Marston
October 12th, before
I’m on Aunt Lori’s shit list. My crimes? Not being where I said I’d be, exploiting her trust, and—the worst, and possibly more foreign to me—making her worry.
I didn’t think it was a big deal to leave the school. I’d be home before curfew, so what did it matter? But one of the girls who works for my aunt was at the dance and decided my absence merited a text to Lori. Which means that while I was driving Brinley to Lake Blackledge, Lori was driving into town to the high school. And while I was driving Brinley home and trying to do the right fucking thing for once in my life, Lori was searching for me and convincing herself I was dead on the side of the road somewhere.
We pulled into the driveway at about the same time, and she read me the riot act, complete with a guilt trip about how worried she was.
Now I’m grounded. Almost eighteen years old, and grounded for the first time in my life. Mom never cared enough to bother with discipline to begin with—and grounding me would’ve kept me in the house when she wanted our place to herself.
I always assumed being “grounded” meant you stayed home, but Lori said she wasn’t rewarding me with laziness and told me I had to work with her all weekend. At the Knox house.
Fuck me.
I managed to stay in the kitchen through breakfast, and I’m currently using a mop to take my frustrations out on the floor. If it was up to me, I’d hide in here all day. I’d clean the floors with a toothbrush if that was what it took.
“I think that spot’s clean.”
I stop scrubbing but don’t turn around. I dunk the mop in the bucket and get to work on a new area.
“It all looks clean, really,” Brinley says, “which is great, since I need you for something else.”
I tense. I’m trying to do the right thing and stay away from this girl. Doesn’t she get that? “I’m working.”
“I want to rearrange the furniture in my bedroom. Ms. Lori mentioned at breakfast that you’d be working here all weekend and could help me. So, I thought, no time like the present, right?”
I slop the mop back into the bucket and turn to face her. And . . . damn. Last weekend she stole my breath in that short polka dot dress, but today she’s doing it in sweatpants and a loose T-shirt that’s falling off one shoulder. Her hair’s piled on top of her head, and she’s wearing glasses. All things considered, her outfit says she’s not trying to impress me, but she’s still so fucking gorgeous that she doesn’t have to try. “What do you want from me?”
She cocks her head to the side, unfazed by my mood. “Today or in general?”
“Brinley.”
She sighs, then pastes on that sweet-girl smile. The one that’s half saintly patience and half gracious hostess. “I want to move my bedroom furniture, and I’d love if you were the one who helped, because I like spending time with you.”
“Why?”
Her smile falls away and she steps forward, toeing the line between friendly and intimate. “Hasn’t anyone ever wanted to spend time with you just because?”
I look her dead in the eye. “The only friend I ever had was my mom’s dealer when I was eight, but it turned out he just wanted me to be his drug mule.”
Her jaw drops. “Oh, Marston. I’m so—”
“It’s a joke, Brinley. I have friends. I just don’t understand why you want to be one of them.”
She folds her arms under her breasts and—dammit, I’m not going to stand here and look at her chest. “That’s not very nice, you know.”
“I never claimed to be.”
“Marston,” Lori says, pushing into the kitchen. My aunt is a big woman with chin-length black hair and the kind of eyes that always make it look like she’s smiling even when she’s not. I’d never guess she and Mom were sisters if I didn’t know—and not just physically. It’s hard to believe that two women so different could’ve grown up in the same house. “Oh, good. Brinley found you. I want you to help her cousin rearrange her bedroom furniture today, okay?”
I lift a brow. Her cousin?
“Smithy’s a football player,” Brinley says.
Smithy. Great. A rich jock. On the bright side, at least I won’t have to endure the temptation of spending the day alone with Brinley.
“You’ll like Smithy. Anyway, it’s solid wood furniture,” Lori says, “so you’ll want the extra help.”
This time, there’s nothing about Brinley’s smile that says “Little Miss Perfect.” Instead, her lips curl into something more like a self-satisfied smirk. “Come on. I’ll show you my room.”
Lori shakes her head. “No, Brinley, honey, I’m sorry. Your mom wants to take Brittany shopping today, so she needs you to go to the nursing home and check on your grandfather.”
Lori was right about Smithy—the dude’s cool. But “heavy lifting” doesn’t quite cover the experience of moving Brinley’s furniture.
“Oh, wow,” Brinley says, eyes wide as she walks into her room. She must have changed when I was out front meeting Smithy. Her sweatpants and loose T-shirt have been traded for a pair of fitted jeans and a silky pink shirt with skinny straps. “You’re done already!”
Smithy wipes his hands on his jeans and looks around at Brinley’s white furniture now positioned in its new spots around the room. “You owe us big time. I about crapped myself lifting that bed.”
