“Bullshit.”
“Are you accusing my son of lying, Harlow?” Neo asks, pinning me with a cautionary look.
I maintain eye contact with him, refusing to show fear.
“Because taking such a line would upset me greatly,” he continues, “and I’m sure you don’t want to do that.” The underlying meaning is crystal clear, and fun time is over. “You’re going to be my daughter. You and Saint will be stepsister and stepbrother, and I’m sure none of us want to get off on the wrong footing.”
Mom glances between both of us, conflicting emotions raging in her eyes.
“I apologize if my comment offended you. I merely meant you seem sexually confident,” he says, and he might be fooling Mom, but he’s not fooling me.
“It’s fine, and you’re right,” I lie, smiling sweetly. “What’s in the past should remain in the past. This is a clean slate.” I extend my hand to Saint, watching as he examines me closely, his gaze drilling holes in my brain as he attempts to extract the truth. “Welcome,brother. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”
_______________
“So that’s whythey claimed you,” Sariah says the following night as we sit side by side in the old abandoned warehouse, drinking warm beer from bottles while we watch the largely inebriated crowd jump around the makeshift dance floor.
This party is in the rougher part of Lowell, a scene I usually avoid. It’s especially risky attending, because The Arrows are known to frequent these parties, but I couldn’t stomach bumping into the Saints at Beth McCoy’s bash. Beth is Parker’s bestie, and she’s throwing a party in the woods behind Lowell High to try to salvage relations between Finn and The Sainthood. But she’s an idiot because Finn made his bed, and now, he must lie in it. He should have taken Saint’s offer and at least held on to his dignity.
Now Saint will go out of his way to humiliate and shun Finn.
At least, it might deflect some of the heat off me.
School next week should be fun.
“Yep,” I lie, because I know Saint hasn’t claimed me because I’m to become his new stepsister. But it’s handy to have a reason the public at large will accept.
“Has your mom lost her mind?” she asks, as I rip pieces of the label off my beer bottle.
“I never would’ve thought Mom would shack up with a degenerate like Neo Lennox, but I clearly don’t know her as well as I think.”
“I can’t believe she’s letting them live in the same house as you after they pulled that shit.” She shakes her head, leaning back against Sean as he comes up behind her.
“I’m choosing to focus on the positives.” I smile as Emmett climbs up on the old dresser beside me.
“Which is?” he inquires, clinking his bottle against mine.
“I can murder them all in their beds and claim it was a home invasion.”
We all laugh, but I’m only half-joking. The thoughthascrossed my mind.
The other thought that’s crossed my mind is that I need to come clean to Sariah. At least about some of it. Her association with me places her in danger, and I can’t make that decision for her. She needs to know enough to make her own choice. But I’m terrified of that conversation because she might choose to walk away. And then, I’ll truly be all alone.
The next hour passes pleasantly, and the more I drink, the more I relax. Emmett has only left my side to grab more beers and I’m enjoying talking with him. Sariah and Sean are dry humping one another on the dance floor, and I can’t help smiling. If anyone deserves to be happy and in love, it’s my bestie.
“You want that?” Emmett asks, tilting his bottle at the dance floor, in the direction of our friends.
“Someday, sure. Doesn’t everyone?”
He nods. “I know I do.”
“How is it Lowell High has two atypical jocks? You and Sean have got to be blowing some stats to smithereens somewhere.”
He chuckles. “Not every guy on the team is a manwhore douche. There are plenty who are in it for the sport and the camaraderie. You must be reading a lot of the same books as my sister. The ones that paint jocks as man sluts. Don’t believe everything you read.”
“This is your sister who’s ill?” I ask, remembering what Theo had said that day.
He nods, his expression turning serious. “She has leukemia, and she’s been in this experimental trial the past four months, which is delivering results. We’re hopeful she’ll pull through.”
