The last thing I wanted at that moment was to owe something to that bastard, but I was even less inclined to stay behind with my mother and her husband and watch her drool over him while he waved around his bucks and showed off how much pull he had.
Nicholas turned his back to me and walked out.
I said an unenthusiastic goodbye to Mom and hurried after him. When I reached the door, I stopped, crossed my arms, and waited for the valet to pull his car around.
Big surprise—he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and lit one up, bringing it slowly to his lips and then expelling the smoke in long plumes.
I’d never smoked; I’d never even tried tobacco when all my friends were into it and would sneak cigarettes in the girls’ bathroom at school. I didn’t understand what pleasure a person could take in inhaling carcinogenic smoke that left a nasty scent on your hair and clothes and was also bad for like a thousand organs.
As if he was reading my mind, Nicholas smiled mirthfully and held out his pack.
“You want one, little sister?” he asked, and then took another drag off his.
“I don’t smoke. And if I were you, I wouldn’t, either. You don’t want to endanger the only neuron you’ve got.” I stepped forward so I didn’t have to see him.
I could feel he was close to me, but I didn’t move, even when the smoke coming out of his mouth snaked creepily around my neck.
“Be careful. I might just leave you here stranded so you can walk home,” he warned me just as his car was pulling up.
I ignored him as much as I could during the drive. His SUV was so high off the ground he could see everything if I wasn’t careful getting in, and as I did, I regretted putting on those dumb shoes. All the frustration, anger, and sorrow had grown worse as the night went on, and the five or more arguments I’d had with this idiot had turned it into the absolute worst night of my life.
I struggled to put on my seat belt while Nicholas stuck the key in the ignition, pressed his hand against my headrest, hit reverse, and then turned onto the road leading out. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t follow the roundabout—a roundabout that was placed there precisely in order to keep people from driving the way Nicholas was.
I couldn’t help but groan when we got back on the main road. Outside the club, my stepbrother sped up, hitting seventy, deliberately ignoring the traffic signs that said the speed limit was forty-five.
“What’s your problem, anyway?” Nicholas asked in a weary tone, as if he couldn’t put up with me a minute more. That makes two of us, I thought.
“Well, I don’t want to die on the road with some maniac who doesn’t know how to read a road sign. That’s one problem,” I shouted. I was at my limit. Anything else and I’d start screaming like a banshee. I knew I was short-fused. One of the things I hated most about myself was my lack of self-control when I got angry, the way I could so easily raise my voice and turn to insults.
“What the fuck’s up with you? You haven’t stopped complaining ever since I had the misfortune of meeting you, and honestly, I don’t give a shit what your problems are. This is my home, my city, and my car, so shut your mouth until we get back,” he said, shouting just as I had.
An intense heat filled my body from head to toe when I heard those words. Nobody told me what to do…least of all him.
“Who the hell are you to tell me to shut up?!” I was beside myself.
Nicholas jerked the wheel and braked so hard, if I hadn’t put on my seat belt, I’d have shot right through the windshield.
When I got over the shock, I looked back and was scared to see two cars turning quickly right to avoid hitting us. Horns honked, and drivers shouted insults, and for a moment, I was stunned. Then I reacted.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shrieked, terrified someone might run us over.
Utterly unperturbed, Nicholas said, “Get out.”
It must have looked comical the way my mouth fell open.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“I’m not going to say it twice,” he warned me, his voice so composed it was chilling.
This was getting grim.
“Well, you’re going to have to because there’s no way I’m moving from here.” I tried to stare at him as coldly as he was at me.
He pulled out his keys, got out, and left his door open. My eyes bugged out as I watched him walk around the back and reappear next to my door.
I’ve got to admit, he was a scary bastard when he got pissed off, and at that moment, he couldn’t have been any angrier. My heart started pounding when I felt that sensation I knew so well: fear. Terror.
He opened my door and repeated the same phrase from before. “Get out.”
