Chapter 2 – Leslie
It didn’t take long for Mason’s games to begin.
They were tiny things at first: My contact solution going missing, then my car keys. The music was even louder the following night, but I didn’t bother going back down there to tell him to turn it down. Instead, I threw myself into dance, finding a studio within easy driving distance and signing up for classes. Dance was my version of self-care, even as it slowly destroyed my body. The blisters, the bruised toes and broken toenails, the physical strain and exhaustion—it was all worth it, for those moments when I lost myself in the music and became someone else: strong, powerful, beautiful. I loved that version of me.
Which was why I was so angry that morning.
I had a pointe class, my first since the wedding and the move. It seemed like a good way to get out of the house until our parents got home the next day. I did not want to be late to ballet. Instructors were notorious for holding grudges, especially regarding tardiness. And even though I was only going to be in Westchester for a few months, I wanted to make a good first impression. My reputation meant everything to me, and so did the approval of authority figures. Daddy issues, and all that.
I rolled my eyes at my thoughts as I bent down to pick up my pointe shoes from the corner of the room, only to immediately drop them.
They were soaking wet.
And slimy.
And covered in a white, viscous liquid that—I picked one up between my forefinger and thumb and carefully, warily, took a sniff—yup, smelled like sour sex.
My lungs went tight.
It was semen.
Mason—or one of his friends, but something about it made me sure it was Mason—had jacked off on my pointe shoes.
Who did something like that?!
I slammed out of my room, carefully holding the shoes in their only dry spot, ready to confront the nasty motherfucker and throw them at his head.
Only to slam to stop.
Sure, I could yell at him, but what good would that do? He’d only know he’d gotten to me.
No, I needed to get even. That motherfucker had destroyed something I loved. It was time I did the same to him.
I tossed the toe shoes in the trash, then grabbed my backup pair from the closet, checking my phone. If I hurried, I’d make it.
And then, after class, I was going to make a trip to the grocery store before returning to home sweet home.
“What the fuck is this?”
Mason’s usually icy, level voice rose to a low roar as he slapped a noxious smelling object down on the kitchen counter.
“I think that’s a dead fish,” I told him helpfully as I continued to chop a cucumber.
He roared again. “I know that much, Leslie. What I want to know is what the hell was it doing in my car?”
“You know, Elon Musk is a real dirtbag,” I told him, popping a slice of cucumber into my mouth and pretending to be unaffected by the stench.
“That’s my car,” he repeated. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to get the smell out.”
I shrugged. “You want me to leave your shit alone, leave my shit alone.”
The coldness in his eyes receded, only leaving amusement. “Ah, you saw my…present, did you?”
I glared at him, then looked down. I was brandishing the chef’s knife at him.
Oops.“I wouldn’t call that filth a ‘present.’”
He smirked. “Funny, most girls would say differently.”
“Then maybe you should come on their shoes.”
“Oh, butterfly,” he tsked, crowding me, apparently uncaring that the point of the knife was pushing up against his sternum. “Before we’re done, you’ll be begging for my come—everywhere.”
“Why the fuck would you say something like that?” I choked out. “Seriously, Mason. That’s fucked.”
His eyes flashed. He glared down at the knife, and then backed away, until he leaned against the fridge, arms crossed, as he transferred the glare to me.
The look on his face confused me. He didn’t seem like the type to back away from a fight. So why had he? And why did he seem so much angrier about what I’d said than he had about the fish?
“I’ll tell you what’s fucked,” he began. “It’s having to entertain and look after a goddamned fragile little interloper?—”
“—Who the fuck are you calling fragile—” I interjected.
He ignored me, continuing. “—who has no business being in my home when all I want to do is drag her to the ground and?—”
Drag me to the ground? My lungs seized at the image in my head, on the floor, his large body on top of mine, his mouth swallowing me up, so wrong, but so good, and?—
“Helllooooooooo!” The front door slammed open as my mother trilled the greeting from the front door.
“Hey kids,” Paul called.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
What had I been fucking thinking?
I stared at Mason, who stared back.
“Stay away from me,” I hissed. “And don’t say anything.”
“What, butterfly,” he said, and I wanted to smack that smirk off his face. “Scared that if they know how we’re ‘getting along’ it’ll ruin the little fantasy life your gold-digger mother has created for the two of you?”
“Call. Her. That. One. More. Time. And I will slice that smirk off your face,” I said, threatening him with the chef’s knife I still held in my hand.
Something lit in his blue eyes. “Not fragile, then. Feisty.”
“You don’t even know, Mace. You have no fucking idea how feisty I can be.”
The truth was, I also didn’t know how feisty I could be. I wasn’t usually like this. I was sweet, and calm, and I liked myself that way, even if I wish I was better at standing up for myself. My stepbrother had found some darker part of my soul, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
With that, he pushed off the fridge and wandered up the stairs, ignoring my mother when she called out a hello.
“Mason,” his father called.
“Going to the rink,” Mason said. “Need ice time.”
Ice time? My stepbrother was a hockey player? As much as I hated him, I found a little bit of respect for him—he wasn’t just some spoiled rich boy, he had to have some amount of determination and drive to be an athlete, after all. I should’ve realized as much based on his physique, but then I was hit with images of Mason in his skates and nothing else?—
“What’s gotten into him?” my mother asked, perturbed. She’d be even more perturbed if she realized where my head had gone. She opened her arms to hug me, then froze, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “And why is there a branzino on the kitchen counter? Honey, I hope you weren’t planning on making that. It smells off.”
I bit my lips to keep from giggling. Or screaming. I wasn’t sure which; Mason made me feel so many things.
Too many things.
All the things.
I really fucking hated it, as much, if not more, than I hated him.
Paul watched me, his blue eyes—so much like his son’s—working. It worried me, what he was figuring out. Would he kick me out if he knew I’d put a dead fish in the car he’d bought his son? Would he kick his son out, if he knew what Mason had done to my toe shoes? I shouldn’t care what happened to Mason, but part of me did—the same part who had stared at him with longing that first moment when we’d met. Plus, I didn’t know what that kind of family fracture would do to his relationship with my mom, and her happiness.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “I was just planning on tossing it. Maybe we can get pizza?”