DUTCH
I grip the headboard as it slams hard and fast into the wall. Every thud is louder than Zane’s drum when he’s mid-solo.
I’m surprised the headboard doesn’t crack the plaster, and while I should be more engaged with the girl who’s currently under me, making faces that shows she’s having a real good time, my thoughts are stuck on the strength of the wall grout, so I don’t think about the girl who’s really on my mind.
Or girls. Plural.
Because I’ve got a freaking bug for the both of them. Whatever the hell that means.
“Your turn, Dutch,” Christa murmurs. I glance down and try not to cringe. Her bottom lip has a big stitch in it, which hasn’t stopped her performance at all. At least so the rumors have said.
I should be excited about finding out for myself, but I’m not.
Just a few minutes ago, Cadence was in here screaming bloody murder at me.
And a few minutes before that, she was whimpering my name like a damn tease.
Maybe it was a bad idea to bring Christa into the same room. “I’m done.”
Stunned eyes meet mine. “But…”
“Out. Now.” She goes still.
“Do I need to repeat myself?” I growl.
Christa rolls to a sitting position. I found out earlier that her lips aren’t the only fake things about her. The two giant melons currently rolling around her chest snag my attention.
I couldn’t care less about them.
She scoffs. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I glower at her.
“You’re no fun anymore!” She pouts and it draws my eyes even more to her stitched-up mouth.
“You want to have fun? Go downstairs.”
The party’s in full swing. The music’s changed to a disco track and drunken whoops are rising all the way to the second floor.
“Dutch.” Christa crawls on the bed toward me like something out of a horror movie.
I glare at her. She must have the memory of a fish. Did she conveniently forget my instruction to get the hell out?
“You’re never like this.” Christa drags her manicured nails over my chest.
That much is true.
I don’t punk out on a good game.
Which tells me that Cadence has me more messed up in the head than I’d thought.
Damn.
I scrub a hand over my face. When I saw her on the dance floor, something inside me went dark. I hauled her upstairs to give her the money. I told myself I wasn’t going to kiss her. Wasn’t going to touch her. Guess what? I kissed her. I touched her. And I wanted more.
But I can’t. She’s a distraction. And the longer she’s around, the more it hurts the people I care about.
It’s bad enough that while Sol was in the freaking slammer, I was traipsing through Redwood Prep, backing Cadence up against coffee machines and worrying about her stage fright. Now that I know how desperate his situation is, I can’t hold back anymore.
It’s why I didn’t chase her when she stalked out of the party tonight. It’s why I didn’t turn Christa away when she latched on to me downstairs,
rubbed herself all over my jeans and whispered that we should go somewhere private.
I thought I could screw Cadence out of my system. But every time I close my eyes, it’s her face that’s tattooed behind my eyelids.
Not Redhead’s.
Not Christa’s.
Hers.
I’m royally screwed.
“You can’t seriously be into that scholarship kid.” Christa gapes. Damn. If she won’t leave, then I will.
Sliding off the bed, I grab my jeans and step into them. Christa watches angrily, her arms crossed and her head twisted to the side. She looks like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
“You’ll regret this, Dutch,” Christa warns. Hell, I already do.
I walk down the stairs and out to the pool. Girls in bikinis are playing chicken, squealing and laughing. The splash of water is louder than the music.
“That was fast,” Zane teases, a grin on his face. Two girls are nestled in on either side of him. He’s cupping one between the thighs and the other is practically licking his ear off.
Finn is in the pool ‘teaching’ a girl how to swim. It looks more like she’s grinding against him underwater though.
I grab the beer my twin offers and chug it back.
“How was Christa?” Zane, nosey as he is, interrogates me. “Did all the,” he gestures to his mouth, “fillers make a difference?”
“Not really,” I growl.
“Bummer.” He shakes his head and sighs.
Through the balcony doors, I see Babe—the host of this party—with his tongue deep in some girl’s throat. That girl isn’t Cadence, but it still pisses me off.
The way he was grinding all over Cadence tonight made me see red. She looked like she was enjoying herself. Her expression was one I’d never seen on her before and the fact that she was looking like that with him made me act without thinking.
I’m glad my reputation precedes me. If the jock hadn’t backed off on the dance floor, I would have given him a reason to.
Something about her makes me break all my rules.
Zane glances in the direction I’m watching and smirks. “He and Cadey looked good together. Maybe we should let him talk to her next time. They seemed to have hit it off.”
I stare him down, my expression alone daring him to say one more word.
Finn climbs out of the water to join us. I toss him a towel and he accepts it with a nod of thanks.
Zane kisses each of the girls on the mouth and then shoos them away. When we’re alone, he leans forward. “What are we going to do now? We’ve only got a couple days to save Sol.”
I glare at the hills in the distance.
Finn rakes a hand through his hair roughly.
I don’t have an answer that they’ll want to hear. “We’re going to have to turn it up a notch.”
Finn flashes me a worried look. Zane looks uneasy.
It’s not like we have a choice. What’s the freaking alternative? Let Sol rot in that boot camp while Cadence skips around, unhindered, at Redwood?
“My loyalty is to Sol, always. But you heard about her home situation,” Zane says. “Her mom was screwed up in life and she’s probably left even more of a mess in death. After Viola dropped those hints, I did some digging. You don’t want to know the kind of people her mom was getting involved with before she died.”
“Maybe we should stop here,” Finn says.
I hear the plea in his voice for me to not cross any lines.
But I shake my head. “If she was smart, she should have taken the money. She’s being stubborn now. We’ve got no choice but to get more drastic.”
Finn scowls at me. “She probably didn’t want to take the money from you.” He frowns. “I told you we should have sent Zane to talk to her instead.”
“That was the plan until our resident caveman here backed her upstairs.” Zane rolls his eyes at me.
“I saw an opportunity and went for it.”
“Nah.” Zane takes a sip of his beer. “You saw another man touching her and you lost it. There’s a difference.”
I hate that he can see right through me.
“You guys have any bright ideas then?” I snap.
“We keep trying with Principal Harris,” Zane says. “Get dad involved if we have to.”
“We burned that bridge.” I sneer. “Which one?” Finn asks.
“Both of them. If they see we’re desperate, they’re going to give us the run-around on purpose.”
My brothers go quiet again.
I tap my fingers on the arm of the beach chair. Cadence’s eyes when she told me off tonight are burned into my head. I have no freaking clue when she started getting to me, but it’s in a different way than Redhead.
I willingly gave that pianist a piece of me. With Brahms, I didn’t want her to barge in. Didn’t ask for it. I’m fighting it with every breath in my body. Every muscle, every nerve. Every vein.
I slouch low in my seat. My brothers’ anxiety is feeding into my own. I hate that we don’t all agree about how to handle this. But I can’t let their fears or my own emotions shake me.
I owe my loyalty to Sol. His sadness was palpable that night. He got entangled in a situation that wasn’t his own doing and yet he took the rap for it. He’s the one suffering all the consequences.
I need to get him out of there.
No one is getting in the way of that. No matter how much I want her.
“We don’t have time to deliberate this,” I tell my brothers. “She needs to get a cold hard brush of reality. Quick.”
Finn gives me a sobering look.
I arch an eyebrow. “Are we in agreement?” Zane glances at the ground.
Finn pulls his lips in.
“It doesn’t matter if we are.” I push to my feet. “I’ll handle it one way or another.”
Sympathy has no place in this war. My brothers might have fallen for Brahms’s spell, but if I’m the only one standing, so be it.
I’ll burn it all down to end this.
Even if I that means I have to burn myself down with her.
