Endgame Romance, page 25
“What’s your point?” Chasm challenges, moving up beside me and doing his utmost to tempt me with that alluring mint and chocolate scent of his. Why does he have to smell like ice cream? And not just any ice cream, homemade ice cream with real mint and thick slivers of dark chocolate. Real cream and farm-fresh eggs, for sure.
This asshole.
“Sometimes, you have to make a sacrifice to win the game,” I say, absorbing Justin’s lesson to use against him. I turn to look at Chasm, staring down at me with that sharp frown of his. “In this case, I am the sacrifice. I’m not willing to put anyone else out there like that.”
“Fuck no,” he growls out, but we’ll talk about this later.
For now, I need some time alone with my sister.
“Walk with me?” I ask her, ignoring the boys as she follows me up the path a bit further, to another sitting spot with a picnic table. It’s wet from the spray, but oh well. I sit on it anyway. “I bet you have a lot of questions.”
“I do, but mostly, I want to hug you.”
I look up to see her standing there with tears in her eyes, as if I’m the one suffering in all of this. She’s worried about me when I told her I hated her and stole her boyfriend and ignored her frantic calls and texts …
Maxine moves over and hugs me, whether I feel like I deserve it or not.
“Tell me everything,” she breathes, and I do.
Just not the Seattle Slayer part. Because that, it’s the most dangerous bit of all, and I won’t drag Maxine into it. With this, at least, I hope she understands why I have to do and say certain things.
I hope she understands that I don’t mean any of it.
When we hit the end of the trail, Lumen leaves in her convertible, Maxine takes off in the only remaining car in the parking lot (I’m assuming it’s my grandparents’ rental car because it certainly isn’t hers) and Danyella moves aside to give me some space to talk with the boys. Maxx has opened up the back of the Jeep so we can sit there together and drink water, wipe off our sweat, and pant and choke from the trek down.
Well, I pant and choke. Chasm is tired, Parrish, too, but somehow, I still feel like I performed the worst today. Go figure. Gamer Girl was not built for the outdoors, my friends.
“Why do you think going along with this will help? It sounds dangerous as hell to me,” Maxx says, pulling one knee toward his chest and wrapping his arms around it. He’s staring off into the woods, but he turns to look at me as I chug the last of my water.
X already scanned the Jeep with the bug detector, so we’re okay to talk here. Although I don’t trust any car that might pull into the lot or any person that gets out of it.
“We can’t let Justin frame Paul,” I say, having already explained what happened this morning to Chasm and Maxx. “It’s crucial that we stop him before it’s too late.”
“If the FBI already think they’ve nailed Paul, what could Justin do to stop them—even if he wanted to?” Chasm asks as Parrish squeezes his water bottle in an inked hand and stares at the packed dirt of the parking area.
This is his dad, after all. I know they don’t get along, but the way Paul looks at Parrish, I know he loves him even if he struggles to show it.
“We need to give Justin a reason to throw the case off-course. He has the power, money, and influence to do exactly that. I’m sure of it.” I set my water bottle aside, still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Lumen killed someone. According to her, he was a teenage guy from a high school in Seattle.
I mean, eh, he was also a rapist, so his death doesn’t matter much to me, but others won’t see it that way. If this story gets out, it’s possible that Lumen and Danyella both will face charges. They shouldn’t, seeing as it was self-defense, but the criminal justice system isn’t exactly known for non-biased fairness.
Ugh.
“Sacrificing yourself to save my father isn’t going to happen.” Parrish speaks up for the first time since we came down the trail. He looks right at me, and I shift in discomfort. He’s just that intense. It’s one of the reasons I like him, but also, holy hell, how am I supposed to function around this guy?
“We can’t just sit around playing defense, Parrish. We have to strike, and if that means offering up our queen to my father’s bishop, then we do it.” I stand up and move away before they can argue with me any further, walking over to stand beside Danyella. “I’m sorry about the theater fire,” I say, and I mean that. Even though I did it to save Parrish, I still set that fire; I caused her pain.
