Chapter 4 #2
I don’t shake my head or smile, but I want to.
Rich boys get treated like shit, too, and I’m glad he knows that I know that.
Every single one of these fucking people thinks everyone else wants to be them, but anyone can make money.
Anyone can buy the life. They don’t ride around in hot cars and make friends with the right people or go to the top universities because they want to.
They do it because they don’t have a choice. That’s not freedom.
Garrett Ames drifts around the lawn, talking on his phone, and I’m about to leave and take the rest of our shit out of here when I see his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter skip over to him.
She wears a two-piece like all the other girls, but hers has yellow flowers on it, and her hair has a matching ribbon on top of her head, holding locks away from her face. I don’t know why it catches my attention. Just seems weird. Like a fetish outfit or something.
“Daddy?” She beams up at him. “Can we borrow the driver tonight? We want to go for ice cream.”
He turns, holding his phone to his ear, and smiles at her. “Ice cream…” he says as if he doesn’t believe her, but he’ll still let her have anything she wants.
Unlike Callum, who he’s not happy with for whatever reason.
She steps closer to him, and I can’t hear what they say, but then his hand brushes her hair and moves slowly down her arm.
I pause.
He’s not touching anything inappropriate, but it’s a…
It’s a fucking caress. Am I the only one seeing this?
I look around, everyone in the pools in their own worlds, and then I dart my eyes up to Callum.
The girl with him is gone and he watches his father and stepsister talk and smile at each other.
Then he shifts his gaze to me. We’re twenty feet away from each other, and I can make out his midnight-blue eyes now.
His dark blond hair is already streaked from the sun as it lies across his forehead, still damp from his swim, and I don’t think he can tell from this distance if I’m looking at his face or his neck or his arms or his stomach.
Nice body. I wonder if he knows how to use it.
Sliding my attention back to the father and daughter, I see her bounce back to her friends, and he resumes his call, nothing else indicating that anything was weird between them. Maybe she’s just a daddy’s girl?
I look up at the golden boy again, an idea occurring to me. He’s been staring at me for ten minutes. If he has me alone, maybe he’d like a closer look.
I tip my chin at the potted palm on his balcony. “Want me to tend to that plant before I go?” I ask.
He holds my gaze for a few seconds. “Come up,” he says.
Entering through one of the patio doors, I head down a white hallway of marble and gold trim everywhere.
Gold mirrors, gold picture frames, gold trinkets.
The floors shine, and as I come up on a stairwell to my right, I look up to the second and third floors, imagining a definitive death for anyone who falls.
Everything is clean and bright and hard, and for a second, I’m a little more forgiving toward Macon and Army.
I could always sit on the furniture, and nothing ever felt cold in our house.
How much prettier this place would be if I got a rich boy to beg in it.
I find my way upstairs, passing photos on the walls of his family and of a woman who looks like him. Unlike my mother’s pictures, though, her smiles seem real.
Walking into the bedroom, I trail down a short hallway and come into a large space that looks like a hotel room. The girl I saw earlier lies propped up on her elbows on his bed, still in her swimsuit, and there’s also a dresser, a desk, and a private bathroom.
I find him outside the sliding doors to my right, still standing on his balcony.
I step up behind him and let my eyes trail over his hair and down his neck. I almost smile at his exhibit of courage right now, letting me get this close. How easy it would be for me to push him.
Instead, I curb the temptation and kneel down, picking off dead fronds and debris in the large gray pot.
Turning his head, he peers down. “You did sign a nondisclosure agreement when you took this job, right?”
What would I have to talk about? The underage drinking? His father treating him like shit? His parents fighting?
Or maybe it’s something about his stepsister. Yeah, that’s it.
“If I was going to talk,” I say, continuing my task, “you would know. This would be a very different conversation.”
“How so?”
Rising, I stuff all the leaves in my pocket, closing the distance between us by an inch. Then two. “Are you scared of us?” I ask him.
His brow pinches together, but he doesn’t reply.
I stand up straight, my nose just above his. “Are you scared of me?”
Still, he doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t want you to be,” I tell him.
How boring would that be? I want him to try me. Please.
His chest rises and falls with heavy breaths, and a moment passes, then several, and I’m not sure what to do, because there are so many possibilities. I could make him bleed or make him—
He lunges out and grabs my neck, backing me into the side of the balcony as he bares his teeth.
It takes a second to catch my breath as the railing digs into my ass.
“I can do whatever I want right now,” he whispers, glaring up at me, “and I’d get away with it. That’s your reality.”
I try not to laugh—my pulse is racing in a way that feels so goddamn good.
Everything inside me is so warm—my heart, my arms, the blood pumping in my veins—but I still have chills.
No one has ever wrapped a hand around my neck before, but there’s something intimate about it.
His grip isn’t quite tight enough to hurt me, just to keep me.
“Maybe,” I breathe out. “But when I’m mowing your fucking lawn someday, I’m not signing shit.” I press against his hand, bringing our faces closer as I whisper. “But you’ll still hire me.” And I smile. “Even though you’re scared of me.”
’Cuz you like looking at me, don’t you? Not even these rich pricks’ precious Wolfe Room can occupy his mind like I already do.
I knock his hand away, his glare meeting my amusement. What the fuck is he going to do?
Thunder rolls across the sky, the wind kicking up the palms on his balcony.
“Rain’s coming.” I walk back into the bedroom, issuing my challenge if he fucking dares to accept it. “The Bay will be on fire tonight.”
As I leave, I don’t seriously believe he’ll come, though. He’s the kind who’s only tough on his own turf.