My mind was clicking at a thousand miles an hour. He was nuts; he couldn’t just leave me there in the middle of the road in the dark, surrounded by trees.
“I won’t.” I refused, and I cursed myself as I noticed the tremor in my voice. An irrational fear was gathering in the pit of my stomach. If that idiot left me here, I thought, looking out into the black night, some fool would run me down.
He’d surprised me again, and once again, it was not a good surprise.
He crawled up on my seat, unclicked my seat belt, and pulled me out of the car so fast I couldn’t protest.
“Are you out of your mind?” I shouted as he walked back to the driver’s seat.
“Get this straight,” he told me over his shoulder. He looked like a statue of ice. “You’re not going to talk to me like that. I’ve got enough problems of my own without putting up with your shit. Get an Uber, call your mom, I don’t care. I’m out.”
He got back in and put his car in gear. I could feel my hands shaking.
“Nicholas, you can’t leave me here!” I roared as the car started to roll and the tires squealed. “Nicholas!”
That scream was followed by a deep silence that made me worry my heart would stop.
The sky was just short of black, and the moon was far from full. I tried to control my fear and my irrational desire to kill that son of a bitch who had left me stranded here my first day in the city.
I held on to the hope that Nicholas would come back, but as the minutes passed, I was more and more worried. I took out my phone, but the battery was dead, and the damned thing had shut off. Fuck! All I could do—and this was as awful and as dangerous as just standing here—was try to thumb a ride and pray that a civilized adult would take pity on me and take me home. And if that happened, I’d take care of that bastard stepbrother and enjoy it. Things wouldn’t go on like this. That dickhead didn’t know whom or what he was playing with.
I saw a car coming from the direction of the yacht club, and I prayed it was Will’s Mercedes.
I came as close to it as I could without risking getting hit and stuck out my thumb the way I’d seen people do in movies. I knew that half the time a girl tried to do it she ended up murdered and thrown in a ditch. But I forced myself to push those little details out of my mind.
The first car drove past, the second shouted a series of insults, the third made a bunch of nasty sexual comments, and the fourth… The fourth stopped on the roadside five feet from where I’d been standing.
I approached it with a feeling of alarm, wondering who the insane but very opportune individual was who had decided to help out a girl who could easily pass as a prostitute.
I felt relieved when I saw that the person getting out of the car was a boy, more or less my age. The lights gave me a glimpse of his dark hair, his stature, and his evident (but just then extremely welcome) air of a pampered rich kid.
“Are you okay?” he asked, walking toward me just as I walked toward him.
When we were in front of each other, we each did the same thing: his eyes looked my dress up and down, and I checked out his expensive jeans, his name-brand polo, and his gentle, worried eyes.
“Yeah. Thanks for stopping. This idiot just left me here hanging.” I felt embarrassed, stupid, for letting something like that happen.
The young man seemed surprised.
“He just left you here…here? In the middle of nowhere at eleven at night?”
So it would be okay if he’d left me in the middle of a park at lunchtime? I asked myself, feeling a sudden hatred toward any and all beings endowed with a Y chromosome. But still, the kid seemed like he wanted to help. It was no time to pick fights.
“Any chance you’d mind taking me home?” I asked, not bothering to answer his question. “As you can tell, I really just want this night to end.”
The kid smiled. He wasn’t ugly. He was easy on the eyes, in fact, with a kindly face, probably the type to help anyone out of a jam. Either that, or my mind was trying to sell me a parallel reality in which everything was the color of roses and boys treated women with the respect they deserved instead of throwing them out on the roadside in high heels in the middle of the night.
“You sure you don’t want to go to a wild party at a mansion on the beach? That way you can have all night to thank me for the way this little misfortune allowed you and me to meet each other,” he said, tickled.
I don’t know if it was hysteria, suppressed rage, or the fact that I just wanted to kill someone, but I laughed right in his face.
“Sorry, but…all I want to do is get home and put today behind me. I’ve had enough of this city for now.” I uttered these words more calmly, not wanting to appear crazy for laughing before.