“I figured out fairly quickly that you wouldn’t have done something like that without good reason.” She turns to look at me, offering up a smile and adjusting her glasses slightly. “Regardless, I’ve certainly treated you poorly enough that we’re at least even if not tilted more toward me for being in the wrong.”
I smile at her, aching on the inside for that friendship we shared almost from day one.
This is too easy, Dakota. Keep your guard up. And I know I should, and I will, but I’m also not giving up on my relationship with Danyella or Lumen just yet.
“I don’t hold anything that happened against you,” I promise. I really don’t. If anything, I’d blame Lumen and still. I see where she’s at, trapped between her parents and her crime. It’s not a great place to be. “Mostly, I just want to be friends.”
Danyella smiles back at me, and then, as if afraid I might turn her down, starts to offer up a hug and then drops her arms. I step forward anyway and initiate the hug myself.
“I’ve missed you,” she tells me, sighing heavily. “Lumen can be fun, but she and I have very different interests. Who else will stay up late rating the top twenty best musicals of all time? Who else will listen to me when I talk about molecular biology even if they hate every second of it? And where will I ever find a friend that listens to both Ashnikko and Italian opera?”
I grin at that last one as we pull back from one another.
“Summer doesn’t have to suck; we can salvage this. I believe it.”
“Well, you’re braver than me,” Danyella admits, shaking her head. “I know you can’t hang out with Lumen because of all this, but you should come over sometime and spend the night. We have a lot of missed events to catch up on.” She clears her throat, putting a fist to her mouth to stifle the sound. “For example, you sleeping with Maxim Wright …”
“Yeah, a sleepover sounds good,” I blurt, cheeks flushing. “But it might not be for a while. We kind of, sort of skipped out on Tess today.”
The look Danyella throws me is all sorts of horrifying.
Of course, it’s not nearly as bad as Tess herself.
If Parrish thought to use Laverne as a shield, he was sorely mistaken. Tess is actually angrier with us now than she was when she discovered the, erm, threesome situation after prom.
Regardless of the fact that I’m locked in Laverne’s admittedly pretty guest room by myself, that somehow makes me like Tess more.
She was worried because we both left after a single text from Parrish citing Laverne’s permission, a single text from me with the same story, and then turned our phones off for hours. Makes sense why that would upset her more than, well, the other thing.
When I open my door the next morning, I find that I oddly miss a whole bunch of things about living with the Vanguards. Even though this house is to die for, architecturally speaking, it’s as cold and formal as the ice palace was when I first arrived. Also, much as I accused Paul and Tess of being wealth obsessed, Laverne takes the experience to new heights.
There are far too many staff members here, so many that it doesn’t feel much like a home anymore. Strangers bustle to-and-fro, committing themselves to the massive undertaking a house this size requires. There are people painting, making repairs, gardening, cooking, cleaning, and tidying at nearly all hours.
Besides that, even though I didn’t like that she was a maid, it was nice to wake up to Delphine most days, with her dry humor and that deceptive glint in her gaze. I miss that. I really, really miss having Parrish just across the hall.
I stare down at the burgundy rug with the cream-colored peonies, jewel-kissed irises, and sweet pink echinacea, and I ache for not only the old farmhouse I grew up in, but the place I was just starting to think I might be able to call home.
“Today’s your lunch date with Justin, isn’t it?” a dry voice asks from my right, and I turn to see Parrish lounging against the wall with his arms crossed. He’s not shirtless; he never is here. That’s another thing I really, really, really miss about our house.
It’s going to take a month, at the very least, to get the house back in livable condition. Maybe longer. This place is already as suffocating as the old English ivy that coats the exterior walls. Also, I’m aware that it’s invasive and damages shit, but it’s also pretty.
Like Parrish.
“Choking English ivy vine,” I murmur, and he lifts a brow at me.
