16. Jude
Chapter 16
Jude
Fridays have a different energy at Cinderhart High. Everyone’s foaming for the weekend, fed up with the classwork and the social niceties they have to participate in every day. Even the teachers look exhausted. Most of them get out of any real teaching by giving us surprise tests...which, after the first year you’re at this school, isn’t much of a surprise anymore.
A lot of kids bunk off—some for the whole day, some just the last class. I’ve not one of those anymore. I’m serious about football, and I’m serious about my grades.I’d have thought Harper would be serious about getting back on track too. But the first Friday of the semester I find out she missed science class. Admittedly Mr. Monroe nearly put me in a coma back when I was still taking his class, but that’s the kind of shit she needs to deal with if she plans on building a life for herself.
Which makes me think that maybe she doesn’t.
What a fucking waste.
To rectify this, I don’t attend my last class for the first time since I was a freshman. Ms. Farren has us catching up on our required reading because she always claims she has a migraine, and I’m almost done with The Scarlet Letter , so I don’t see any reason why I can’t skip class.
I just want to make sure Harper is in her social sciences class where she belongs. Since we don’t have any classes together and I only know a handful of seniors who can spy on her for me without asking too many questions, this operation needs a more personal touch.
Thankfully Cinderhart’s social sciences teacher always leaves the door open, and when I walk past I can easily scan the inside.
Harper’s not there.
As I’m scouring the rest of the school, I run into Eliza Jackson, head of the Cinderhart Darlings cheerleading squad. If there’s one person who’ll know where to find my stepsister, it’s her. She’s one of the integral gears in Cinderhart High’s rumor mill—which means she always knows what’s going on.
She flips her blond ponytail over her shoulder when she notices me coming over, but there’s a touch of hesitation in her brown eyes when she sees my expression. The two girls standing with her scatter, and it looks like she’ll be tempted to follow suit.
The squad is in their silver and black cheerleading outfits, just like me and the rest of the football team are wearing our letterman jackets. It’s as much a part of our Friday night pre-game rituals as the hotdogs and cherry soda.
Eliza pushes out her chest, but more to project confidence than it is to put her tits on display. She’s on the swim team and runs track, so her body is slender and strong rather than curvy.
I can’t believe I used to want to date her. She looks so catty and vapid, and I can’t figure out why, but the thought of putting my dick in her makes my balls retract.
She looks a little flabbergasted when I snap out, “Have you seen Harper?”
Was she expecting me to ask her to the game tonight?
“Uh...yeah.” She glances aside and shifts her shoulders like she doesn’t want to be here anymore. “Think I saw her by the bleachers.”
The stadium is off-limits during school hours. Too many hideaways where kids can smoke weed or feel each other up. And I guess the janitor was getting sick of picking up used condoms.
“She with someone?”
Eliza quirks a perfectly stenciled eyebrow at me. “Hang on, let me check the camera feed.”
We stare at each other for a beat, and then I tear away from her with a muted growl. Before I’ve gone a yard, she calls out, “Tell her she still owes Talia!”
What the fuck is she talking about?
Forget it. If Harper’s bunking off school to get laid behind the bleachers it’s not my fucking problem.
It shouldn’t be.
But instead of heading for the parking lot, I push my way through the guy’s locker room and out to the stadium, hoping Eliza’s intel is wrong because I have no fucking clue what I’d do if I found my stepsister with someone else.
When I turn the corner and see Harper leaning against the steel struts at the back corner of the bleachers, my body goes tight. Even though she’s alone, it’s like someone connects a live wire directly to my brain, because my vision goes white.
I’m barely conscious that I’m moving forward. Barely aware that I’m grabbing Harper’s neck and wrenching her around to face me. She screams, the sound only dropping marginally when she recognizes me.
“Jude?”
“The fuck are you doing here?” But she doesn’t get a chance to answer because a quick scan reveals a half-pint of vodka that fell to the grass when I grabbed her.
“The fuck is this?” I kick it, sending it crashing into one of the metal struts where it explodes on impact. Harper lets out a little gasp, but in a second she’s glaring up at me.
And swaying.
Is she...no.
Is my stepsister drunk ?
I grab her elbow, wrenching her forward, taking a whiff. But instead of the boozy stench I expected, I just get a nose full of her candy-scented shampoo.
But I’m not wrong. I can’t be. She wasn’t babysitting this bottle for someone else. Harper must have been drinking it. Unless she was busy pouring it into her water bottle or something. She has a pink one that she takes to school every day. I thought nothing of it...until now.
I grab her backpack from the grass. She tries to stop me, but I shove her aside with my elbow and she steps back, wrapping her arms around herself as she watches me go through her stuff. When I finally get to the water bottle, she blanches.
Jackpot.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I tell her as I unscrew the lid. Her mouth tightens, and the hands shoved under her arms bundle into fists. But she says nothing as I tip the bottle to my mouth.
Pure vodka hits my tongue. I grimace, gather up the saliva in my mouth, and spit it on the grass.
“I didn’t have any yet. It was for tonight, at home.”
