It was a bitch to deal with, and he was probably patting himself on the back that he’d called it.
“You know…” he started, letting out a sigh. “I’ve kept my mouth shut, but—”
“Then keep it shut.”
Madoc swung the flashlight out from under the hood, and I jerked backwards, out of the way, as he flung it across the room where it shattered against a wall.
Jesus Christ!
His usual relaxed demeanor was replaced with rage. His eyes were sharp, and his breaths were fast.
Madoc was mad, and I knew I’d gone too far.
Clenching my teeth, I leaned back down, my hands on the car, and braced myself for his meltdown. They came rarely, which gave them more impact.
“You’re sinking, man!” he shouted. “You don’t go to class, you’re pissing off everyone, we’re constantly in fights with random shitheads, and I’ve got the cuts and bruises to prove it. What the fuck?” Every word crowded the room. There was meaning and truth to everything he was saying, but I didn’t want to face it.