After school, Christian is waiting for me by the steps outside, leaning on a pillar, looking all kinds of broody.
“You’re taking me home, and then you’re hanging out with me until you tell me what’s going on,” I inform him, sticking my index finger under his nose to wiggle his septum ring. He bats my hand away and rolls his eyes.
“Fine. But, I saw you pull up to school today…” he trails off, waiting for my reaction. “With Mr. James. Seems like we both have some confessing to do.”
Well, shit.
My eyes dart around, looking for anyone who may have overheard.
“All right,” I concede. He kicks off the pillar and hooks an arm around my neck.
“Remi, Remi, Remi.” He tsks, shaking his head. “I have a feeling your sins are far worse than mine.”
“And probably a lot more fun,” I joke, wagging my eyebrows suggestively.
“Mmm, that’s debatable.” Christian laughs, then pulls me in to give me a quick peck on the forehead.
We walk to his Range Rover, and when he starts the engine, I burst out laughing. He looks at me, confused.
“What?!” he demands.
“I’m sorry,” I say, covering my mouth with the back of my hand. “You look ridiculous driving this now. You’re way too punk rock.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he mutters, pulling out of the parking lot, but he can’t keep a straight face either. “You’re just jealous of my sweet ass ride.”
“Hell yes, I am,” I admit. “So, are you going to tell me what’s up with Christian 2.0?”
Christian sighs, running a hand through his dark green hair. “It’s complicated.” I shoot him a look that says fucking duh, and he continues.
“Benton and I—”
“I knew it!” I point at him triumphantly, nearly jumping out of my seat.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,” he mutters. “Anyway. We…you know. We’re together. Or we were. I don’t know now. Benton is bisexual, for one. And I can deal with that. It’s not like he’s really with Mikaela, despite what she may believe. But he just cares so. Fucking. Much. About what everyone thinks. When it’s just us, everything is fine. Perfect, even. But then once he spends time with his older brother or his douchebag friends, it’s like a switch flips. He’s cold, distant…hateful. The day that we fought in the hall?” he asks, looking over at me before turning his eyes back to the road. “He was flirting with you to piss me off. The night before was the first night we hooked up, and the next day, it was like he wanted to punish me for it.”
Sounds all too familiar.
“I can’t even pretend to know how hard it must be to not only admit to yourself, but your family and friends that you’re gay, but he can’t treat you like that, dude. It’s bad enough being someone’s dirty little secret,” I say, thinking back to my conversation with Pierce. Sometimes secrets are necessary.
“I’m just so sick of giving a shit about what anyone thinks. So, to, I don’t know, prove a point or something, I decided to do something I’ve always wanted to do,” he says, gesturing to his new look. “My parents hate it. My mom doesn’t even want my grandfather to see me. Benton really hates it. But I don’t care. I’m fucking free.”
“Such a drama queen,” I tease.
“Guilty.”
“You know when Benton lashes out like that, it’s not about you, right?” I add more seriously. “He hates himself and takes that out on you.”
“I know.” He nods somberly. We pull up to my yard, and Christian lets out a low whistle.
“Damn, Remi. There’s a lot you haven’t told me.”
I gasp as I look up to assess the damage, and my stomach instantly drops. I expected more beer cans and trash, but this is so much worse.
The yard is full of broken chairs, discarded beer bottles, and Lord knows what else, but what’s really concerning is the broken screen door—lying on its side, completely detached from the frame—and my front door that’s cracked open.
Inside is even worse. The table is flipped over, and the glass still sits scattered across the floor. Alcohol containers, cigarettes, and empty pizza boxes cover every surface. My feet stick to the tile floor, and it smells like straight death in here. It’s as if Ryan hasn’t been home in days. That thought sends a shiver down my spine, and I internally panic about something happening to him. But I push the fear aside. This is Ryan. He’s invincible. The only one who could hurt him is himself, and if there’s one thing I can say for sure about Ryan, it’s that the boy is a survivor. Always has been.
I scan the rest of the house, looking for anything missing or broken. The bathroom mirror is shattered, but other than that, the other rooms seem to be mostly untouched. Thank God.
