7. Scarlett
SCARLETT
PRINCESS SCARLETT, INDEED
Mills:
Hey, sweetheart. Just checking in. You still enjoying your visit to the backwards of nowhere?
I have no clue why you’d trade the hustle and bustle of here for the humdrum of a town smaller than my armpit. Bet they don’t even have pizza delivery out there.
Also, Dani’s thirty-three weeks pregnant today. I’m gonna be a grandpa in a month or two!
Iopen the picture he sent and find a sonogram of a sweet little… butterball, with twisted limbs, a foot near its mouth, an arm somehow coming out of its butt, and a big fat belly.
Grinning, I set my pen aside and pick up my phone with both hands, tap the box at the bottom of my screen, then type up a fast response.
Me:
I think something went awry during the manufacturing phase. Tell Dani to keep the receipt and ask them about the leg relocation plan. Might even get a 2-for-1 deal if she can hold out till the end of the month.
Mills:
Har-har. You’re not funny. My baby is perfect. My baby’s baby is perfect. And this is the thanks I get, even when I’m over here suggesting they use Scarlett for the baby’s middle name?
Disrespectful!
I figured once you settle down and start a family of your own someday, you could reciprocate. It’s a good plan.
Me:
Bold of you to assume I’ll ever settle down. Even bolder that you think I’d do it with a human who possesses the baby-making anatomy.
I’ve decided I might try liking women for a while. They’re less drama, smell nicer, and someone is usually baking cupcakes.
My brother’s girlfriend is amazing… I might see where she stands on the matter.
Mills:
I repeat… HAR-HAR. And for added emphasis, I’ll give you a third. HAR!
You tried out the crappy guys. They sucked.
When the time is right, you’ll meet one of the good ones.
In the interim, I caution you against breaking up a happy home. Your brother had first dibs on Ms. Nichols, and I’d say he’s pretty fond of her.
Enjoy your vacation to nowhere. Send me a postcard if you get a chance. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to research leg-relocation factories. This is serious business. Nothing but the best for my baby’s baby.
Snickering, I lock my phone and toss it onto my book.
Lying flat on my stomach on top of my bed, I ignore the deep “motherfucker” booming from outside, then the solid thump of what may be a fist hitting…
a cow. Instead, I close my eyes and luxuriate in the peace I experience inside Ryan Nichols’ old bedroom.
I sleep in his bed, and when I’m bored, I stare at the walls he once stared at.
For every moment my head rests on his old pillow, I swear he’s somewhere nearby, chuckling under his breath and watching me the way men watch women they’re fond of.
We’ve never even met, and he’s dead now, but I feel that ‘she’s so silly, but we love her anyway’ look when the door is closed and it’s just us. The ‘yeah, she’s strange, but we make do’ look.
He’s not my brother. He was Nova’s. But for as long as I’m here, in this home, in this room, I feel like maybe I’ve been granted quasi-little sister status.
Or maybe I’m just tired and a tad crazy.
Groaning, I turn over and let my arms dangle off the sides of the bed, while simultaneously, a booming “you fucker!” bounces through the house.
Every time Lincoln shouts, I twitch. Every time he grunts, I jump.
I can’t go out there to see what they’re doing, since that would make it seem like I care.
I don’t.
And yet…
At Lincoln’s “try that again, bitch!” I surge off my bed and stride across the room.
Snatching up a hair elastic, I whip my hair off the back of my neck before it sends me certifiably insane, then moving through the door, I stalk along the hall, into the kitchen, and stop on the threshold of the back door.
Twenty feet from the bottom of the porch stairs, my brother and his friend brawl. Blood stains the snow just enough to make my stomach tumble, but not so much that anyone seems to be dying. Sweat makes their hair stand up, and moisture from the snow soaks through their clothes.
Lincoln is smaller than that other one, but then again, that other one is unusually, unnaturally large, which makes the comparison useless.
I wonder if Sebastion Jameson’s pecker is horrendously small after all that juice he injected to get so tall?
