Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
ZIGGY
Fourteen years ago.
I’m barely breathing as I shift my door open, one hand pressed to the wood while the other grasps the handle in my sweaty palm, easing it open inch by painfully slow inch. I strain my ears for any sign of life downstairs, but there’s nothing. There never is.
I don’t even know if they’re here or working, but I’ve waited as long as I can.
Praying my empty stomach doesn’t give me away, I slip into the hall in my plumpest, softest slippers that I picked out specifically for this purpose and follow the path engrained into my memory.
I’m completely silent, strangled breathing a familiar pain in my chest, and I don’t exhale until I’ve passed their room and reached the stairs.
Then I gather the air in my chest again and make my way down.
All the weight is kept on the balls of my feet; every shift, every step, every redistribution of my weight is measured and incremental.
I’m careful. So careful. The stairs have become a pattern of left, right, front of the middle, back, foot sloped sideways with as little pressure as possible, and it’s not until I reach the bottom without a single sound that my muscles start to unlock.
Other than hearing, it’s like the rest of my senses go into hibernation. The dread of leaving my room is heavy, but my heartbeat is steady, my hands don’t shake anymore, and I slip through the living room toward the kitchen with renewed purpose.
I can’t cook anything because that will definitely bring hell down on me, so I debate what’s the biggest risk.
Opening the fridge and risking the puff of the seal being that fraction too loud, or hoping the pantry door hinges are the right temperature not to squeal.
With the fridge, I can grab a handful of bananas that are easy to carry and silent to eat.
With the pantry, I can load up my pockets with snacks and bread that should last a few days before having to do this again.
But the plastic wrappings have given me away before.
A bird lands on the kitchen windowsill.
Its twittering fills the kitchen, wings bumping the window as it jumps along, and my veins turn to ice.
Go!
I wave my hands at it, ears strained back up the stairs to my parents’ closed bedroom door.
The bird ignores me.
Move.
Leave.
Shut the fuck up.
I’m gesturing so wildly, trying to startle it, that my pulse has kicked up its rhythm.
Please, please, please don’t ruin this for me.
Like it can sense my begging, it disappears as quickly as it came, throwing the house back into silence. Silence, except for my heartbeat in my ears.
It’s going to have to be the fridge. Maybe their shifts will line up today, and they’ll both be gone at the same time, so I can restock my room.
I focus on calming my breathing, my heart rate, and getting my hands to settle before I risk the fridge. The door releases with a puh, and I freeze again, listening … listening …
My stomach growls.
Fuck.
I open the drawer, grab two bananas, and close it again, the plastic reconnecting sounding like a gunshot in the silence. I’m so close. Halfway there. I close the fridge a bit too hard in my rush, and the glass bottles inside shudder together.
I’m panting from the effort, the sickening adrenaline, stomach in angry knots that I beg just to work with me until I’m back in my room.
A noise comes from upstairs, and panic floods me. I lock up. Freeze. Knowing I should run and hide, I can’t do anything to make myself move. I wait for the inevitable footsteps, the anger, the screaming, the names …
A minute passes before the noise replays in my consciousness.
It was a pipe.
Just a groaning pipe.
Even if it did wake them, no one could blame me for that.
Still, it takes me another few moments before I can move again. Before I unlock my muscles, shaking more than I can control, and risk taking another step.
I make it back upstairs. Down the hall. Into my bedroom, where it takes me a full minute to close the door again.
Then I collapse onto my bed with relief.
Something prickles at the backs of my eyes, but I grit my teeth against the feeling. It’s okay. I’m okay.
But even though they didn’t wake up, I can hear Mom’s shriekingly loud voice anyway. Why are you so ungrateful, Ari? Why can’t you ever let us sleep? So selfish, so thoughtless, so disrespectful.
I pull my knees to my chest and breathe through it.
It’s okay. I’m o-fucking-kay.
Four years. Eleven months. Twenty-two days.
As soon as I’m eighteen, I’m gone.
I just need to make it until then.
I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling of darkening rock, shadows filling all the carved grooves running through it.
The stiller I lie, the easier it is to keep the feelings and jealousy in check.
It’s only once I move, knocking them from the carefully built box in my heart, that everything hurts.
I’d been so sure I could feel something building with Kennedy, so what happened today feels like Velcro being ripped apart.