“No worries. But at least you can tell me your name, right?” He seemed awfully amused in this situation that had nothing amusing about it. But since he was my savior, I felt I should be nice to him if I didn’t want to end up sleeping with the squirrels.
“My name’s Noah. Noah Morgan.” I put out my hand, and he immediately squeezed it.
“I’m Zack,” he said with a radiant smile. “Shall we?” He pointed at his gleaming black Porsche.
“Thanks, Zack. Seriously.”
I was surprised that he walked me to the passenger side and helped me get in, just like in an old-fashioned movie. It was strange. Strange and refreshing. Despite what all the statistics seemed to say, chivalry was apparently still not dead, even if people like Nicholas Leister might make you think so.
As soon as Zack got in the driver’s seat, I knew he wouldn’t be like Nicholas. He was evidently a good guy, educated, reasonable, the typical boy a mother would die for her daughter to go out with. I put on my seat belt and sighed with relief, knowing that the worst had been avoided.
“Where to?” he asked, putting the car in gear and taking off in the same direction Nicholas had more than an hour before.
“You know William Leister’s house?” I asked, assuming everyone in that neighborhood of rich people knew each other.
“Yeah, of course. But what do you want to go there for?”
“That’s where I live,” I responded, feeling a jab in my chest as I realized that however painful that was, it was true.
Zack laughed, unbelieving.
“You live at Nicholas Leister’s place?” I ground my teeth as I heard that name.
“Worse—I’m his stepsister.” How disgusting to have to admit I was related to that dimwit.
Zack looked away from the road a second to turn his surprised eyes toward me. I guess he wasn’t the responsible driver I’d imagined.
“You’re not serious…or are you?”
“Oh, I’m serious. He’s the one who left me stranded here.” It was humiliating to admit.
Zack laughed sardonically.
“Honestly, I feel for you,” he said, and that made me feel even worse. “Nicholas Leister is the absolute worst.” He shifted gears and slowed down as we pulled into a residential area.
“So you know him?” I tried to bring together in my mind the gentleman to my left and the delinquent in the 4×4.
“Unfortunately, I do,” he replied. “His father saved my father’s ass in a pretty nasty case with the IRS just over a year ago. He’s a good attorney, and his little bastard son can’t help rubbing it in my face every time he gets the chance. We went to high school together. I can assure you he’s the most egotistical, rude son of a bitch you’ll ever meet.”
Damn! Apparently I wasn’t the only member of the Anti-Nicholas Leister Club. That made me feel a bit better.
“I’d like to say something nice about him,” Zack went on, “but he’s got more dirty laundry than anyone I’ve ever met. Take my advice and stay away from him.”
“Easy for you to say. We live under the same roof.” I guess I wasn’t feeling better after all.
“He’s at the party I mentioned, in case you want to give him a kick in the ass,” he said with a grin. That information was a complete surprise.
“He’s going to the party?” I felt hot shame burning all over my body.
“You’re not really thinking…” he started to ask apprehensively.
“I’m going,” I told him, as sure of it as I’d ever been of anything in my entire life. “And I will give him that kick in the ass.”
Twenty minutes later, we were on the beach in front of an enormous house. But the size wasn’t what caught the eye so much as the quantity of people gathered around it, on the entrance stairs, anywhere you turned.
The music was audible from a mile away, so loud I thought I could feel my brain bouncing around in my skull.
“Are you sure about this?” my new best friend asked. Since I’d told Zack my plan, he’d been trying to convince me to abandon ship. It seemed my new stepbrother, apart from being a hardhead and a moron, was prone to scrapping. “Noah, you have no idea what you’re getting into. You already saw how it didn’t even bother him to leave you back there. What makes you think he’s going to care what you have to say to him?”
Gripping the door handle, I responded, “Trust me. He’ll never do anything like that to me again.”