I walk back to the kitchen, ignoring the way my shoes stick to the floor with every step, and grab the trash bags from under the sink. I take one out, toss the box to Christian, and start sweeping stuff off the counter and into the bag.
“Spill it,” Christian says, bending over to pick up the bigger pieces of glass.
“It’s a long story.” I sigh. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Look around, Cinderella. We’ve got time.”
“I called you Friday night,” I start. “You didn’t answer, so this whole thing is basically your fault,” I tease, but my smile doesn’t reach my eyes. “Long story short, Ryan had a party. I caught him doing drugs, and I don’t mean smoking weed. I called him out. He pushed me into the coffee table. I needed to get the hell out of here.”
“Shit, Rem. I’m sorry I didn’t answer. Benton—”
“It’s fine.” I shake my head. “Mr. James had given me his number. He knows how Ryan can get. So, I called him. And he came to get me.”
“No fucking way.” Christian grins like the cat that got the canary. “Tell me he came up in here all Captain Save a Hoe.”
“He totally did. If I hadn’t been so upset, it would’ve turned me on.”
Christian cocks a brow at that.
“Okay, so I was a little turned on.”
“Obviously. Proceed.” I take a deep breath before continuing. Saying this out loud makes it real. Part of me wants to gush, but a much bigger part feels protective of our secret. If I have to tell someone, Christian is the best bet. He’s got too many skeletons of his own to go around exposing mine.
“He took me to his boathouse. We kissed. A lot. But he doesn’t want it to go any further than that. We spent the whole weekend together, but then this morning, it was like he wanted nothing to do with me.” I tie the full bag of trash and toss it outside the front door, then come back to fill another one. I don’t tell him about the classroom incident from today. Hooking up in class is probably the worst thing we could’ve done.
“He’s probably spooked. I don’t exactly blame him either, Rem,” he says unforgivingly.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always. But he could lose his career. His reputation. He could go to jail. What do you really have to lose in this situation?”
Everything. I’m already in too deep. And that’s what I’m afraid of.
“Stop making sense with your stupid logic.”
“Just keepin’ it real, baby girl. But I do think he cares for you. Call me crazy, but I don’t think he’d risk that for a piece of ass.”
“Or maybe he realized he made a mistake, and now he’s trying to do the bare minimum to keep me quiet.”
Christian snorts.
“Come on, Remington. I’m gay, and even I’m a little in love with you.”
“What?” I laugh.
“You’re hot.” He shrugs. “Not to mention cool as shit and intelligent. The perfect trifecta.”
“Well, thanks, but I think I’ll go back to dating fictional characters. Everyone knows boys in books are better.”
Christian rolls his eyes and dumps a stack of dishes into the sink. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he says, staring out the window.
“I’m serious. He’s made it pretty clear that he regrets it.”
“Is that why he’s creeping outside your house right now?”
What?!
I whip around so fast that my ponytail smacks my face. I look out the window, and sure enough, there’s Mr. James, pulling away from my house.
I don’t know why, but this has me feeling both triumphant and irrationally angry. He wants me to forget where he lives, but he can show up at my house whenever he pleases?
I snatch my backpack off the kitchen table and dig out my phone. It died over the weekend, so I plug it in near the counter and wait for it to turn on. Once it lights up, I ignore the onslaught of incoming texts from Ryan from the past two days and shoot off a quick message to Pierce.
Me: Are you spying on me now, Teach?
My phone pings not even ten seconds later.
Pierce: Yes. I figured our relationship wasn’t dramatic enough, so I’ve decided to add stalking to the list.
Reluctantly, I crack a smile at that.
Me: What relationship? You’re just my teacher, remember?
Pierce: The fact that I can still smell you on my fingers says differently.
Oh holy Jesus. I feel my cheeks heat at the memory of those talented hands on my body just an hour ago.
Me: Go home, Mr. James.
Pierce: Just making sure you’re safe. Boathouse is still all yours.
Me: Won’t be necessary.
I toss my phone onto the counter, ignoring Christian’s knowing smirk.
“Yeah, you’re totally right. He doesn’t care about you at all. In fact, I think he hates you,” he says sarcastically. I chuck an empty beer can at him, but he dodges it.