Liar. We have more than enough free booze at home. Was this what she still owes Talia money for? Talia’s another senior, and if the rumors are true, her older brother turned twenty-one about a month ago. Guess they’re making a quick buck buying alcohol for friends of the cheerleading squad.
Which I never knew included Harper.
“It’s your first week and you’re drinking in school?” I growl, tossing her backpack to the floor. Some of her things tumble out, and she ducks to gather them up, but I catch the base of her ponytail and drag her up again.
She gasps, grabs my wrist, and bites her nails into my flesh. “Let go!”
“Do you have any idea how much shit I’ll get into if Dad finds out about this?” I’m so fucking angry I don’t even care if I’ve acknowledged that we’re siblings. None of us like it, but the sad fact is that Wayne is Harper’s father.And I’m in no mood to get a taste of his belt again after all these years. He told me to look after Harper, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“Is that everything?” I pull at her hair until she’s forced to go onto her tiptoes. She winces, hanging from my arm like she stands a chance to break free. “Or do you have some nips on you too?”
“What the fuck?” she mutters angrily, her eyes blazing. “Do you think I’m an alcoholic or something? I told you?—”
“Oh, I know you’re a drunk.” I shove my hand into her blazer, rummaging in her pocket. I find only gum and a Chapstick in there, and toss both to the ground. “What you should be asking is what I’m going to do about it.”
“I’m not your problem,” she spits.
“That’s where you’re wrong, princess.” Her other pocket has a pack of tissues in it. Where the fuck is the booze? Cigarettes? Weed? I know she’s holding out on me.
She stiffens when my hand accidentally brushes her tit, her lashes fluttering. So I grab her breast through her shirt and squeeze.
Surprise snuffs out her anger, but it’s back a second later and twice as fierce. She yells, “Psycho!” and tries to knee me in the groin.
I rush into her, grabbing her shirt in my fists and ramming her against the crumbling brick wall of the public restroom that supports one side of the bleachers. Bits of brick rub off onto her blazer, the fabric snagging as I drag her up another inch. Now she’s almost at eye level with me. She immediately tries kicking me, but she’s too close to do damage.
She slaps my arms, claws me, and must realize that she’s not making any progress because she opens her mouth to scream.Driving my hips forward, I keep her pinned with my waist and clamp a hand around her throat, the other still fisted in her shirt.
“One more sound, and I’ll choke you out.”
Incredulity creases the skin between her eyebrows. “You’re fucked in the head. You know that, right?”
“Don’t push me, Sis.”
Finally she realizes I’m not bluffing because she stops resisting me. “That’s everything,” she says quietly, trying to sound calm even though the tremble in her voice gives her away. “Please, Jude. Let’s just...let’s forget about this and go home.”
Her lips push into a brave smile, and my eyes latch onto her mouth as she adds, “We could go swimming.”
For a second—a tiny, almost insignificant beat—I want to say yes. I imagine us back in that pool, our bodies sliding against each other in the water, curiosity and desire burning in Harper’s eyes as she gazed at me, as she waited for me to?—
The moment bursts like a rotten fruit when I realize she’s waiting for my reaction. Waiting to see if her trick is going to work, or if she has to try something else.
“You filthy little slut,” I growl, tightening the hand around her throat as I grind my suddenly hard dick against her. “You think fucking me is going to get you out of this?”
Her lashes flutter like she can’t believe what I’m accusing her of. I let out a bitter chuckle and smooth my hand over her shirt where I’d been gripping her. Then I squeeze her tit again, so hard that she gasps and tries to move away from my grip.
“Then what do you want?” she demands, fury blazing in her eyes. “I fucked up, okay? So tell me how to make it right.”
It could have ended there. I’d have told her to quit drinking—which is the only thing I want from her—and we’d have gone home.
But then her nipple hardens under my palm. And when I smooth my hand over her breast, that tight little bud pokes me through the fabric.
“So this is who you are,” I murmur, locking eyes with her as I rub a slow, soft circle with my palm. She starts squirming, lids shuttering but never closing.
“Stop,” she whispers, tight desperation in her voice. “Please, Jude. Stop.”
“You wanted to know how to make this right,” I murmur.
“And then you said you didn’t want to fuck me.” Her mouth trembles around the words. “So which is it?” There’s still a flicker of anger, the tiniest bit of defiance, even though I can feel her starting to tremble against my body.
“I need to make sure you’re not hiding anything from me.” And before she can figure out what I mean, I shove a hand up her skirt.
A gasp rattles through her throat, and I instinctively tighten my grip on her long neck. Winter-sky eyes widen when I wedge my legs between her thighs and pry them apart.
“Only thing you’ll find down there is a tampon.” Her voice shakes but silent fury sets her eyes alight. “Which needs changing, so if you’d be so kind to grab a fresh one from?—”
She cuts off with a gasp when I slap her pussy through her cotton panties. Which I discover are already wet. I slide a finger over her underwear and lift my hand out of her skirt, showing her my glistening finger and the complete lack of blood on it.
“More lies,” I murmur, and following her mouth when she twists her head aside to stop me smearing that wetness over her lips. “What am I going to do with you?”