We got out of the car and walked toward the immense entryway of the house. It was like going to one of those parties you see in movies, like in Never Back Down or The Fast and the Furious. Just crazy. Beer kegs were laid out all over the front yard, and a bunch of guys were shouting and encouraging each other to drink more. The girls were wearing bikinis, some of them just bras and panties.
“Are all the parties he goes to like this?” I asked, looking grossed out as a couple hooked up against one of the walls of the house, not even caring that everyone was watching them. It was repugnant.
“Not all of them,” he responded, chuckling. “This one is mixed.” That threw me off. Mixed? What did he mean?
“Are you saying because there are guys and girls at the same party?” I returned to memories of my past, when I was twelve and my mother had organized my first party with boys. A total disaster, so far as I recalled: the boys had thrown me and my friends in the pool, and we’d ended up founding the Anti-Boys Chapter of the Best Friends Forever Club. I knew it was stupid, but I had been twelve, not seventeen.
Zack grabbed my arm and dragged me forward. His fingers were warm, and I felt calmer knowing he was there. This party could intimidate anyone, let alone an outsider like myself.
“What I mean is anyone can come,” he said, pushing through the crowd and going inside. The music was wild and repetitive and drilled into your eardrums so deep it hurt just to be there.
“I don’t get it.” He pushed me into one of the rooms where the music killed you slowly rather than instantly and where I could talk without shredding my vocal cords.
“Anyone who pays can come,” he told me, waving at some of the guys there. I didn’t like him having the kind of friends I saw there. “They use the money to buy all kinds of liquor and…” He looked at me a few moments, maybe wondering whether I was old enough to hear this. “And all the stuff you need for a party to get lit.”
Drugs. Great. And he thought that was funny. What the hell had I gotten into?
There were couples lying on the sofa and others standing up dancing to the rhythm of the music, and I realized that among the rich kids in expensive clothes, there were people who could have been from the worst neighborhoods. It was an explosive mix.
“I’m starting to think this was a bad idea,” I told my companion, but by now he was sitting on one of the couches with a bottle of beer in his hand.
“Come here, Noah,” he said, tugging my arm till I fell in his lap. “Let’s have fun tonight. Don’t waste your time on that asshole.” His fingers stroked my hair and my shoulders, and I tensed up and then stood as fast as I could.
“I’m here for one reason.” I glared at him. I’d been wrong about Zack, it was obvious. “Thanks for bringing me.” I turned around and walked away.
I didn’t really know what to do here after giving the cold shoulder to the one guy who wasn’t so drunk he’d smash his car into a tree if I asked him to take me home. But I couldn’t stop imagining the confused look on Nicholas’s face when he saw me. Had Zack lied to me, though? Maybe he was just a crazy drunk trying to drag me to the worst place ever. Well, I was going to look, and if I found Nicholas, I was going to do what I came there for.
I went toward the kitchen, where there were fewer people, thinking I’d get a glass of cold water. I didn’t know whether to drink it or dump it over my head to try to wake up from this nightmare. This day seemed like it would never end.
When I turned down the little hallway leading there, I stopped.
There he was—no shirt on, just jeans, surrounded by girls and four muscular friends a little shorter than him.
I watched him for a few moments.
Was this the same guy I’d been having dinner with at a luxury restaurant just a little while ago?
He was, and so it surprised me to see him now. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a mafia movie. They were playing beer pong, but with shots of tequila. My dear stepbrother was killing it. He hadn’t missed once. That meant he wasn’t as drunk as the others.
Nicholas shot and missed on purpose. It was so obvious I couldn’t see how the others didn’t realize it, but they all jeered at him and cracked up laughing. He grabbed his shot and downed it fast.
When it was his friend’s turn, Nicholas went over to a hot brunette girl who was sitting on the black-marble countertop. She was wearing a sky-blue bikini top and shorts that showed off her sun-bronzed legs.
I was too dressed up—too covered up—for a party like this.
Nicholas buried his hand in the hair on the back of her neck, pulled her head back, and French kissed her in the most disgusting way I could imagine, especially with all those people there.