Brinley wrinkles her nose. “Too much information.” She looks to me. “If it was too heavy, you should’ve left it. I could’ve asked Mom to get the movers to come back. When she wanted the piano in the ballroom for her party last spring, she had them come take care of it. I’m sure they could’ve done this too.”
“It was fine,” I say, even though every muscle in my back disagrees. “We handled it.”
Smithy rolls his head side to side. “Barely. I’m gonna go home and sit in the hot tub. Enjoy the new arrangement, Brin.” He gives her a quick hug, then gives me a clap-handshake. “See you later, bro.”
“Thanks, Smithy,” Brinley says, smiling at her cousin’s back as he leaves.
Then we’re alone.
In her room.
“I’d better see what Aunt Lori needs me to do next.” Well, I earn partial credit. I said the words, but my feet don’t move, and Brinley does.
She smiles up at me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help.”
I can smell her flowery perfume. I normally hate perfume, but whatever she’s wearing is light and clean, and as pretty as she is. “It’s no big deal.” I swallow. Move your ass.
I don’t move.
“Do you feel this, Marston?” She presses a palm to my chest.
“Feel what?” I ask, but I do.
She smiles. She knows I’m dodging. In truth, I’ve never felt anything like this before—this instant chemistry, complete awareness of her, of us.
“This,” she whispers, brushing her hand against mine.
I want to close my eyes at that brief contact—to absorb it and relish it. But I keep them focused on her.
“You kissed me on my birthday,” she whispers.
As if I could forget. “I shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t agree.” Her gaze settles on my mouth. “I’m glad you did. I just . . . I feel this thing every time I’m around you, and I think you feel it too, but I also think you want me to leave you alone.”
This is it. This is the moment I tell her I wish she’d back off. This is the time to tell her it’d be better if she stayed away from me. But before I can open my mouth to say what I should, she lifts onto her toes and presses her mouth to mine.
My reaction is one hundred percent instinct. I slide one hand behind her back and the other into her hair. Mom was an addict, and I thought I escaped that curse, but now I’m wondering if this is how it feels—a magnetic pull toward something that can only end badly.
Brinley’s mouth is so damn sweet under mine, and when I taste her lips with my tongue, she lets out this soft little moan that makes me crazy. She presses one hand against my chest, and just when I think she’s going to push me away—since one of us should stop this—she fists her hand in my T-shirt and tries to draw me closer.
I guide her back without realizing what I’m doing. The next thing I know, she’s against the wall and my hand is sliding up her side, under her shirt.
I still my hand at her ribs and break away, breathless. She looks up at me with those big blue eyes, her lips pink and swollen from my mouth. Tentatively, I tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear then graze my thumb down the side of her neck.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispers.
I’m thinking this is crazy and incredible and that it can’t possibly be real, because I’ve never had anything this good for myself without stealing it. “I’m thinking you should stop trying to spend time with me.” My thumb skims along the band of her bra, and she sways toward me.
“Brinley!” Her mother’s sharp voice comes from outside the bedroom.
I jump away just before she enters.
Brinley smiles at her mom, but it’s fake—because of her relationship with her mother, or because we were almost caught? “Hey, Mom. Like my room like this?”
Her mom looks back and forth between us, a frown turning her patrician face sour. “What are you two doing in here?”
“I was just thanking Marston for helping Smithy move my furniture.”
“Is that right?” Mrs. Knox asks me.
I don’t dare turn to look, but I can feel Brinley’s eyes on me, can feel her panic at almost being caught. Does she think I’m going to tell her mom what we were really doing just now? “Yes, ma’am. My aunt asked me to help. Smithy just left a minute ago, and I was about to leave too.”
The expression on Mrs. Knox’s face as she looks me over is that of someone who’s found a pile of dog shit in the middle of her living room floor. She sniffs. “If you’re going to help your aunt out around here, I don’t want you and Brinley alone together. It might not be a big deal where you come from, but it’s considered inappropriate in our family.”
My hands curl into fists and my chest churns with rage I can’t do a damn thing with. My hackles are up, but half of me knows there’s no fight here I can win, and that half wants to hide.
“Mom, the door was open,” Brinley says, and I almost laugh, because the door was open and still I had her pressed against the wall with my hand up her shirt.
“Marston, you’re dismissed,” Mrs. Knox says, those sharp, angry eyes on her daughter now. “Please leave me so I may speak privately with my daughter.”
It takes every ounce of my willpower not to turn around and look at Brinley, but I’m afraid her mother would see too much if I did. I don’t know the punishment for “inappropriate behavior,” but I don’t want to risk Brinley suffering whatever it is.
I nod and walk out of the room.
I’m not three steps down the hall when I hear Mrs. Knox say, “Do you want everyone to think you’re spreading your legs for some trashy delinquent?”