“Less talking. More cleaning.”
“I can’t believe you talked me into ditching again,” Christian complains. “You know, you’re kind of a bad influence.”
“I get that a lot,” I say, hopping out of his beast of a car.
Last night, Christian helped me clean the entire house before informing me that we were having a sleepover. He ordered us a pizza, and we stayed up late talking about the mercurial men in our lives and how much they suck.
I didn’t want to go to school today for a couple of reasons. The first being that it’s my birthday. The second, well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see Pierce, but the desire to punish him was stronger than my urge to see him today. Barely. When Christian fought me on skipping the entire day, I pulled the birthday card. He caved and took me to breakfast before wasting the whole day drinking Bloody Marys and playing video games at his house. I wanted to have a pool day, but the sky was dark and gloomy, the air uncharacteristically sticky. A storm is coming, and it’s the best gift I could’ve asked for. I love monsoon season.
Now, we’re a few drinks in, and I have a couple of hours to kill before my pops comes home.
“So, what now, birthday girl? Movie? Prank phone calls?” Christian waggles his brows.
“I turned eighteen today, not twelve.” I laugh. Even though prank calls never get old.
“Okay, tough girl. Let’s go buy you a pack of cigarettes. Better yet, get a tattoo, or go hit up a strip club,” he jokes.
“Oh my God, you’re a genius!” I say, suddenly excited about the idea.
“I was joking! I don’t wanna see floppy titties. Even if I wasn’t gay, it’s the day shift.” He shudders, and I laugh.
“Not the strip club. The tattoo!” I laugh. I still have the money Pierce stashed in my bag, and I’m feeling just childish enough to spend it.
“Fuck yeah, baby girl, let’s do it,” he says, grabbing his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling an Uber. I’m buzzed.” Oh. Right.
Thirty minutes later, I’m flashing my I.D., and then I’m lying half naked on a black leather tattoo table at some shop near the strip. We figured they’d be pretty lax on tattooing drunk people, but my nerves and the drive have sobered me right up.
The guy about to tattoo me is named Dylan. He’s tall, tattooed, and lean, but gorgeous.
“Is it going to hurt? That’s a stupid question. I bet people ask you that every time,” I babble nervously.
“Yup.”
“Yes, it’s going to hurt, or yes, you get that a lot?”
“Both.”
Okay then.
I take a deep breath and tell him what I want it to say.
“Easy enough.” He nods thoughtfully. “All right, beautiful. Roll over onto your left side and let’s get this party started.” He snaps his gloves, and I feel a little relieved when I see that his own ink looks legit. Not that he does his own tattoos, but at least he has good taste.
Christian grabs the hand that’s extended above my head from his stool next to me while I clutch my shirt to cover my chest with the other hand. I hear the buzz before I feel it and I try not to jump when the needle hits the thin skin underneath my boob and near my ribs. At first, it’s not bad, but try scratching yourself in the same spot over and over. It gets raw fairly quickly.
“Fuckballs, that hurts,” I hiss.
“Such a lady.” Christian chuckles next to me.
“How long has it been? Like an hour?” I whine. Christian rolls his eyes.
“Not even twenty minutes, drama queen. What’s that from, anyway?” He nods at the words being etched into my skin.
“It’s from one of my favorite songs. And, also, one of my dad’s nicknames for me.”
I feel Dylan swipe a cloth against my ribs, and then the buzzing stops. “Hop up and check yourself out,” he says, holding out a mirror.
It’s perfect. Two lines starting right underneath my right boob written across my ribs in the prettiest, daintiest script I’ve ever seen.
I’m the violence in the pouring rain.
I’m a hurricane.
“I love it!” I beam.
“Super hot, babe,” Christian says, pulling some cash out of his wallet.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you your birthday present.” He smirks.
“Chris, no. I have money.” Pierce’s idea of “lunch money” was over a hundred bucks. Plus, I had a couple bucks of my own. God, I really need a job again.
“Keep your sugar daddy money.” He smiles knowingly.
“I hate you,” I say, shoving his shoulder. “But I love you. Thank you.”