Sharp, loud, and fast, leaving me with nothing but confusion.
Hart’s words keep playing over, and as much as I want to believe I’m good enough for Kennedy, I have a lifetime of evidence that proves I’m not.
Why would he want someone selfish and pathetic when he can have literally anyone?
I squeeze my eyes closed, pushing back my parents’ voices. I don’t care how today made me feel; I haven’t been imagining the way Kennedy looks at me. I didn’t dream up his kisses or us having sex.
It all happened.
And if he can look at me like that—someone who I’m convinced is the greatest person alive—it makes me question the tight grip I’ve had on all the truths I’ve been fed.
Because Kenny wouldn’t be interested in someone pathetic. Would he?
I thump my mattress, frustrated with myself. These thoughts aren’t getting me anywhere. Kennedy is still with Caroline. I’m still here alone. I can hope for my person all I like, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to be delivered to me in a pretty bow. No matter how much I want it.
The worst part is that I know I’d treat him good, and that’s what he’s looking for in a partner. Would he treat me good though? Or is his interest only because I’m here?
The way he was blushing at Caroline makes me certain of that answer, but I don’t want to come up with it myself. I want him to tell me.
Not that I’ll ever get the confidence to make it happen.
My ears prick up at the sound of a motor, and slowly—so I don’t knock over that jealous, bitter box I’ve built—I throw my legs over the side of the bed and go to investigate. I can already tell it’s not Wilde’s truck, and my pulse picks up when that severely narrows the options.
Either someone’s back to raid the storage cars again, or …
The flash of white before the SUV pulls into view fills me with this deep, nervous excitement that’s stronger than my jealousy. I’m still annoyed and still feel sick over Caroline, but Kennedy’s already seen me spiral once, and I refuse for him to witness it again.
I’ll suffer in silence.
Something new and different for me.
He’s barely stopped the car before he throws open the door and staggers out, slamming it behind himself.
“Fuck, Ziggy, I’m so sorry.” His green eyes are wide with guilt, and his mouth is sagging under his thick mustache.
“I gave my brothers a message to pass on, and they didn’t. I feel like a complete dick.”
Those happy nerves creep cautiously higher as I tilt my head.
“I didn’t plan for her to come up here. It caught me by surprise, and the more I think about it, the more I’m not happy about being ambushed like that.
I didn’t want to blow her off because it felt rude, so I told my brothers to apologize to you and that I’d make it up to you.
And they didn’t. I should have done it myself.
I screwed up. I’m sorry.” He pauses a few feet in front of me, panting like he ran up here instead of driving.
His large chest and shoulders move with every breath, and the more I take in his expression, the more I believe him.
He really didn’t want Caroline here.
We’re staring at each other for a long time before I find the words.
“You were blushing.”
“I was?” Confusion crosses his face. “I don’t remember blushing. I was frustrated and trying not to lose my shit.”
Could that have been what made him go so red?
The way I swell inside is trying to convince me, but I’m cautious.
Worried that I’ll buy every word, and it will all be bullshit.
I don’t like hurting. I’ve been able to mostly avoid it for eight years now, and the second Kennedy stumbled into my life, all those feelings flooded back into me.
“Then … how?”
He takes a careful step forward. “How what?”
“How will you make it up to me?” My voice comes out huskier than I planned.
Kennedy’s eyes lock on mine, startling the butterflies in my gut that I do my best to ignore. I fail, of course, because being trapped in Kennedy’s gaze is magical. “Ahh … hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”
Right. My lips are so fucking dry just looking at him, and I run my tongue barbell over the bottom one to shake the feeling. I’m not going to make the first move. I promised myself. Not even when his gaze dips from my face and starts a slow track down my body.
“Maybe …” He clears his throat. “We could hang out?”
Always. I try not to let my disappointment show while I nod quickly.
He steps closer. Clears his throat again. “Are you okay? Like … really?”
Am I? There are so many ways I’m very not okay, and I could probably write a list for him. But that’s not what he means.
He means are we okay.
I’m not sure of the answer to that either.
He’s barely feet from me, and the pull I feel, like a hook ripping through my heart and yanking me toward him, is sickening.
