Chapter 11
JOHNNY
FLOAT TEST
Well, shit.
Look at that.
Jagger Cutter finally gets picked, and nobody even has the decency to make it funny.
I stay in the dark near the upper viewing area, shoulder against the wall, watching the pool settle after them.
Cute, right? My emotionally constipated baby brother brings a girl to his sad chlorine sanctuary, says a few broken things in that wounded-dog voice, and suddenly she’s looking at him like he hung the fucking moon instead of dragging her into a locked university pool after hours.
Romance, apparently. What a stupid fucking disease.
The water keeps moving long after they stop touching it, little ripples licking the tile while blue light shakes across the ceiling. Chlorine burns clean in my nose, sharp and smug, like this place thinks it’s better than the rest of us.
It isn’t.
Water doesn’t make shit clean. It just hides the mess until something floats.
After Jagger leaves, I follow Alice to the showers.
Quietly, obviously. I’m not a fucking amateur.
She doesn’t look back. That’s either trust or stupidity, and after tonight, I’m leaning toward both. She walks barefoot across the tile in her bra and panties, wet hair dripping down her back while the blue pool light follows her like it’s reluctant to let go.
Cute.
She carries it with her into the locker room, and I stay back in the dark just far enough that she doesn’t see me when she turns on the shower.
Water hits tile.
Then her.
I watch her tip her face into the spray and close her eyes, washing the pool off her flawless skin. Washing away the chlorine. Washing away my brother’s hands. His mouth. His pretty little almost-love.
The whole tragic fucking performance he left all over her.
Or trying to.
That’s the funny thing about being touched by a Cutter.
Soap doesn’t do shit.
She scrubs her hands over her face, then drags them through her hair, breathing slow like she’s trying to put herself back inside her own body. Like she can rinse off the night and walk out clean.
Poor Alice.
Still believing in clean things.
By the time she shuts the water off, I’m smiling again.
She towels off quickly, shoulders tight from the cold, then pulls on her clothes with sharp, tired movements.
Little thing thinks she’s leaving.
She thinks my brother walked out and the worst part of the night went with him.
That’s almost adorable enough to forgive.
Almost.
Alice steps back into the pool room with damp hair, her bag over one shoulder, and her keys already in her hand.
I wait until she reaches the edge of the blue light.
“Didn’t take you long to crawl back to the good brother,” I say.
Alice goes still, then turns her head and looks at me over her shoulder. “There is no good brother.”
I step down onto the tile, hands loose at my sides, smile already in place because fuck her if she thinks she gets to see where that lands. “No. But there is a favorite.”
“Leave.”
“No hello?” I press a hand to my chest. “After everything we’ve been through? That’s cold, Alice. I thought we were closer than this.”
Her mouth barely moves. “Leave me alone, Johnny.”
That tone is flat and final. Like I’m already over. Like somehow, along the fucking chaos, I became the toy she broken, put down and doesn’t plan to pick back up.
I stop a few feet from her, close enough to bother her, far enough that she knows I’m choosing not to touch. For now.
“You know, this is fucking sweet in a deeply pathetic way.” I glance around the pool room, at the empty bleachers, the blue glow trembling over everything.
“He brought you to his little clean place. Shit, I mean candles and flowers are over done right? Why not go for chlorine, silence, and then smother you in emotional constipation. Very Jagger. Did he stare at the water and pretend he has a personality, or did you two skip straight to the tragic bonding?”
Alice stands, tugging her sweater tighter around her.
My smile sharpens. “Cute sweater.”
“Don’t.”
“What?” I let my gaze drag over it because I’m an asshole, and because she knows I’m doing it on purpose. “I’m just saying. You can cover up all you want, pretty thing. It’s not going to protect you from me.”
Her jaw tightens. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“You keep saying that.” I glance toward the exit, then back at her. “And yet you haven’t actually left.”
“I was leaving before you crawled out of whatever shadow you were hiding in.”
“See? Mean.” I press a hand to my chest. “After all the bonding we’ve done.”
“There is no we.”
I laugh because if I don’t, I might stop smiling, and fuck that. She doesn’t get honest from me. Not after standing here in my brother’s clean little pool, looking at me like she already survived me once and thinks she can do it again.
“Let’s not forget it was you, who let me in,” I say.
Her eyes flash. Good. There’s the Alice I know. “You really want to bring that up?”
“Why not? I remember it fondly.”
“I chose a mistake.”
My smile sharpens, but something ugly shifts under it. Not hurt. Fuck hurt. I don’t care that she doesn’t want me. I care that she went back to him. I care that Jagger got to stand here and look holy because he stopped when she asked, like that makes him better than me.
