SIX #2
Weston Cavendish was one of my closest friends.
He was dark-haired with blue eyes and matched my height at over six feet.
I had always thought his eyelashes were too long for a boy, making him look girly, but the chicks seemed to dig that.
I’d expressed my opinion on those lashes one night during a game of poker and got punched in the nuts for my troubles.
West boasted a broad, similar build to mine, possibly slightly beefier in the neck.
We spotted each other at the gym most weekends.
We had been friends since primary school, and he felt the loss of my mother almost as much as I did, his mum having died in a motorway pile-up when he was six.
His father was a widower and had never remarried.
Rafe had said that there had only ever been one woman for him.
And in my mind, that was the way it should be, unlike my father, who had crapped all over my mother’s memory within weeks of her passing.
I was closer to Rafe than Cameron anyway.
“What’s with the downer? Frustration, maybe?”
“About what. The fact that you can’t throw for shit?” I replied with a smirk.
Coach Lane had benched Weston last week due to the increase in lollypop passes he’d delivered during our last basketball practice.
“Funny,” he replied with a laugh before delivering a sucker punch. “No. Rumour has it you have your cute little blonde cousin staying with you.”
Everything inside me clenched. How the fuck did he know that? Jessa?
“She’s not my cousin,” I volleyed back, revving the engine.
“Even better. Although I don’t think I’d care about the rules of banging my cousin if she were fit.”
“That’s depraved, Weston, even for you. You do get that cousins are usually blood relations?”
He scratched the bristles on his jaw. He hadn’t even shaved that morning, the scruffy bastard. “If she were hot, I’d have to forget about that part.”
“Dude?” I snorted as I side-eyed him. I wasn’t totally sure if he was joking. From our friendship circle, Weston had the most warped sense of humour.
“So, spill it?”
“Spill what?” I huffed, cramming the car into the next gear as we took off down the street.
The houses surrounding us were all impressive-looking and fell within the millions category.
West lived a few neighbourhoods away from my family, but the properties there were still on the minty side.
I had to pick him up as he couldn’t drive, something we would wind him up about regularly.
He’d failed his driving test four times already.
“So, why so cagey, bro? Spill the beans on the pussy you got staying with you?”
“Please don’t call her that. She’s my stepmother’s niece, and how the hell do you know about her?
” For some reason, I instantly took offence at Weston calling Amelie pussy.
It didn’t feel right, which was odd when we called girls that all the time.
To each other, that is, and only in jest. It was meaningless banter between the boys I saw as my brothers, and it went no further.
None of us ever openly disrespected women, and if we witnessed anyone else doing that.
We had words. I hated misogyny. I watched a recent documentary about a bunch of social-influencing pricks who made a ton of money by promoting their fucked-up version of masculinity.
I’d bust the TV in my room. I had been that angry.
Yes, I’d been a dick towards Amelie, but that was different.
West was still harping on about her, and I curled my fingers tighter around the steering wheel.
Although why, who knew. It’s not like I could smack him while I was driving.
“Saw her with Jessa. I bumped into your stepmother in town whilst I was waiting for Tanner to decide which trainers he was going to add to his stupidly huge collection.”
Tanner McCoy's family were the wealthiest in Chiddingfold, and he was the luckiest sonofabitch you’d ever meet.
The guy got whatever he wanted, when he wanted, being an only child; the privileged motherfucker.
He also walked the planet as if he were the best thing since sliced bread.
I still loved him, though, the guy would give you his liver if you needed it, on toast. He’d shown interest in Jessa a few years back, before she’d started dating Jordan the loser, until I’d shut that shit down.
I was fond of all my bros, but knowing where their dicks had been, I didn’t want them anywhere near my twin.
I shifted in my seat, feeling uncomfortable as Weston started fiddling with the radio. Dude couldn’t keep still.
“I didn’t get the chance to speak to her as she was trying shit on, but she’s a sweet little thing.”
“Sweet or not, she isn’t a permanent fixture.”
“Really? I’m sure Vanessa suggested she was ‘living’ with you guys?” He did the quotation marks with his fingers on the word living, a habit that got on my nerves.