Shame. Since a younger, happier, less bitter version of me might’ve considered a fact-finding mission time well spent.
Using his weight against him, Lincoln surges free of Sebastion’s grip, bounds to his feet, and then he sweeps in fast and takes Sebastion’s legs out from beneath him.
He hits the ground with an earth-trembling boom, but heavy doesn’t mean incapable, and Sebastion isn’t willing to go down alone, so he grabs onto my brother and wraps his arm around his neck, trapping the duo in a position some could, without context, consider a little romantic.
Ya know, if you’re a guy who likes guys.
“What the hell are you two doing?” I stomp across the porch and fold my arms to combat the cold.
Like a couple of meerkats, they peek this way and show off bloodied noses, bleeding brows, and dumb grins.
“Aw, man,” Nova grumbles from her rocking chair to my left. “I was enjoying the show. Why would you stop them?”
“Because they’re bleeding!” I thrust my hand in their direction and growl when Sebastion throws a sneaky jab right into my brother’s ribs. “You realize you look stupid, right?”
“He was teaching me something.” Lincoln rolls away from Sebastion and stops on his knees, panting toward the muddied snow. “We were busy.”
“Teaching you what? How to take a beating?”
Chuckling, Sebastion merely flops to the ground with his arms wide, exactly how I flopped onto my bed minutes ago.
“I wasn’t taking a beating!” Lincoln bites back. “Dude’s bigger than a Transformer, and I was holding my own.”
“Nah, you weren’t,” Sebastion teases. “You were my bottom. Again.”
“I was doing fine!” Linc pushes off the ground and stumbles three steps to the right. Because his friend scrambled his brains! Straightening himself out and wandering this way, he shows off a goofy grin as it curls higher to the side. “Nova, baby. I wasn’t losing, was I?”
“I mean…” Her cheeks blaze a fiery red. “I dunno. Do it again so I can be sure.”
“Those brain cells don’t regenerate,” I snarl. “You’re gonna be sad when you’re sixty and it feels like you’re conversing with a potato.”
“You have no faith.” Lincoln trudges up the porch steps and grabs me rougher than any other man would be allowed. Dragging me closer, he presses a sweaty, messy, bloody kiss to my brow. “Stop being so cranky.”
“Ew!” I jam my fist into his sore ribs and shove him off. “Don’t touch me.”
“You got your period or somethin’, Princess?”
I shoot an angry glare back to the yard and watch, furious, as Sebastion climbs off the ground.
He grunts now that the cold eats into his aching muscles, and for the moment he spends with one knee on the snow, one foot in front of it, and all his weight resting on the precarious frame, I consider sprinting closer and kicking his supporting leg out from beneath him.
Probably wouldn’t hurt him. Probably injure myself doing it.
But watching him fall might be worth the effort.
While Lincoln stumbles away and sweats on Nova, I sneer toward the jerkoff who prides himself on being the least likable person in every room he enters.
“They say eating avocados helps regulate a woman’s estrogen spike during that time of the month.
” He stretches to his full height and shows off all the myriad ways he can appear arrogant, even without moving his face all that much.
“Avocados are an excellent source of healthy fats and fiber, and they manage cortisol levels, which we all know directly affects stress.” His eyes dance with mirth.
With giddiness. With pure delight. “Need some avocado, Princess? I mean, I won’t get it for you, since I’m not one of those clowns who enjoys fetching shit for royalty.
But if you run—” He points toward the far end of the property.
“—I might toss one. See if I can bean you in the back of the head while you’re going. ”
“You’d think a guy with no friends might attempt to be more palatable sometimes. Ya know, so those of us forced to spend time with him are less inclined to wanna shoot him in between the eyes.” I stare straight down my nose at the asshole too oblivious for his own good. “Not even gonna try?”
“Why be palatable when I’d prefer my enemies choke?”