I crave Kennedy like I’ve never craved anyone, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve let myself want him or if there’s something deep and intuitive that’s decided he’s mine, but it’s not exactly a feeling I can call okay.
Nothing about this is okay.
Everything is exciting and terrifying and the reason to keep breathing.
I want Kennedy in so many ways I’ll never have the words to explain.
“Ziggy …” He steps closer, right into my space, and it’s not until he drags his thumb under my eye, catching a tear, that I even realize how blurry my vision has become.
I blink quickly, instinctively looking away, but Kennedy’s fingertips on my jaw bring me back again.
“I know,” he whispers. “I feel the same.”
It’s the last thing I expect Kennedy to admit.
He shuffles forward again until his feet knock mine, and I’m too scared to breathe and ruin this moment. My tears dry up from the shock of it, and I focus on every detail in his face. Including his lips. Especially his lips.
“Tell me not to kiss you,” he rasps.
“Never.”
It must be what Kennedy was waiting for because his mouth slams down on mine.
Like the first time, my whole body comes alive.
Ripples of excitement race over my skin, and I focus all my energy on fighting the need to shiver.
I press closer toward him, parting my lips and hoping Kennedy will take it for the invitation it is.
He knows me too well. He licks into my mouth, hand leaving my jaw to bury in my hair as the other one finds my side. His thumb rubs circles into my hip bone, and I want to soak in every detail of this moment.
Kennedy’s need, his lips, his touch. The way his mustache scrapes roughly over my lips. Or his tongue flicks over my barbell. Or my piercings crush between our chins.
I give in to the urge to tremble.
His hips meet mine, hard cock rocking against my trapped erection. This sizzling, unbridled need has been unleashed, and I can’t get enough.
Kennedy grunts, backing me up so quickly my back slams into the rock wall. It forces the breath from my lungs that Kennedy catches with his mouth as his hand sneaks up under my T-shirt.
“So sexy,” he mutters against my tongue as his thumb circles my nipple. “Prettiest little nipples.”
I exhale sharply and lift my shirt over my head, forcing his mouth to break from mine, and before he can kiss me again, I work on his. The open button-up is stripped from his shoulders and his tank top yanked upward and discarded somewhere along with mine.
His big, warm body boxes me against the rough wall at my back, and skin on skin, I’ve never felt more incredible.
“Hold on.”
I tilt my head, not sure exactly what I’m holding on for, when he reaches for my headband.
Of course. He pulls it out and sets it back in place, the scrape against my scalp like a warning not to touch, clearing the hair I like to hide behind.
I feel exposed without it, but when Kennedy’s gaze settles on my features, it’s filled with hunger.
“How am I supposed to look at that face and behave myself?”
My smile feels wicked as I curl my fingers into the sides of his jeans. “You don’t.”
His intense gaze is studying mine, like he’s trying to convince himself to hold back.
If he thinks I’m going to help him with that, he doesn’t know me at all. I tilt my face to his ear. “Show me what I do to you.”
Kennedy drops to his knees, tearing at the front of my jeans.
I’m not expecting it, but I’m also not about to complain when he rips my fly open and tugs my boxer briefs down below my balls.
His appreciative exhale is cool against my aching dick.
Then his mouth is there. Warm, wet suction closes over my tip, and I have to ball my hands into fists and shove one of them between my teeth to stop from coming.
The pain I’m biting into my knuckles helps me fight it, but every inch Kennedy takes is testing me.
His tongue is working some kind of magic, and while this is the second time my dick has been in his mouth, the first was nothing like this.
I’m not even sure that could be considered a blow job with how quickly it ended.
This time I’m determined to last.
Even if every one of my muscles is straining.
Even if my teeth have broken skin.
Even if his fingers brushing my balls make me forget how to breathe.
The warm stroke of his tongue, the light scrape of his facial hair, the way he hums around me like he’s as turned on as I am.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I tug his hair, and Kennedy pulls off, looking at me through lust-drenched eyes. “What is it?”
“I’m … about to …”
“You don’t want it to be over yet?”
I quickly shake my head, because how the hell do I vocalize something like that?
He ducks down and drags his flattened tongue over my balls. “You taste so damn good though.”
He’s going to kill me.
“I want to taste every inch of you, Ziggy.”
Actually, scratch that. At this point, I’m convinced I’m already dead.