Dylan slathers some type of cool ointment over my tender skin and bandages me up.
“Okay, leave this on for six hours. Don’t touch it. I mean it,” he warns, pointing a stern finger. “Once you remove the bandage, wash all the ointment and junk off with a mild soap, like Dove. Keep it moisturized with something that doesn’t have any fragrance. Don’t cover it up again after the six hours. Let it breathe. No swimming or submerging your ink until all the scabs fall off. Use common sense and you’ll be golden.”
“Uh, can you write all that down?” I’m too excited to focus on anything he just said. He laughs and hands me a baggie with instructions and a sample of some ointment to rub on it later. I carefully pull my shirt back over my head, and then we’re off.
After forcing Christian to snap some pictures of my tattoo with my camera and stopping for coffee—my treat—I ask him to drop me off at home so I can wait for my dad. I need to talk to him about Ryan. I’m dreading this conversation, but I know Pierce is right. I need to give my dad a chance to be a dad. And even though Ryan will most likely hate me afterward, it’s the only way he has any hope of making it to thirty years old. He’s only been gone a couple of weeks, but it seems like a lifetime. Everything has changed.
“Good luck with your dad. Text me later, birthday bitch,” he yells out the window.
“See ya.”
When I walk in the door, my house is completely as I left it. Which means Ryan still hasn’t shown his face. I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without seeing him, and when I think about how we’ve drifted apart and how much he’s changed, I feel a pang of sadness. And not just a little guilt.
Every year on my birthday, my pops and Ryan take me to Freemont Street to see the light show. I didn’t exactly expect Ryan to show up like nothing happened, but it hurts not having him here. I pick up my phone to see if he’s sent any more texts—nada.
My dad is late—big shocker—so while I wait, I eat, shower, and look for last minute things to clean. When I run out of things to do, I lie down on the couch and pull up a book on my kindle app. The unmistakable sound of an eighteen-wheeler eventually interrupts my reading, and I run outside. The monsoon is moving in hard and fast. The sky is almost completely black, and the wind is howling.
“Pops!” I squeal, throwing my arms around his neck, inhaling deeply. He smells like coffee and chewing tobacco, and I know if he turned around, I’d see the telltale circular imprint in his back pocket where he keeps the aforementioned chew.
“Hey, Hurricane,” he says tiredly, using his nickname for me. When he spots the screen tossed haphazardly against the side of the house, he shoots me a look, but surprisingly, doesn’t ask any questions.
“I have to talk to you about something,” I say as we take our time walking to the door. We aren’t in a rush to get out of the storm. Almost all my favorite memories with my dad take place on nights just like this.
Once we’re inside, he surveys the damage. It’s as clean as I could get it, but we’re still down a coffee table and gained a few extra stains.
“Yeah, I’d say so, sweetheart.” He lifts his hat and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his forearm before tossing the hat onto the counter. “Let me make a pot of coffee first.” He sighs.
“Already took care of it.” My dad doesn’t care if it’s fifteen or one hundred fifteen degrees. He still drinks coffee twenty-four hours a day. I bring him some in his favorite Harley Davidson mug before taking a seat at the table across from him, knotting my fingers together and leaning on my elbows.
“Ryan needs help, Dad,” I start off, subtle as always. “He’s struggling. Now more than ever.” He takes a sip of his drink, not showing any sign that he’s heard what I’ve said. I swallow before I continue. “This weekend, he finally just…exploded. That’s what happened to the door, and, well, everything else,” I say, gesturing around the room.
“Remington.” He sighs. “I think you’re the one who needs help.” His voice is a flat line. It takes a second for that to sink in. I couldn’t be more surprised if he decided to haul off and punch me in the face. It certainly feels the same to me.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, my eyebrows pinched in confusion.
“Ryan told me everything. I thought this school would be good for you. A new start. But it seems to have backfired.” He sets his mug down and smooths a hand over his short beard, a nervous habit of his that tells me he’s feeling uncomfortable.
Oh my God. It makes sense now. His lack of enthusiasm. His non-reaction to seeing the damage. Ryan got to him first. I feel my blood heating in my veins, simmering with rage.
