11 Years ago
Slade, aka Frost—17 years old
She’s just staring at it.
“Nina, just put your lips around it. It’s not going to bite you.” I groan, frustrated that she’s taking so long. Her lovely blonde hair fans her delicate features as she looks up at me from her knees. Her blue eyes sparkle and her brows dip low; she looks terrified.
“And just blow?” she asks for the hundredth time.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “Yes. Just fucking blow.”
“It’s so slimy.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Nina,” Luke grumbles, taking the toad from her hands and blowing into its mouth until its stomach inflates.
He had dared Nina to do it, but when she came over here, blowing toads wasn’t on her mind. I guess she hoped when she invited herself over to join in the Truth or Dare that she would be dared to make out with me like her best friend was a week ago. I always find her eyes on me. If I didn’t think she’d become clingy afterwards, I’d fuck her ten ways from Sunday.
Most guys my age are into this dare bullshit, like blowing into a toad to see if it explodes. It fucking bores me. This week will be my last of high school. I would have dropped out years ago, but our father is strict about us getting an education. If these guys knew what my life was like outside the binds of school, they would shit themselves. But my old man and Prez made me keep that a secret so I was given a fair shot at school.
“You can’t run a club if you’re dumb as shit, boy,” he says, and he’s right.
My cell phone chirps from my pocket and I pull it out to see a text from Scorch, one of the prospects who has my back.
Your mom and dad are going at it again.
He didn’t mean fucking; he meant screaming at each other. I don’t know why my mom even stays with him, all she does is moan at him for the way he lives his life, the same way he’s always lived it. I don’t get women.
I hold up my phone and wiggle it in a wave gesture. “I have to go. See you tomorrow.”
A chorus of ‘byes follow me as I swipe up my bag from the grass and make my way toward my car.
“You have that new phone that has a camera built in. I can’t believe they’re putting cameras in phones, it’s so cool,” Nina calls, running to catch up and walk beside me.
“Yeah.” They aren’t even in stores yet, but my old man knows a guy.
“You want to give me a ride home? I’ll take a picture you can keep on there to look at and think about me.” She nudges my arm, causing me to look down at her coyly biting her bottom lip.
All this high school crap will be behind me by the end of the week, so worrying about her pining after me is actually a moot point. I drop my eyes to her tits spilling from her shirt that’s a size too small and wink at her. “Sure, but I get to take the photo.”
Forty-five minutes later, I pull up at the clubhouse. The scent of Nina in the back of the car is still pungent in the air. I’ve never seen a girl gush like a waterfall before. I even sniffed at it to make sure she hadn’t pissed all over my leather seats, but it wasn’t piss, she just came like a porn star. Watching it on screen is sexy as hell, but trying to fuck a girl who gushes is like fucking a slip ‘n’ slide. My dick went in her ass, up her slit, and everywhere but her pussy. When I finally did get it in there, her cunt was loose and a turn-off. I’d heard rumors that she got around the football team, and then the basketball team, but hell. I ended up pulling my dick out and putting four fingers inside her instead, until she once again screamed and came. Then I opened the car door and told her she had to walk home. My seats are fucked, and Bulk, the newest prospect, is going to get the pleasure of cleaning it up.
“Hey.” I nod to Denise as I walk through the door. She’s biting at her impossibly long nails. She’s the only person here which is beyond fucking weird. “What the hell is going on?” I ask, and she shakes her head, her eyes darting to the Prez’s office door.
“Your father sent everyone away.”
What the fuck?
“What are you still doing here?”
She looks up the corridor to my old man’s bedroom and then back to his office door.
“I have Rhiannon.”
I walk over to my dad’s office and she calls out to me. “He told me to tell you to take Rhiannon home.”
Fuck that. I want to know what the hell’s going on.
“You take her home. I’ll meet you there later.”
She nods and hurries off to collect Rhiannon.
My mother never lets the club sluts look after Rhiannon, so she must not be here.
I push the door open without knocking and step inside. It’s like walking into an alternative reality. Something hangs heavy in the air, almost a warning. My stomach knots and every instinct tells me to get out. Run.
My father is sitting behind his desk, staring at the door I just came through. His gaze is unfocused, and his usual tough as shit mask has slipped because his eyes have a sheen of fresh tears in them.
“What’s going on?”
A figure moves to my right and gains my attention. My little brother, Brenner, is sitting on the couch, frowning at the floor. Of course he would be in here and not with his twin sister. My eyes follow to where he’s looking until they fall on a form lying on the ground.
No.
My feet move toward the body in a crumpled mess amongst the dirt on Prez’s office floor.
No. No. No.
“Mom?” I choke.
A crimson puddle expands beneath her head, discoloring her once blonde hair.
“She killed herself,” my father says without looking at me.
I drop to my knees next to her, and despite knowing there is no way she could be alive with that much blood and a hole in the side of her head, I check her pulse anyway. She’s still warm, but no movement beats under my fingertips.
Nothing. The life has left her. I’ve seen a dead body before, been right there when my father has dealt with business, but this is something entirely different. I want to un-see it. Scrub my eyes with bleach and rewind time. I want to go back to watching stupid Luke blow in the toad’s mouth. I want to tell Nina to fuck off and rush here before Mom had the chance to pull the damn trigger.
How could she leave us like this? Brenner and Rhiannon are seven years old, for Christ’s sake. How fucking selfish to do it in front of him. Anger coils my muscles and douses the sorrow.
Standing, I rush over to Brenner and pick him up. No kid should have to see their mother kill herself. This will change him forever.
Us forever.
Me forever.