Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
SLOANE
“This is unsurprising.” Caspian’s voice holds his relatively newly acquired academic know-it-all tone and, in my head, I see him pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation as he paces around his third floor apartment, books slinking all along his hardwoods.
But he bought me the rare French edition of The Flowers of Evil that cost ten grand and currently lives on the small wooden bookshelf beside my canopy bed at my place so I don’t call him out on his pretension.
Where did he get ten grand to spend on a used book for his sister?
No one seems to know. If you ask him too many questions about the software developer he’s currently assisting, he gets pompous and cagey both.
Cas likes to feel important and the more we starve him of it, the better we feel. In a very loving way, of course.
I shift my position on the bench in the backyard of some sorority house.
I’m surrounded by dying flowers and alive shrubs and there’s a tiny bird fountain in the center of the shoddy hedge maze.
With two shots of vodka and one wine cooler in my system, plus too little food from a full day of classes, I feel giddy and therefore unprepared for this somber sibling phone call.
In fact, ten minutes ago I was inside the packed house dancing up on Dax and grinning at my friend and fellow marketing major, Tyli.
The music was loud and there were no thoughts of Storm inside my head.
None either on the fact that I can’t seem to find the camera he hinted at having on my doorstep because of some coffin nails.
I didn’t dare look up the symbolism; it seems obvious enough to me.
In my mind, I rationalized it. Storm had been at my house a few days before he claims they were dropped there on my doorstep.
Whoever left the message, it was for him and not for me.
Maybe I’m naive to let that go, but I don’t care.
His world is not mine.
A toddler’s shriek breaks me out of my daze of staring at the stars and doing my best not to think of Storm fucking Leary.
Heather sighs loudly.
“No, no,” she says distantly to my nephew, exasperation in her Mom voice as she gently scolds Rome. Then more clearly, she adds, “It’s unsurprising, sure, but it’s still shit.”
Henry laughs, but it’s full of icy anger.
“I don’t know why we’re bothering with this call.
Dad will do nothing because he’s a cuck, and Mom will max out his cards again to pay for the dresses he destroyed, and in one week’s time, the three of us will sit down together for dinner and pretend everything is fine.
None of you have to deal with it any longer. It isn’t your problem.”
I hear the pain in his voice though, clenched tight like a fist. He didn’t want us to call, he said, but he’s the one who sent the group text to all of us older siblings to tell us Mom cheated on Dad again, then he tore up her things, and both of them left the house in separate vehicles, yelling at one another at the top of their lungs.
Part of me thinks I should go home.
Fall break started today, hence the party, but I’m halfway to drunk. I can’t drive. Getting a ride might not be too difficult but I don’t even know if Henry would want me there. Regardless, I’m the closest, with Heather at the coast and Caspian never willing to leave his perch up at Harvard.
Henry is brooding, a lot like Storm in that way. But Henry is a teenager and Storm is a grown man who seems to have done nothing to work on himself and his bullshit and—
My sister’s voice interrupts my errant thoughts.
“Hen, it’ll be okay. Soon you’ll be out of there and you won’t have to pretend alongside them.
And look on the bright side. Tonight you’re alone and you can stay up all night and eat their food and fuck up the house if you’d like.
” Heather drops a rare F bomb in her comfort pep talk and I smile as I turn on the bench and lie on my back, my knees bent.
The Versace crop I’m wearing isn’t my most elegant party style, but the denim skirt and leopard print heels fit the sorority vibe and besides, why does any of it matter?
Here I am in the furthest corner of the backyard by myself staring up at the stars and knowing I should be home and not here.
Henry sighs but he says nothing.
“Chin up,” Caspian says in his pretending-to-be-old-money tone. “You can handle this.”
“Fuck off, Caspian.” Henry has a snarl he reserves just for his older brother and I almost laugh out loud when I hear it, but I smack my hand over my mouth and keep it in.
Then I turn my head a little, since my long hair is pulled up into a high, silk pony and I don’t like lying on it pressed against my skull.
“Do you want Sloane to stop by?” Heather asks softly, knowing without asking me I’ll go if I have to.
