49. Jude
Chapter 49
Jude
There’s a knock on my bedroom door. I quickly save and close the program I was working on, plucking out the single earbud from my ear as I call out, “Yeah?”
“Open the door,” Dad says.
I hurry over to unlock it, looking down when I see my dad’s frown.
“What were you doing?”
“Homework.”
Dad holds out his hand. I don’t need to ask what he wants—I take the key out of my lock and hand it over without a word.
“We’re going out for pizza.”
“See you later?—”
“You’re coming with.” Dad’s eyes are slits when I look up.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust you anymore, Jude.” He cocks his head a little, as if daring me to question his logic. But how the fuck can I?
“Do I get to change, or do you want me walking in there with my dick on display?” I’m only wearing sweats, not even boxers, and I probably don’t need to wave a hand toward my groin to illustrate my point, but I do it anyway.
Dad’s interfering in my plans in a big way. There’s a clock on my fucking life and he expects me to sit in a diner and make nice?
“Watch yourself,” Dad growls. “Or I’m cutting off your internet and taking away your phone.”
Christ. I give him a grim nod. “Sorry, Dad. I’ll be right down.”
I push the door halfway closed and start changing, but my eyes keep finding their way back to my computer. Frustration boils in my veins, but there’s nothing I can do—Dad always goes ahead with his threats. I’m surprised he hasn’t given me some lashes with his belt yet...but I know for a fact that’s on the menu when my test results come in.
I’d been praying that Harper would do the decent thing and say she had an assignment or some shit to work on, but she’s in the back seat with me and Rosie because I guess she’s made it her life’s mission to fuck with me.
Thankfully Rosie is sandwiched between us, and she keeps up a non-stop conversation with me about the movie they watched last week...so the car trip’s a real fucking blast.
“You know what, squirt? How about I go see that movie with you tomorrow?” I tell her. “Then you don’t have to keep telling me how awesome it is.”
“I thought you were grounded,” Harper says quietly. But, of course, not so quietly that at least one of our parents hear her.
“What’s that?” Diana says, turning in her seat.
“Jude’s gonna watch with me tomorrow!” Rosie pipes up.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Diana says, giving Rosie a smile that cools down to ice when she glances over to me.
“At the cinema,” Harper adds.
Fuck my life. She’s driving me goddamn crazy. I curl my fingers against my mouth and turn to look out the window in an attempt not to reach over and throttle her.
“You’re grounded, Jude.”
“Aw!” Rosie grabs onto the back of Diana’s headrest. “Please, please, please, please, please!”
Diana’s eyes widen, but her mouth is still in a thin line. “I’m sorry, Rosie, but Jude?—”
“Let him go,” Dad says. “It’ll do him good spending some time with Rosie.”
I share a secret little smile with Rosie, and she slips her hand into mine and holds it tight for the rest of the drive to the Liberation diner.
We order drinks and eat our pizzas in relevant peace. Thankfully, Harper keeps her attention on Diana and Wayne and leaves me the fuck out of everything. I’m only too happy—it’s a struggle being civil while the mastermind who devised my destruction is sitting less than a yard away from me.
I’m almost ready to chalk up the lunch to a relative success—seeing as I didn’t kill my stepsister with the pepper grinder—when Alex walks up to our table.
Harper goes stiff in her seat. I swear she’d have climbed under the table if she thought she could get away with it.
I shoot to my feet, my hands in fists and the suddenly vivid image of Alex making out with Harper playing through my mind like the start of a very badly executed amateur porn video.
“Sit down, Jude,” Dad says. The warning in his voice is clear, but it still takes massive amounts of willpower for me to obey. I swear my knees creak on the way down.
“What are you doing here?” Harper squeaks, her hands in a tight bundle in her lap.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Alex says, running an awkward hand across the back of his neck. “Mr. Dearth, Mrs. Dearth.” He nods at my dad, then Diana, but completely ignores Rosie.
He used to do that whenever he came over, too. A lot of people do. They don’t know how to handle her. I used to think it was fine—I mean, at least he wasn’t condescending—but now it just pisses me off.
“So I hear you were also at the game last night,” Dad says. “Were your parents there too?”
Alex throws Dad a startled look. “Uh, yeah. They, they come most Fridays.”
“Tell your father I said hello.”
Alex throws my dad another wide-eyed glance before turning back to Harper. “Yeah, sure. Uh...could we...could we talk?”
“I’m with my family,” Harper says, snooty little bitch shoving her nose into the air.
I turn in my seat, throwing my arm on the back of the booth so I can stare at her just a little harder. “It looks important, Sis.”
Her blue eyes could have worked as well as a fucking welding torch. “It can wait, Jude .”
“No, that’s fine, honey,” Diana says. She’s already had half a bottle of wine, so I’m not surprised she’s ready to hand her daughter off to the first boy who asks.Come to think of it, Diana is the perfect evil stepmother. I only wish I’d caught on sooner—she could have been useful in my war on Harper.
Harper opens her mouth to argue but then thinks better of it. Rosie and I both have to climb out of our red vinyl booth to let her through, and I make sure that I’m so close that she has to brush past me to get out. She flinches when we make contact, and throws a startled look up at me.
For just a moment, we’re in our own little bubble. The first time since she burned down my world, come to think about it. She wilts under my glare and quickly steps away. Suddenly Alex is a better choice than I am, despite how desperately she’s trying to avoid him.
“When did Harper start seeing Alex?” Diana asks as soon as they’ve left.
I freeze halfway into sliding back into the booth and fall down the last foot. “Sorry?”
“Alex.” Diana points after the pair as they walk away from the table, Harper hanging her head like she’s on her way to the gallows. “That’s him, right?”
“Yeah.” I frown at her as I take a sip of my milkshake. “They’re not dating.”
Diana looks at my dad. “But didn’t she say?—”
“Diana, don’t meddle.”
“But she’s?—”
“Diana!” Dad’s hand curls around his soda. Diana was the only one who decided it was close enough to midday to start drinking. “Is it too much to ask for one goddamn minute of peace?”
Diana shrinks back into her seat, nursing her wine glass for the rest of our lunch. Harper doesn’t stay away for long—she slinks back a minute later and grabs a slice of pepperoni pizza and bites into it like she purposefully doesn’t want to be grilled.
“He seems nice,” Diana grumbles into her wine glass. “If you weren’t grounded, I’d tell you to invite him over for dinner.”
“Unbelievable,” Dad mutters, pushing away his plate. He turns and lifts his hand, snapping his fingers at our waitress where she stands near the bar. “One hour. That’s all I asked for.”
“I’m sorry, Wayne, but?—”
“Enough, Diana.”
At least my stepmother recognizes the warning in my father’s voice. In the sudden silence that follows, I take out my phone and check my messages. I felt it vibrate a little earlier but I don’t want to draw too much attention to the fact that I’m still communicating with the outside world.
$10,000
I stare at the message and bark out a laugh before I can stop myself.
“What’s that?” Dad asks, his eyes darkening as he glances at the phone in my hand.
“Oh, nothing.” I give him a smile. “Just a funny meme from Alex.”
I see Harper turn to stare at me from the corner of my eye, but I don’t give her the satisfaction of acknowledging her existence.
The message wasn’t from Alex. He has nothing I want anymore. Far as I’m concerned, he can take our friendship and shove it up his ass.
I don’t need anyone. And if I want something…? Well, there are enough people just waiting to be used .