That son of a bitch.
“And what exactly did he tell you, Dad?” I say, crossing my arms defensively.
“He’s made his concerns known for a while now. Since you started at West Point. But he said after this weekend, he couldn’t watch you self-destruct anymore. Said you had a party and that drugs were involved.”
“What?! That fucking liar.”
“That boy is a wreck worrying over you, Remington! He’s probably still out looking for you. You’re all he has. Why would he lie?”
“Because I caught him doing drugs! It was his party and his shitty friends!” I hold out my arms, showing him the healing cuts and bruises. “He pushed me through a freaking glass table!” I scream. There were a dozen witnesses. Maybe more. But knowing Ryan and his friends, they are going to say whatever suits them. I’m completely helpless. It’s my word against so many others. The world is so unfair. It’s a juvenile thought, even naïve, but it hits me in that hollow place in my stomach where I keep the bad shit. And it stays there, digging deeper.
“Ryan said you were drunk and fell into the table.”
I throw my hands up in the air.
“Well, you just have an answer for everything, don’t you?” I shake my head. Un-fucking-real.
“Tell me something, Remington,” Dad says darkly, his brows creasing. “Is he lying about you running around with an older man, too?”
“You have got to be kidding me!” I yell, not even trying to control my outburst. This is insane. I stand up because I need to do something with my body, and I’d prefer it if that something isn’t tossing the coffeepot in his face.
“Answer the damn question!” he roars.
I’m pacing back and forth in the small kitchen that feels like it’s physically preventing me from running away. There’s no way I’m throwing Pierce under the bus. I’ve never really had to lie to my dad, but for this? It’s not even a question. He thinks I’m a liar, anyway. Might as well act the part.
“No,” I say evenly. “I called my friend Christian—my very gay, very teenage friend—and he picked me up. He let me stay with him so I didn’t have to be around Ryan. He’s changed, Dad. He hurt me. More than once.”
“Whatever happened with you two, I’m sure he didn’t mean it. It sounds like this was a big misunderstanding. You know how he is when it comes to you. He’s just being an overprotective big brother.”
“Because he wants me, Dad! There’s nothing brotherly about his love. Trust me.” I’ve completely lost it. Knowing how Ryan has been treating me will only break my dad’s heart, but I’m beyond thinking rationally at this point. And I’ve got a broken heart of my own right now.
“Don’t you say one more goddamn word. I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but I won’t have you talking like that. Your brother has been through a lot. The last thing he would do is hurt either one of us.”
There’s no getting through to him. I see that now. I hold my head between my palms, legitimately afraid that it is about to explode.
“If you want to stay oblivious, then that’s fine. But I’m not going to stick around to watch.” I slip on my shoes near the door.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, crossing his arms.
“Happy fucking birthday to me,” I croak out through the tears fighting their way to the surface. And with one look at my dad’s face—the way he sighs heavily and squeezes his eyes shut like he’s mentally kicking his own ass—I know. He’s not here for my birthday. He didn’t even remember my birthday.
I shake my head disbelievingly and open the door.
“Remington, wait,” Dad says almost sheepishly, rubbing at his forehead. But I can’t wait. I’m losing Ryan, and not only does my dad seem unconcerned for his own daughter, but he’d rather pull the wool over his eyes than to admit that Ryan needs help.
“Remington,” he says again, sharper this time. “You can’t go out in that!” He gestures outside where the weather fits my mood. Dark, stormy, haunted.
With one hand on the doorknob, I look at him over my shoulder. “Watch me.”
I pull open the front door, the heavy, metal screen already banging against the side of the house repeatedly. The wind is howling, but the air is hot and oppressive. My hair whips in front of my face as I try to figure out my next move. But I already know where I’m going. It was never a choice.
Pierce.
I take off running toward the bus stop. I don’t care that I have nothing on me except a few wadded-up bills in my pocket or that the rain is coming down hard and I’m only in a tank top, my cut-off jean shorts, and my Chucks. I don’t care that I don’t have my phone, and I’m running around a seedy part of town alone at night. None of it matters. I can think only of getting to Pierce.
