Brooke
Christmas Day ended up being uneventful in the end.
The three of us had a quiet meal of mac and cheese and had a Harry Potter marathon. It was fun. Brody stayed away until the evening, when he came knocking with Judy in tow, and arms laden with holiday food.
Although I was overjoyed to see the woman who I thought of as my second mom, the first hour or so was a bit awkward for everyone.
Jake and Brody sat on opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other. Judy, Hope, and I spent the time catching up, avoiding any subjects that brought up the recent past. When I asked why Dair didn’t come with them, Judy avoided my question by talking about something else, which was odd, but I didn’t push her for information.
Eventually, Hope got fed up with the silence and the stares between the two wannabee alphas in the room, and handed them both a whiskey and told them to drink up then head to the bedroom to sort out their differences. Hope said she could feel the sexual tension between them, and that the only way for them to get over the obvious hard-ons they had for one another was to get it on. Jake being Jake, looked at the shot in his hand, knocked it back in one go, then asked Brody whether he liked to top or bottom.
In all fairness to him, Brody didn’t bat an eye. He simply downed his drink in one gulp, stood up, and held out his hand to Jake, and told him that he better have lots of lube because he was going to need it. I’ll never forget the look on Jake’s face, it was priceless. He hadn’t had a clue about how to respond. When Brody winked at Jake and sat back down, Judy laughed so hard that she choked on the sip of wine that she’d just taken. After that everyone, except me, relaxed.
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean that Brody gets a hall pass for treating me so badly. Hope and Jake might want to play nice, but I don’t.
If I thought that last night was bad, tonight is pure torture.
Tonight, I’m in a new bar in town that opened up after I left.
Tonight, I’m sandwiched in a booth between Jake and Hope, while they try to stop me from clawing Joely Baxter’s eyes out, while people I’ve known all my life whisper and point.
Tonight, I may go down for murder.
“You okay?” Hope whispers in my ear as I watch Joely flirting with some poor sucker a few feet away from me.
“Yes.” My reply is short. Inwardly, I’m weighing whether it’s a good idea to stand on the bar top and tell everyone that Joely is infested with crabs.
“You don’t look it.”
“I’m fine.” I hiss.
“No, you’re not, so stop lying. Do you want to go somewhere else?” I take a break from giving the town whore a death stare to look at my sister.
“Where? There’s nowhere else in town except…”
“Sure there is,” Hope says, taking a sip of the pink monstrosity that she ordered.
“We are not going to Cody’s.” I sigh.
“We can see Ruth.” She smiles.
“Cody’s?” Jake asks, finally taking his eyes off of Joely. What is it about her that draws men to her like a moth to a flame? Does her vagina transmit a homing beacon to let anyone with low standards, within a square mile, know that all are welcome?
“Local strip joint.”
“Awesome.” He grins. “We should go. I can check out the competition.”
“There’s only female dancers.”
“Even better.”
“Urrggh.” I throw my hands up in disgust.
“But first, I need to get acquainted with that little hottie over there,” he says, pointing at Joely. Who, as if right on cue, turns to look at Jake and starts acting coy.
“If you go there, you’ll end up getting some nasty disease that’ll turn your dick blue, and then make it fall off.”
“She’s that dirty, huh?” His eyes are alight with lust and amusement.
“No, she’s that willing to open her legs for anything that moves.”
“I like my girls filthy.”
“I really don’t want to know.”
“Especially when they…”
“La-la-la can’t hear you,” I yell, sticking my fingers in my ears. They stay there until Hope gives me a sharp elbow in the side. “Ow.”
“Heads up.”
“Heads up what?”
“Joely’s coming over,” she whisper shouts, gesturing to the woman heading our way with a skirt so short you can see the pubes hanging out of her panties. Guess she forgot to shave today.
I size her up as she totters over. Bleach blonde hair, leathery tanned skin, makeup that a clown would be jealous of, and enormous, fake boobs. I wonder which poor sucker paid for those babies.
“Brooke. It’s so good to see you.” She smiles in that patronizing way that tells me that she’s lying.
“Joely.” I grimace.
“So. Where have you been?” she says with preamble. “You disappeared into thin air.”
“That’s right, I did. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Oh come on now. You don’t disappear on your friends and expect them not to worry.” Beside me, Hope chokes on her drink.
“I don’t ever remember us being friends, Joely.”
“Oh, sugar, I wasn’t talking about me,” she says sweetly. “I was talking about Brody. He was out of his mind with worry.”
If I wasn’t stuck between my best friend and my sister, I would probably be on top of that stupid grinning bitch, pummeling the shit out of her fake face right now.