“Somehow that weird shit you say and do just excites me more,” he explains, and I grin at him because I know he’s telling the truth. “Who would’ve ever guessed that I’d end up with the alt-girl?”
“Nobody back home would believe I’d date a preppy boy like you unless they’d seen it with their own eyes. Even my grandparents were shocked.”
Parrish just watches me, and I can’t remember if I ever told him what happened on my end of the table. There’s a lot of this and that happening, and my brain is struggling to remember who knows what.
At the very least, I was able to tell the others about Saffron’s letter.
“What’s going through your mind this time?” he queries aloud. “Chafed nipples? Summer weather?”
“What about chafed nipples?” Tess asks, appearing at the top of the stairs and crossing her arms. “Are you really going to stand here and discuss that in your grandmother’s house of all places? After I begged you repeatedly to behave as a gentleman would?”
“Maybe Dakota doesn’t like gentlemen?” Parrish muses absently, tilting his head back slightly as if he’s studying the intricate plasterwork on the ceiling. “Maybe she likes assholes?” he drops his head back down slightly and throws out a wild smirk that Tess ignores.
That smile doesn’t punch her in the gut the way it does me (obviously), so she forges on.
“Justin will be here to pick you up shortly. He’ll drop you off after and then we’ll be seeing him all over again on Friday.” Her smile nearly cracks her face in half. It’s as fake as the ones she started giving me just after we met, the ones that I returned, the forced smiles that have been slowly (very slowly) drifting away.
It’s getting more real between me and Tess.
“Okay.” Once again, the world’s easiest word. It’s the only thing I can think to say. I’m not offering my opinion on anything, not giving Justin or Tess information either way.
“I thought you should know that I’ve invited the Banks out to dinner tomorrow,” she continues, and Parrish and I actually exchange a look. “What? I’m not an unreasonable or maladjusted person,” Tess says, almost like she’s begging the pair of us to see that. “I thought it would be easier for you to transition to living here if you didn’t talk to the Banks; I just wanted—”
“Me to be Mia Patterson instead of Dakota Banks?” I ask, and Tess pauses.
“It wasn’t easier on you, was it?” she asks, but more to herself than to me. And then, she says something that really surprises me. “Maybe it was just easier on me? Because you know what? I blame the Banks. I wish I didn’t, but I do. Saffron is their daughter; they raised her. Not only that, but they didn’t look into your background the way they should have. Because when you were fourteen and they thought that maybe, just maybe, something was off, they should’ve tried harder to find the truth.”
Tess’ cheeks pinken with frustration, but even though she’s upset with my grandparents, I can’t entirely blame her for it. I might not fully agree, but I understand. I understand, and her honesty is such a refreshing fucking thing that I could cry.
“I know you probably think I’m doing this just because of the custody hearing, but that … that’s not it,” Tess adds, almost as an afterthought. That’s a glimpse right there into the insecurities she tries so hard to hide from the world.
“I’m proud of you, Mom,” Parrish says, not something either of us expected I don’t think.
“You can stop trying to butter me up,” she tells him, but she can’t hide the pleasure in her face at hearing those words. “Dakota, you better get ready.”
I look down at my clothes—all Whitehall prep gear again. Running shorts, a sports bra with a loose tank over it, and sneakers. I slept in all of it but the shoes, and figured why change? Hey, if I’m lucky, Justin will take me back to the Mexican restaurant. Anything but a repeat of that horrendously stuffy dinner party.
“I’m ready,” I say, looking back up, and Tess nods. With great reluctance, she goes to move away, and I step forward just once. Just that one step toward her, the biggest gesture I can display right now. “Thank you, by the way. For messaging my grandparents, I mean.”
Tess pauses and looks away, out the window toward the enormous sweep of gardens.
“I’m sure it doesn’t seem like much, after Justin went out of his way to bring them here, but I’m glad you appreciate it.”