“You’re gonna need to watch your mouth, Jameson.” Less Nova-focused now, Lincoln grabs my shoulder and tugs me back a step. “Walk away.”
“Nah,” he dismisses my brother and stares straight into my eyes.
“Did you know I wanted to play pro football once upon a time? Star quarterback, baby. The chicks really dig that kinda prestige. If you wanna try the avocado thing, I’d get to practice my throws, and you’d get a little exercise to work through your stuck-up attitude.
Exercise is, after all, beneficial for that time of the month too.
Plus.” He splits his lips, bloody and all, into an infuriating grin.
“I’d really like to see that fucker splat against the back of your head. ”
“Hey!” Lincoln tosses me away and squares up. “You don’t get to speak to her like that!”
“Why not?” Sebastion stalks closer. “You said I can’t fuck her.”
Surprise bursts from the base of my throat. “Excuse me?”
“I received instructions to kill her, but I don’t feel like it just yet.”
Lincoln’s anger burns a thousand degrees hotter.
“No killing and no fucking. Which just leaves us with talking. I don’t know about you, Castro, but I’m gonna give the energy I get, so for as long as she wants to act like a spoiled princess, I’ll treat her like one.
Though I have no clue why she’s complaining.
” His dark eyes swing across and lock on mine.
“I just gave you legitimate, helpful health advice, since you’re clearly on the rag. ”
“Listen, jackass! I don’t know what kinda—”
“No.” Lincoln holds me back and points into the distance. “March on, Jameson. Go for a run or something. Exercise is good for you, right?”
“I was exercising! Locked you up, too. But then Princess Scarlett crashed our party, which is so weird, since I know she prefers the company of a dead soldier’s bedroom and her own hand.”
With a horrified squeak, Nova flies down the porch steps and wraps her arm around Tank’s.
She swings the seven-foot asswipe around and leads him on a walk to…
anywhere but here. “Ry had this hideout a few minutes from here. Through the trees.” She risks a glance back, to Lincoln’s flaring nostrils and my balled fists.
“Did he ever tell you about it? That’s the sort of stuff dudes talk about, right? ”
“He’s such a piece of shit.” I turn to my brother and carefully finger the split above his brow, pushing the skin back together. “He’s not worth—”
“That was on you!” He shoves my hand away and stuns me with the poison in his words. “You busted your way into a situation that had nothing to do with you, Scarlett. You started that shit.”
“But…” I stumble back a step, the punch of his anger slamming me square in the stomach. “Are you serious? He said…”
“I know what he said! I know the bullshit that comes out of his mouth is nasty and not okay, and I intend to pop him in the fuckin’ face for it, cause you’re my baby sister and nobody gets to speak to you that way.
But you’re the one who came out snapping and swiping for no reason except your own bad mood.
You’re the one who starts a fight with him, and then you cry foul when he bites back. ”
“He’s a pig! He’s absolutely disgusting and—”
“You don’t get to smack a wasp’s nest with a stick and then pretend they stung you for no reason.
” He glares out at the duo as they wander farther and farther away.
“He’s a dick. He’s unlikable. And fuck knows, his big mouth is probably gonna get him killed one day.
But don’t act like you didn’t just start that argument.
You don’t want him to speak to you?” He stalks toward the back door and swings it wide, but before stepping inside, he glances across and burns me with the disgust in his eyes. “Put the fuckin’ stick down.”
Shame and embarrassment flood my veins as my big brother, my always-supporter, stomps inside the house and slams the door behind him.
While Nova and Sebastion meander farther onto the property next door, and Lincoln barks out a frustrated “fuck!” inside, I tip my head back and swallow the infuriating humiliation that bubbles in my blood and swells in my belly.
What the hell is wrong with you, Scarlett?
Why are you like this?
My brother’s disappointed expression brands itself in a special corner of my psyche. The way he looked at me, the way he never has before, promises to revisit me in my dreams later tonight.
Right alongside the pain in Sebastion’s eyes every single time I speak to him.
Put the stick down, Scarlett.