That was my chance. I’d catch him by surprise and quell my burning desire to tear his goddamn head off.
He hadn’t even bothered to see if I was okay. I could have still been stuck there, and he wouldn’t have lifted a finger for me. I was furious I’d let myself be treated that way, even more so for finding myself here in this madhouse thanks to him, so I walked across the kitchen, grabbed his arm to turn him around, and, shocking even myself, instead of slapping him as I’d planned, I punched him in the jaw, nearly breaking one or more of my knuckles. It was worth it, though, and he deserved it.
He was briefly disconcerted, as if he didn’t understand what had happened, who I was, or why I’d hit him. But that just lasted a few seconds, and then his face changed, his posture changed, and I found myself pinned where I was standing.
Everyone gathered around us. It was silent as a grave. All eyes were on us.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, so furious I feared for my life.
If looks could kill, I was already dead, boxed up, and buried.
“You’re surprised I could walk here?” I asked, trying not to be intimidated by his stance, his height, and those terrifying muscles. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”
A dry, measured laugh erupted from his esophagus.
“Noah, you have no idea what you’re getting into.” He took a step forward, and I could feel the heat radiating off his body. “At home, you may be my stepsister, but outside those four walls,” he continued, so soft only I could hear it, “this is my world, and I won’t put up with any of your bullshit.”
I didn’t let him intimidate me. There was no way I’d ever allow him to see how much his words and his behavior scared me. I’d lived a life of violence. I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.
“Fuck you,” I said, and turned around, ready to get out of there. A hand grabbed my arm and pulled, not letting me take another step.
“Let me go,” I ordered him, turning around so he could see I was serious.
He smiled and looked at everyone gawking and then back at me.
“Who’d you come here with?” he asked.
I gulped. No way I was answering.
“Who brought you here?” he screamed so loud I flinched. That was the last straw.
“Let me go, you son of a…” I started howling, but it was pointless. He was holding onto me so tight it hurt.
Then someone else spoke up.
“I know who it was,” said a fat guy with not a free inch of skin left for more tattoos. “Zack Rogers showed up with her.”
“Bring him to me.”
My stepbrother was acting like a delinquent, and I was really getting scared. I regretted hitting him, not because he didn’t deserve it but because I was afraid I’d provoked the devil himself.
Two minutes later, Zack appeared in the kitchen, and the circle opened to let him through. He looked at me as if I’d betrayed him.
What the hell was the deal with these people?
“You brought her here?” my stepbrother asked him calmly.
Zack hesitated and then nodded. He didn’t break eye contact with Nicholas, but I could tell he was scared.
Before I knew it, Nicholas had punched Zack in the stomach so hard he bent over in pain.
I shouted, afraid for him, with that same pain in my chest I always felt whenever I witnessed any type of violence.
“Don’t you dare do that again,” I said to Nicholas.
He turned around, grabbed by arm, and started dragging me toward the door.
I didn’t have the strength to protest. When we got there, he stopped. He took his cell phone out of his pocket, cursed under his breath, and waited for whomever he was calling to answer.
“Wait for me here,” he said, looking for a place where the noise from the people and the music wouldn’t bother him. He ended up just past the stairs leading up to the porch. He could see me perfectly, so there was no point in running.
“You okay?” some guy asked me.
“Honestly, no.” I was a wreck. I leaned against the window, unable to avoid certain memories that I’d kept buried in the depths of my mind and that were now resurfacing to torment me just then. “I feel faint.”
“Here, have a drink,” he said, handing me a cup.
I took it without even looking. My throat was so dry, it didn’t matter what it was. I closed my eyes and opened them once the cup was empty, only to see Nicholas flying up the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said, tearing the cup out of my hands.
I was going to respond, but he was already looking away from me toward the guy who’d given it to me. He grabbed him by his shirt and nearly lifted him off the ground.
“What the fuck did you give her?” he asked, shaking him around.
I looked with horror at the cup.
“Shit!”