Shaking my head as I overtook a slow driver, I explained, “Not for long, and so you need to stay away from her.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” he huffed, shifting in his seat.
“Her parents are away, and once they come back. She’ll be going home, crawling back under the rock she came from,” I lied.
Fuck, what was I doing? I had never been anything other than straight with my friends.
What was I allowing the girl to do to me?
I remembered how Jessa and I were sworn to secrecy about her parents’ arrest and the hit-and-run.
I wondered fleetingly if Rebecca’s brother, Aaron, would be at the party.
I’d heard he spent most of his time at the hospital by his sister’s bedside.
I took the turn for the off-license and purposefully changed the subject. “So, the house all set up?”
“Yeah, man, I put a shout-out on Insta that the party is from seven. Rafe’s out for the night, leaving us to it, but with a caveat that there are to be no pigs this year.” Luckily, the fallout from last year's bash hadn’t been so bad due to Weston’s father's connections with the local authority.
I grinned as I parked the car. “Fingers crossed, my friend.”
We then discussed if there was anything else we needed from the shops. Rafe had already bulk-ordered and had stocked the bar at their house in preparation. Weston and I only needed to pick up the beer. Our other friend James was on BBQ duty.
As we made our way towards the shop, I could see Lisle standing at the counter.
The glasses she wore were so thick that her eyes were like dots.
There was a mean rumour in the village that her parents were brother and sister, hence their offspring’s unfortunate looks.
I didn’t pay attention to that type of bullshit.
Lisle may appear socially awkward, but she was as sharp as fuck.
The next prime minister, if she ever got the guts to cut the strings of her mother’s apron.
She glanced up as she saw us and smiled at me with a cute little wave. Adorable.
Time to turn up the infamous Rook charm.
* * * * *
Later that night, surrounded by drunken dickheads and girls who should have known better, I glanced around the patio, searching for you know who.
I’d heard that my sister and Amelie had arrived at the party around an hour ago, and I had yet to see either of them.
I had decided to go easy on the booze and was still on my first beer.
I needed to be alert if the girls needed me.
I could never relax at a party where my sister was present.
The protective brother side of me always kicked in.
I was outside, lounging by the pool with a gorgeous girl and some of my mates. Most people were gathered in the kitchen or scattered around the poolside, drinking and laughing, with a few splashing about in the water. I hadn’t brought my trunks as I preferred to people-watch.
My boys were lounging on sun beds, either side of me, smoking and shooting the shit. We were playing a round of truth or dare, or at least they were. My ears pricked up as James waved the whisky bottle he held at me and questioned, “Best position to fuck in. Go.”
“That’s easy,” Weston cut in with a grin. “Doggy, no contest.”
“Reverse cowgirl,” a girl whose name I had forgotten giggled.
“Bent over the couch from behind with my hand wrapped around her neck,” James countered, tugging his girlfriend of two years further onto his lap. James Daniels wasn’t a king like the rest of us, but we allowed him to tag along.
“Control freak,” his girl laughed as she threw back a shot of tequila.
I glanced around the space, feeling bored to shit. The main party had been happening inside the house when we’d first arrived, but had now moved outside.
Nancy was sitting on the side of my sunbed, nuzzling my neck, whilst whispering everything she wanted to do to me later that night.
And… I felt nothing.
All I could think about was Amelie. Where was she? What was she wearing? Was she enjoying herself? Would she look for me? How was she talking to?
There must have been over fifty people there, all standing in clusters with the music blaring out.
Luckily, Weston’s neighbours were at least a half a mile away.
Inside the house, it was also thick with guests; the booze flowing as guys and girls from high school and beyond vibed together in what was usually one of the best parties of the year.
The reason the police were involved the last time was due to someone bringing drugs into the house.
And I don’t mean an innocent baggie of cannabis; we’re talking powder.
Something none of us tolerated. The scumbag who brought that shit was dealt with, and a fight broke out.
Well, I say fight, Tanner knocked the dude out with one punch.
He wasn’t from Northridge but had been selling that shit to our schoolmates for weeks.
The Kings of Northridge protected their own, like shepherds watched their flocks.