The bus ride is a blur. No one talks to me or looks at me curiously. No one wonders why a young girl is soaking wet and visibly upset on a bus alone at night. This is Vegas. I’m probably the most normal thing this bus has seen all day. I stare out the window, seeing but not really absorbing until skeevy gas stations and liquor stores start to turn into gated communities and manicured lawns. The long ride does nothing to calm me down. With every minute that passes, I feel more desperate, more defeated.
Pity party for one, your table is now ready.
The rain turns to hail that pings against the bus, and the driver swerves to avoid a three-car pile-up at an intersection. Thunder sounds in the not too far off distance. Finally, the bus rolls to a stop a mile from Pierce’s place. I take a deep breath before stepping out into the monsoon. I run in the general direction of Pierce’s house, splashing through the flooded streets, and once I get to the gates outside his neighborhood, I realize I don’t even have the code.
“Fuck!” I kick the gate and immediately regret that decision when pain radiates through my foot. The wind blows the hail sideways, sending a thousand bullets into my naked legs, and a stoke of lightning lights up the sky. Mentally, I try to remember what my dad taught me about gauging the distance of a storm.
“All right, Remi, watch for the light, then count the seconds until you hear thunder.”
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi…”
Thunder booms before I get to six.
“Five seconds,” I tell him, sitting on the counter with my chin on my dirty knees, staring out at palm trees threatening to fall over in our yard. I hope they do. I love storms. But even more than watching them, I love playing in the wreckage afterward.
“That’s right. So, to figure out where lightning struck, you divide the number of seconds between the lightning and thunder by five. How far away is the storm?”
“Five divided by five is one, so…one mile?” I look up at him, excited that it’s so close. He musses up my stringy hair with a proud smile.
“Bingo,” he says and tips his beer bottle back for another swig. “And if it’s less than thirty seconds, what should you do?” he quizzes.
“Take cover,” I answer firmly.
“Good girl.”
“Can I go play outside when it’s over?” I beg.
“Sure. Monsoons don’t got nothin’ on Hurricane Remi,” he teases.
Another flash of lightning pulls me from my memory, and I count.
“One Mississippi, two Mississ—” Thunder cracks through the sky not even three seconds later. God, I’m an idiot. I don’t even have my phone on me. The tears are falling fast and hard now, mixing with the rain. I walk up to the keypad outside of the gate and stab random numbers in an attempt to get in. I try all the obvious number combinations to no avail. Motherfucker.
Finally, thankfully, a car comes around the corner. I step back behind the keypad as the car pulls up, and once they punch in the code, they’re in too much of a hurry to realize or even care that I slip through the gate behind them. I rack my brain trying to remember where exactly Pierce’s house is. It looks so different at night. When I pass the big “It’s a Boy!” sign from earlier, I know I’m on the right track. Then, I see his house. Now would probably be the time to come up with something to say. An explanation as to why I’m here. Uninvited and in shambles. In the middle of a fucking monsoon. But etiquette has never been my strong suit.
I ring the doorbell and wait, suddenly afraid that he’s not even home. His car isn’t out front, but I assumed it was in the garage. Especially in this weather. But then he answers the door. All scruffy and sleepy-eyed perfection. He’s shirtless, and his perfect V is showcased by low hanging gray sweatpants.
“Remington?” he asks, swinging the door open wider. The sleepiness in his eyes quickly morphs into concern. “What in the hell are you doing here? How did you get here?” He scans the street for my source of transportation before grabbing the hem of my shirt and yanking me inside. He slams the door and locks it for good measure. I don’t answer his question. I don’t even know what to say. All I do know is that I need him.
“Remington, say something. What happened?” His voice is hard but melting around the edges.
I should tell him all about my night with Ryan, with my dad—and I will—but right now, I don’t want to talk about that. Pierce takes my face in both of his hands, searching my eyes. His thumbs brush across my cheeks while his fingers dig into the back of my neck, and the move is so symbolic of him. The perfect concoction of rough, yet sweet. Demanding, yet patient.
“Remington,” he warns in that tone that never fails to send chills through my body.
“It’s my birthday,” I whisper.