I’m glad she brought it up and not me. This way I’ll hear he doesn’t want me there without having asked the question directly.
It hurts a little when he says it, if I’m being honest. It’s nice to feel wanted.
But just as Henry quietly says no, he’s good, I think about the coffin nails.
My conclusion that whoever put them there is after Storm.
The fact Henry is alone.
What if I’m wrong?
Or what if they use me to get to Storm and therefore, they use Henry to get to me to echo down in the chain of targets?
I don’t know what kind of shit Storm deals in. I don’t know the people after him. And maybe he has a camera he monitors 24/7 to keep me safe—the thought is hilarious and easily dismissible both—but there’s no such camera for Henry.
“Henry.” I try to keep my tone even.
My siblings wait in the quiet for me to speak.
“I’m coming by. Just…give me some time to get there.” My parent's place is half an hour away but I need to grab a ride and tell everyone bye and they probably don’t even know where I live anyway so I’ll need to wait for a taxi or something and—
“Sloane, there you are, thank God.” A deep voice has me turning my head.
Dax. He’s tall and lanky and beautiful. Brown hair, blue eyes, a politician’s smile.
Storm asked me if I fucked him and I haven’t yet but I’m going to soon, I decided.
Maybe just right now. Probably. He’s wearing a white button down that doesn’t have a single one of those buttons done up, and black slacks.
He came here from an internship in which he shadows the CEO of a car battery company.
I know he doesn’t like the car part, or even the batteries.
He wants to own a business, like me, and he wants to make as much money as his father does doing it—which is a fuckload.
If I married Dax Parrish, my life would be on easy street.
“You don’t need to come, Sloane. I hear your boyfriend in the background.” Henry says it with distaste and it makes both Cas and Heather laugh.
I don’t sit up as Dax saunters closer, a bottle of vodka—mostly empty—dangling from his fingertips. I’ve never seen him get really drunk and I’m not sure he is now or if he’s just swiped up what was left.
“I’ll be there,” I promise my little brother.
“And soon.” I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m there.
Henry will probably mope up to his room and close his door, but silent company is better than loud solitude sometimes, isn’t it?
I end the call and rest the phone face down on my tummy, then fold my palms over my chest as I look at Dax.
He’s standing right in front of the bench now so I’m nearly level with his crotch and that bottle in his hand, but his eyes are on mine when he drops his head down to look at me.
“Who were you talking to?” he asks it softly with genuine curiosity. At least I think it’s genuine. Remi met Dax once when the three of us went to lunch together before Remi and I got pedicures while Cortland and Storm fawned over Lyle.
According to my best friend, Dax is probably a psychopath. But she’s with Cortland so I don’t know if that means I should fuck his brains out or never speak to him again.
Hard to tell with her.
Although her warning about staying away from Storm was very clear.
“My family,” I tell Dax. The velvet sky’s the backdrop for his handsome face.
“My brothers and sister,” I clarify, grinning up at him.
I need to leave to get to Henry and I have to get a ride but for the moment, I just lie right where I am, staring up at a hot boy and the beauty of the constellations over his head.
This is simple.
My life isn’t, not yet, but this feels good. Real. Like what university is supposed to be.
“Everything okay?” Dax asks. He reaches out with his free hand and trails it along my tummy, just beneath my phone.
My muscles jump with his light touch and I watch him smile as he realizes the effect he’s having on my body.
“Everything is good,” I lie because I don’t want him, or anyone, in my family drama.
“But I have to leave soon. I need to…” I think of how to phrase it without making it seem like Henry needs me to hold his hand or something.
I feel protective of him, even with his surly teenage attitude.
“Go to my parents’ house.” I don’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to know anything else.
But he keeps stroking my low belly, just over the button of my denim skirt.
Warmth spreads there, and lower.
I need to get laid.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks softly, and the way my head is light and he’s so gorgeous and I know I’ll spend tonight in the living room flicking through channels alone anyway, I want to say yes. Not to mention the mild fear I have that Storm’s trouble will come to Henry’s door.
It would be good to have another body there.
It would feel safe to bring a man, so long as I trusted him.
Do I trust Dax?