Chapter 3
Lana
I got home late that night, and even then, the house was packed and loud.
I could hear the music and voices even before I reached the front door.
I was too emotionally exhausted to figure out where else to be, too worn out to map an escape, so I set my mind on going inside, climbing the stairs, getting to my room, and trying to sleep.
The filming downstairs had clearly turned into a party.
It was Friday night, and technically, it wasn’t my house, so I had no right to tell any of them to leave.
Not that I would have dared, since nobody here paid attention to me anyway.
Once inside, I kept my head low as I crossed the big foyer, not daring to look left or right because there were people in every room, and the air reeked of alcohol and weed, and I didn’t want any of it on me.
I knew my room would be free of those smells because I had locked the door before I left in the morning.
I had learned the hard way not to leave it open.
I made that mistake a few times, and each time I came back to find strangers occupying my personal space.
Once, I even walked in on a couple having sex.
Not in my bed but pressed against the floor-to-ceiling window.
I kicked them out and scrubbed the handprints off the glass myself.
After that, I started locking my bedroom door every time, even when I was inside, because it was the only boundary I could control in a house that otherwise felt like someone else’s. Because it was someone else’s.
Just as I reached the stairs, Callan called my name.
I froze on the step and sighed with my eyes shut, not ready to face him.
He was walking over when I turned around, and this time he actually had clothes on.
Okay, it was only one item of clothing. Black baggy jeans that hung low on his hips, and his tattooed upper body and arms were on full display.
There was so much ink, and I could probably list about 80 percent of the motifs on his skin.
Hey, I was just a girl who liked tattoos on other people, but not on myself, and Callan happened to have a whole lot of them. But that didn’t mean I liked him. He was still just Callan: my broody, rich stepdad.
“Hey,” I said, forcing a friendly tone even though I was in a bad mood.
He stopped in front of me and looked me up and down with his dark brows furrowed and his jaw tight. “Where were you?”
Oh, that’s…new.
“Out. Why?”
“Out where?” His brown eyes met mine. His expression told me that he wasn’t happy with my not being here all day, which, to be honest, I had no idea why he cared.
“Just out,” I said with a shrug. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
I narrowed my eyes. What?
“Uh, okay? Then why do you want to know where I was?”
“Because.”
Because?
Seriously?
God, what a douchebag.
“Do you need anything?” I asked, my brows raised now as I straightened my back. “Because if not, I’d like to go to bed now.”
He stared me down for a moment, his gaze moving up and down my body again before settling on my face, and when our eyes met, he asked, “Did you eat?”
“Yeah, I ate my sandwich,” I said, still wondering why I was continuing this conversation when all I wanted to do was run upstairs and sleep.
“I gave you money,” he said, the frown between his brows deepening.
“Oh, right.” I reached into my tote and pulled the folded bills out to hand them to him. “Here. I didn’t use a dollar.”
He didn’t reach for the money. He only looked at the bundle with a confused expression, then raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why not?”
I shrugged. “Because I had my sandwich.”
“And that’s all you’ve eaten today?”
“No, I had a handful of pretzels too,” I replied, a little too proud of having eaten the bare minimum all day.
Callan let out a sigh, acting like not using his money to buy me food actually bothered him, and I watched him put on a performance because he liked the way it made him look, without believing it for a second.
For whatever reason, he always put on that show of concern when it suited him.
Maybe he felt guilty and needed to prove to himself he wasn’t a total dick, yet to me, he was a total dick, and nothing he said or did would change that.
“There’s pizza and sushi in the kitchen. Eat something. You can’t go to bed having eaten only a sandwich.”
“And a handful of pretzels,” I corrected, tilting my chin up for emphasis.
He shook his head. “Don’t be stupid, Lana. You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I answered, keeping my voice flat.
“Bullshit.” He looked angry now, serious enough to pass for actual concern, but I couldn’t take him seriously because this was about him feeling better, not about me.
If he genuinely cared, he wouldn’t have people in and out of the house all the time, and he would’ve made sure I had a place inside his home where I felt safe instead of invisible.
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “I’m going upstairs.”
His hand grabbed my arm before I could turn away. “Lana.”
I glared at him. “What?”
“Please, go eat something before going to bed. It’s not healthy eating just a damn sandwich all day.”
“And pre—”
“Don’t be smart with me, Lana.” His voice dropped, and his face went serious.
“I’m not. I’m just saying I’m not hungry and I want to sleep because it’s been a long day.” The last part came out hard and sharp, with no real emotion lingering in the words I said. Then, because I felt just a little spiteful, I added, “Mom says hi, by the way.”