“I’m sure you gave him a lot of comfort.” Even I can hear the bitterness in my tone. This only seems to spur Joely on.
“I sure did.” She smiles evilly. “Anyway, I didn’t come over to talk about Brody. I came over to make my introductions to handsome here.” Joely rakes her eyes over Jake’s body as though he were a piece of prime meat.
Jake looks between us before offering his hand. “Jake.”
“Joely.” She purrs.
Bitch.
“So, you and Brooke go to school together or something?”
“Nope.” I interrupt Joely before she can open her mouth. “And she was just leaving. Bye.”
“You both know Brody.” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face, not getting my blatant hint that I want the skank gone from my air space.
“Yeah.” Hope pipes up. “In the biblical sense.”
“The what?” Joely asks.
“Ohhhhh. I get it. You’re her.” Jake looks at Joely with a disgusted expression. “Sorry, I don’t do STDs.”
“Excuse me,” Joely says, placing her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your reputation precedes you, and it’s not good.” Jake moves to stand. “I’m going to go get another drink. You ladies want anything?”
Hope and I shake our heads in tandem. Jake grins, shakes his head, and disappears off toward the bar.
“What did he mean my reputation precedes me?” Joely’s reedy voice alerts me to the fact that she’s still here.
“In simple terms, he knows you’re a whore,” I say, plastering a fake smile on my face.
“Did you just call me a whore?” she shrieks so loudly the whole bar falls silent. Everyone is looking at us. Good.
“Would you prefer slut?”
“How dare you?” she says through gritted teeth.
“How about woman of dubious character?”
“Ohhh, I like that one,” Hope interjects. “It sounds kind of classy.”
“I don’t have to listen to this,” Joely rages.
“You see, I think you do.” I smile. “Because as far as I can tell, no one has ever called you out for your behavior, little princess.” Joely’s face turns beet red as I continue. “Tell me. How many relationships have you torn apart? How many lives have you destroyed?” She says nothing. “Don’t you have any respect for yourself? Or do you think it’s all a game.”
“Oh I see.” She sneers. “Is this because of Brody? Is this because he wanted me, not you. Do you know why he came to me? He came to me because he was bored with you. He was bored with living a ho-hum life with his plain looking fiancée. He wanted to touch something beautiful. You just didn’t cut it anymore, sweetheart.”
Before anyone can stop me, I’m out from behind the table and landing a punch on her perfect face.
“You bitch!” she screams, holding her hand over her bleeding nose, while I see nothing but red. The next thing I know, I’m being lifted by a pair of strong arms.
“Let me go, Jake,” I yell, flailing my arms as I try to get back to Joely so I can beat her some more.
“She isn’t worth it, baby.”
“Brody?” I stop struggling, allowing him to pull me away from Joely. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping an eye on you, slugger. Guess I was a bit late.” His mouth is pressed to my ear.
“Where’s Jake?”
“He’s got ahold of Hope.”
“And skank face?”
In the background I can hear the wail of sirens. Shit.
“I’m here du bitch.” Joely is sitting in the booth with a bloody tissue held under her nose. “I’m pressing fucking charges. You deserve to be fucking locked up, you psycho.”
Brody’s arms tighten around me as I struggle to get loose so I can lay another hit on her ugly face. This bitch is going down.
“LET. ME. GO,” I rage, stamping down, hard, on Brody’s foot. He doesn’t flinch.
“Easy, tiger,” he whispers so that only I can hear. “Take it down a notch, baby. Joely’s only trying to wind you up and it’s working. “
“I need to slap the shit out of her one more time,” I say through gritted teeth as I push against him.
“See, I don’t care if she gets hurt, but I care about that pretty little face of yours. I don’t want to only be seeing it behind glass for the next few years. Just let it go.” I turn to see that Brody is smiling down at me, giving my dead heart a little jump start.
“Awwww. Disn’t dat cute.” Joely slow claps her hands as she walks toward us. It would have been effective if she didn’t have a tampon in each nostril. “Brody and Brooke, together again.”
“Back off, Joely.” Brody warns.
“Dat is even cuter, you trying to be all alpha male.” She stops just before us. “You know your father was more of a man dan you, don’t you?” I can hear the shocked gasps from everyone looking on. “At least he could get it up, unlike you.” She holds a crooked little finger in front of our faces, sadly shaking her head. There are a few sniggers from the audience but I ignore them. My heart is pounding out of my chest. Brody didn’t sleep with Joely?
“What?” Brody exclaims. “But you told me…”
“I lied.”