“That’s cute,” I say. “You fuck up once and suddenly you’re enlightened?”
“That’s all you were, Johnny. A mistake.”
I step closer, and she holds her ground, chin lifted, eyes hard. Brave little thing. Stupid little thing.
“You sure?” My voice drops. “Because you were pretty fucking convincing when you opened that door for me. When you shoved me on your lumpy little couch, and rode my cock like you were fucking starving for it.”
Her hand moves fast.
The slap cracks across my face loud enough to bounce off the tile. My cheek burns, and for a second, all I do is breathe through it while Alice stands there with her hand still raised and rage shaking through her body.
Then I laugh.
Low. Ugly. Pleased.
“There she is.”
“You don’t get to keep using that against me,” she says. “I was angry. I was stupid. I wanted one bad choice that belonged to me, and I picked the worst possible one. Congratulations.”
“Well shit. Way to make a guy sound cheap.”
“You are.”
I grin even though my cheek still stings. “Fuck, that’s mean.”
“That’s not mean, Johnny. Mean is what you do when you’re bored.” Her eyes stay locked on mine, bright with disgust. “You’re fucking sick. A goddamn psychopath who should be chained up and studied.”
I click my tongue, smiling wider. “Careful, pretty thing. Sounds a little like foreplay when you say it all pissed off.”
“Don’t.”
“What?” I tilt my head, amused. “You’re the one talking about me chained up, pretty thing. Interesting choice, considering the last time chains were involved, you weren’t exactly this mouthy.”
Her face changes.
Anger first.
Then hurt.
Real hurt, the kind that doesn’t flare pretty. The kind that sits heavy behind her eyes and makes her look at me like I’m something rotten she finally stopped mistaking for interesting.
“Don’t you dare twist this into that,” she says, voice shaking.
“You killed my fucking pets, Johnny. My harmless, tiny, stupid little pet crabs. You took the only things in my apartment that couldn’t hurt anyone, cooked them like it was some sick joke, and handed them to me because you wanted to watch my face when I figured it out. ”
My smile thins.
“They were crabs.”
“They were mine.” Her voice cracks on the word, and she hates it. I can see that too. “That’s what made it fun for you, right? Not that they mattered to anyone else. Not that it made sense. Just that they mattered to me.”
I say nothing.
She steps closer, disgust cutting through the fear now. “You didn’t do it because you’re dark or dangerous or whatever bullshit you tell yourself when you look in the mirror. You did it because you’re empty, and you wanted to prove you could make even the softest part of my life feel unsafe.”
Well fuck. Smarter than she looks.
My mouth curves anyway, slower this time. Meaner.
“Careful,” I say. “You’re going to hurt my feelings.”
Her eyes harden. “Good.”
“It was funny,” I say.
“No.” Her voice drops. “It was fucking pathetic. Just like you.”
That one lands wrong.
My eyes narrow.
Alice sees it, and instead of getting scared, she gets steadier. “You hurt tiny, defenseless things because you couldn’t stand that I cared about something that had nothing to do with you. That isn’t dark. It isn’t clever. It’s empty. Fucking sad.”
Empty.
Fuck that word.
Sick, I can use. Evil, I can wear. Monster, I can smile at. Empty makes me sound like nothing, and nothing is not what I am.
“I’m done,” she says. “With you. With whatever fucked-up game you think we’re playing. It’s over.”
I look at her then. Really look.
Damp hair. Shaking hands. My brother’s water on her skin. My brother’s calm still hanging in the air between us like something I can’t scrape off the walls.
And that’s what clicks everything into place.
Fuck, it pisses me off.
Jagger won.
“You don’t want me?” I ask.
“No.”
No hesitation. No stumble. No fun.
I smile because my mouth knows its fucking job. “Say that again.”
“I don’t want you, Johnny.” Her voice snaps across the pool room, sharp enough to echo. “I don’t want your hands on me. I don’t want your eyes on me. I don’t even want to breathe the same fucking air as you.”
The room goes dead quiet inside me.
Then my smile fades.
Not all at once. Slowly. Like something being turned off.
“Well,” I say softly, stepping closer, “That can be arranged.”
Her expression changes.
There it is.
Too late.
She moves, but I move faster. My hand closes around her wrist, and when she jerks back, I pull her with me. She fights immediately, shoving at my chest, nails catching skin, but all I can hear is that one sentence.
I don’t even want to breathe the same fucking air as you.
Something ugly and calm settles under my ribs.
“Don’t worry, pretty thing,” I say, dragging her toward the edge as she twists hard enough to almost slip free. “I’ll make sure you never have to breathe my air again.”
Her eyes widen.
Then we hit the water.