He didn’t look amused. “What, did you go see her?”
“No, but she called to ask about you,” I said, dropping my gaze to his hand still gripping my arm. I rolled my shoulder to free it, then looked at him again. “You know, because she only ever calls me to ask about you. Funny, no?”
I wanted to laugh to make it bearable, but nothing felt funny. My face stayed flat, and my voice came out even.
Callan exhaled through his nose and shook his head. “No. It’s not funny. It’s cowardly and neglectful.”
“Maybe you should tell her that to her face, because she’s not listening to me. She’s your wife, after all.”
“No, she’s not.”
“She’s not?” I tilted my head, confused.
“No. We got divorced. Signed the papers last week.”
Oh…
Oh!
“Wait…then why am I still here?”
He had no answer to that, because he probably didn’t know either. He just looked at me like he wanted me to stop asking. But the questions kept coming.
“Why didn’t I know?” I asked, then realized I could answer that myself, so I pushed on. “Why haven’t you kicked me out yet?”
His brows drew together. “Do you have anywhere else to go?”
“No, but—”
“Then you’re staying.”
“But—”
“Lana.” His expression darkened, and I braced myself for whatever was coming next. “When I married your mother, I couldn’t have known the outcome. I knew she’d bring a kid into the marriage—”
“I’m not a kid,” I interrupted.
“You’re nineteen, still in college, and your mother left because she’s incapable of being a mother. You’re here now, and you’ll stay.”
There was the tiniest spark of something I didn’t fully understand in his words, and it took me a moment to decide if it was really what I thought it was.
Callan cared about me. He didn’t admit it, not directly, and technically he wasn’t admitting it now, but he wasn’t kicking me out, and that counted for something.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated, jaw tightening again. “Now go eat something, because no person should go to bed with an empty stomach.”
“I had a—”
“Lana, I swear to God, if you don’t eat at least two slices of pizza, I will personally feed you until you’ve had enough.”
Damn.
I laughed nervously. “No, thank you. I mean, no to the feeding. I can do that myself.”
“Good.”
“Buster?” A high-pitched, female voice echoed in the foyer, then a tiny blonde with enormous tits came skipping toward us. “Here you are! We miss you back there. Are you coming?”
Buster.
Right.
Because to everyone else, the man standing in front of me wasn’t Callan. It was Buster Ace.
It had taken me a while to understand why he chose that name as his porn star alter-ego, but when it clicked, I could only roll my eyes at it.
Buster Ace.
Bust her ass.
So lame.
“Yeah, I’ll be right there, Karlee.” He didn’t look at her, but he also didn’t care about her wrapping her arms around his body.
“I’m going to bed now,” I said, smiling tightly.
“No, you’re going to eat something, and then you are going to bed,” he reminded me, his voice and face as serious as ever.
I rolled my eyes at his bossiness and sighed. “Fine. I’ll go eat something first.”
“Come on, Buster, we were in the middle of something…” Karlee whined, jumping up and down impatiently, which caused her massive tits to bounce, but not in a natural way. It looked like she had basketballs for breasts.
I chuckled at the image of that in my head, and both Callan and Karlee looked at me funny.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, her playful voice all bitchy now.
Gosh, I usually got along with everyone, men but mostly women, but Karlee wasn’t having it. “Nothing’s funny. You two go right ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen, stuffing my mouth with cold, leftover pizza and sushi.”
“Sushi is always cold,” Karlee stated with a shake of her head. “Gosh, and they say blondes are stupid.”
To be fair, I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, but miss basketball tits over here was making it hard for me to like her. Not because she was fucking my ex-stepdad, but because she was passive-aggressive toward me.
“I think redheads are more stupider than blondes. Don’t you think so, too, Buster?” Karlee gave me a disgusted once-over.
Now, that was disrespectful. And grammatically incorrect.
Despite not wanting to start an argument with her, I couldn’t help but correct her. “It’s stupider.”
“What?” Her expression shifted to that innocent, baby-like look. “I don’t understand.”
“Stupider is the comparative form of stupid. You didn’t have to put more in front of it. It’s—ah, why do I even bother?” I shook my head and took a deep breath before looking at Callan. “Can I go now?”
For the first time since I’ve known Callan, there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. And while I was glad that at least someone here appreciated how smart I was, I couldn’t care too much about it.
“Yeah, you can go eat now.”
I gave him one last look before walking past them and heading to the kitchen, where I did, in fact, eat more than one slice of pizza.
I had to take off the cheese, though, and I stayed clear of the sushi because I didn’t know how long that raw fish had been on the kitchen counter, but I did enjoy the pizza before heading upstairs.