I can’t exactly tell her that nothing Justin does is without nefarious purpose in mind, that by bringing the Banks here, he was actually threatening their lives. So, no, I don’t hold him in high esteem for the act.
Tess leaves us alone which is a pretty miracle, particularly in light of her anger last night. Neither Parrish nor I thought we had the right to deny her accusations, so we retreated to our separate bedrooms on opposite ends of the house.
I spent every second last night missing him.
“I hate that he gets to take you away, and I can’t stop him.” Parrish sighs and turns, pushing the door to my borrowed bedroom in. I follow him, and he slams it closed behind me. My back is to the wood, his attention on my lips before he lifts it to my face. “We need a solid plan here, you’re right. Not just one overdue reaction to each action that he takes.”
“Did you have something in mind?” I ask, and his expression takes a devious downturn.
“Just this.” He leans in, capturing my mouth with his, burning me with the heat and solid feel of him. I missed him so much while he was gone. It was a longing and a fear that I’d never experienced before, not even when Tess flew me from New York to Washington state. Not even then.
His tongue is sinful, tracing across my own as he holds the side of my face in his hand. When he pulls back, I find myself drawn forward, and then we’re kissing all over again. Parrish puts his other hand up against the side of my face, and then my palm is trailing down his chest, and we’re … we’re stumbling toward the bed …
We fall onto it together, him above me, his palms planted on either side of my head as he stares down at me, looking pained.
“I hate that you’re going over there, and I can’t protect you. I hate it even more that I got myself kidnapped, and you had to sacrifice so much to save me. Dakota, I’m going to figure this out for both of us.”
“Don’t break yourself trying to be a hero,” I whisper back as Parrish pulls away. Just in time, too, because my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I slide it out to see that … “Justin’s here.”
“You just sounded like you were going to the gallows,” he replies dryly, but at least he escorts me out of the room and down the stairs.
Justin is at the front door again, smiling wide as Tess stares back at him like she may very well stab him. Does he know how hard he’s pushing her? She’s only going to take so much before she retaliates.
“Caroline would love to see Parrish,” Justin continues, smiling prettily. “She is his mother, after all.”
“I am his mother,” Tess growls out, losing her carefully groomed and coiffed temper. “Caroline hadn’t even seen Parrish in person since she left Paul. Not once.”
“Yes, well,” Justin continues, folding his sunglasses up and tucking them into the pocket on his jacket. “We all arrive at emotional maturity in different ways, don’t we?” He looks past Tess and nods in approval at me. “Off we go, Princess, I’m starving.”
Parrish grabs me from behind when I take a step forward, hugging me tight, wrapping me up in a sweet-scented hoodie snuggle that reminds me of the day after the talk show, when Tess broke my phone, and he held me so I could cry. And then kissed me. And then ended up rounding second base with me.
I put my hands on his as Tess swallows against her emotions, and then I pull myself from his embrace before I break and just beg to stay here.
Justin and I climb into the car. He starts it, playing “Party in the U.S.A.” from Miley Cyrus.
Um.
Hmm.
I say nothing, as usual, waiting for him to break the silence.
We end up back at the house instead of at a restaurant which is interesting. Today was supposed to be a lunch date, and that’s it. Why are we here?
“Come in, so you can change clothes,” he tells me, and we climb out. Justin waits until I’m inside before grabbing me by the arm. I’m not expecting it at all, particularly not when he wrenches me back and around to face him.
Before I fully register what’s going on, he reaches out and he backhands me.
And oh my God, it hurts.
It hurts so fucking bad. I stumble back, lifting my hands to my face. I’m biting back a whimper, clenching my teeth around my tongue so hard that it bleeds. But I can’t give him the satisfaction of the sound. Even as my head is ringing, and I’m tasting copper, I can’t fathom that he’d really do something like that.
Thus far, he’s never shown me any physical violence.
I just stare at Justin Prior, a sense of betrayal sweeping over me. Again, I knew this wasn’t for real. I knew he was evil. I knew, I knew, I knew, but I …