“I don’t understand. You said…”
“What I wanted boo du hear.”
“I didn’t have sex with you?” he says, releasing me. “Why would you…you said that I did.”
“I tried my best to get Little, and I mean little,” she says, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart from each other, “Brody to stand at attention, but it was too much hard work.” She sighs. “Then you fell asleep and that was that.”
“You lied,” Brody says slowly, ignoring the fact that people are openly staring at him. “You told me we had sex.” I wince as he says it. “You blackmailed me into dating you, then you lied to me about having sex with you. I lost the chance to get back with my girl because you fucking lied!” he seethes. I’ve only seen him this angry a couple of times before, it never ends well for the other person. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I place my hand in his, giving his hand a squeeze. He looks down to our joined hands, the anger drains from his face briefly, reappearing when he looks, once again, at Joely. “I wondered why I came up clean when they screened me for STDs.”
“Now, now, Brody,” the bitch says, shaking her head. “No need to be so nasty or I’ll spread all your family’s secrets across town. Poor Judy. She already knows that I fucked her husband. What will it do to your dear old mom if she ever found out I fucked her youngest son as well?” Somewhere behind me I hear a loud gasp from Hope. “Or that you have a half sister?”
There is a low murmuring amongst our onlookers as they digest that bit of news. I look back at Hope to see that her face is contorted with rage. What on earth possessed Dair, Caden, and Brody to touch this slut? A willing vagina, I suppose.
“Oops,” Joely continues, bringing her hand to cover her mouth. “Did I say that out loud? I guess I did.”
“Bitch,” Hope yells. “Let me go, Jake!”
“Anyway,” Joely says, looking bored, “I’m over it. I’ll just wait for the police because I will be pressing charges.”
An auburn blur whizzes past me, and the next thing I know, Joely is on the floor screaming while clutching her face. Hope stands over her with her chest heaving.
“If I’m going to do jail time for you, then it should at least be worth it. Bitch.” Hope spits, pulling her leg back to kick Joely. Jake tackles her away from the prone figure before she can.
“Come on, baby. Orange just ain’t your color.”
“That was for my sister,” Hope shouts over Jake’s shoulder as he carries her toward the exit. “And for fucking my ex-boyfriend.”
No one tries to stop me as I walk over to Joely and crouch down beside her. Keeping my voice low so that only she can hear, I say, “I hope your crotch rots off and your fake nose melts. You’ve wrecked the lives of a lot of people in this town, people that I know and love. You get one warning and that’s it, so listen and listen good. If you ever, ever, think about screwing me, my family, or my friends over again, then I will make it my personal mission to ensure that your life becomes a living hell. Understand?” I have to stand quickly to avoid the blood covered phlegm from hitting me as she tries to spit in my face. “Temper. Temper.”
“Screw boo. I hope they throw away the key.”
In the doorway, two sheriff’s deputies stand surveying the scene before them. One of them, Herb Whittle, shakes his head and starts walking straight toward me.
“Hey, Herb.”
“Brooke.” He smiles. “Long time no see. It’s good to see you.”
“And you.” I return his smile.
“You do this?” he asks, lifting his chin in Joely’s direction.
“Yeah.”
He lets out a long sigh. “I’m gonna have to take you in. The sheriff will be wanting to ask you some questions.”
“Okay.”
“He’ll be mightily disappointed in you and your sister.”
“I know.”
Herb takes his hat off and scratches his head. “He promised your daddy that he’d look out for the both of you if anything happened. I don’t think this is what your daddy and the sheriff quite meant though. Come on, let’s get you both down to the station.”
“Don’t you need to interview anyone?”
“Redmond will do it,” he says as he heads to the door.
“Don’t you want to cuff me?” Behind me, Brody snorts with laughter.
“Why would I do that for?”
“Because I’m being arrested?”
“You’re the daughter of a police officer. I’ve known you your whole life. I think we’re good.” I turn to look at Brody who shrugs and mouths, I’ll follow you, as I trot to catch up with Herb, stopping just as we reach the bar entrance.
“Wait one moment, Herb. I’ve got to get my purse.”
“I’ll wait here for you.”
All eyes are on me as I walk back through the bar to where Joely is now sitting with an ice pack attached to her face.
“Joely?” I say, taking my purse from Brody and hooking it over my shoulder.
“Get lost.”
“Remember my warning.” I smirk. “I know you have secrets, and I’m going to find them. All of them.” For a brief moment, Joely looks scared, but soon her features fall back into the resting bitch face mode.
“Enjoy jail,” she says, and flips me off. I wink and walk toward the ever patient Herb.