Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (2 page)

“If I’m not fucking you, your
name doesn’t really matter,” I say with a huff. It’s just how my brain works.
“If I’m being honest,
sis
.”

Her hand flies over her mouth, as
if I’ve just muttered the unspeakable in her presence. She should slap me right
now. I’d allow it. I’m an asshole, and I deserve it.

“You’re going to let me talk to
you like that?” An incredulous laugh escapes my mouth. This girl is a fucking
pushover.

Her fingers wrap so tight around
her steering wheel her knuckles turn white. I watch as her lips rub together,
pressed hard into a straight line until she swallows.

“Are you afraid of me?” I lean
into her, pulling in a lungful of her fruity, floral body spray. She’s
completely harmless. Naïve.
Mary-fucking-sunshine
. “You
are. You’re afraid of me.”

“Why would I be scared of you?”
There’s a mild shake in her words.

“Because I just served time for
damn near killing a man. Because I look like I can bench a fucking half-ton
truck, and I’m covered in tats,” I say, dragging my finger across the black ink
that jackets my left bicep. “That and
I’m
not afraid
to speak the truth. I have no filter. I’ll say whatever I want, whenever I
want, even if it makes people uncomfortable.”

“That’s called rudeness,” she
says. “It’s nothing worth bragging about.”

“It’s called being real.” I roll
my window down even more, welcoming the fresh air as if I’ve spent the last
five years drowning. “You should try it sometime.”

“I’m real,” she says. “I just
have manners.”

I shake my head, grinning. It’s
fun getting her going, especially after spending years having to keep my
opinions to myself unless I felt like getting into a brawl with a guy from
another gang. They always ended with the other guy face-planted and seeing
stars and me going to solitary confinement for twenty-four hours.

And then I realized no
big-mouthed moron was worth sacrificing my chances of getting out for good
behavior.

The Toyota pulls toward Blue Pond
Drive, veering left and heading toward the white lake house at the end of the
cul-de-sac. It looks exactly the way it did the day I got hauled off in the
back of a squad car. Every tree, every bush,
every
flowering plant – all of it was exactly the way my mother left it before
she died. My father hadn’t swapped out a single red rosebush.
 

An unfamiliar black Subaru rested
in the driveway with college plates that read PROF773 on the back.

“Mom’s home early.” Jordana pulls
behind the Subaru, shifting into park and turning off her engine. “She’s really
excited to meet you.”

Right.
I bet.

We head up the paved driveway, my
fingers brushing against one of my mother’s prized rose bushes. The pale pink petals
brush against my fingertips before a thorn slices through my flesh. I bring it
to my mouth and suck at the cut until the bleeding subsides.

“Mom!” Jordana calls when we walk
in.

It doesn’t smell like home
anymore.

It smells like when you go to a
friend’s house. It smells like
someone
else’s
home. Not mine. There’s a hint of cinnamon and fabric softener in
the air, and the unfamiliar aroma of someone else’s cooking.

Comfort to someone else, sure,
but not me.

My blood boils and thickens,
chugging through my veins as my body heats. All those nights, lying awake in
bed and dreaming about home…

Never in a million years did I
imagine coming home wouldn’t feel like…coming home.

The home I’d once known and loved
was gone.

Forever.

Replaced and filled by strangers.

A woman with short dark hair, a
cocoa complexion, and high cheekbones floats around the corner at the top of
the sweeping staircase. A knitted shrug wraps her shoulders as she glides down
one stair at a time with a mile-wide smile across her mouth.

“Titan,” she says, stepping
toward me. She’s petite, and her eyes
are knowing
. Her
smile matches Jordana’s tooth for tooth. “I’m Laticia.
So
wonderful to meet you.
Your father has told me so much about you.”

Mm, hm.

“I’ve got a roast in the Crock
Pot,” she says, placing her palm on my bicep. “If you’ll just excuse me, I need
to go check on that.”

She
tip
toes around me, flashing her daughter a kind smile, and disappears around the
corner and into my mother’s kitchen.

I’m not sure whether to head up
to my room or walk around the house and inspect the place for changes. I’m
quite sure the latter would piss me the fuck off.

Jordana stands there awkwardly,
and I catch her eyes tracing the outline of my shoulders. I should probably
find a decent shirt to put on, though I’m positive none of my old stuff will
fit. I’d probably break through it all Hulk-style.

“Thanks for the lift.” I give her
a salute capped off with a smartass smirk. “Unless you want to show me to my
room. Pretty sure I remember how to get there, unless I’ve been relocated, and
in that case-”

“About that,” she says, pulling
in a long sigh. “I’m in your old room.”

“Fucking serious?”

She cringes. “You had the en
suite bathroom. It just made more sense. I didn’t know, when I picked that
room, that you’d be coming home so soon. I wouldn’t have picked it. It was
either that one or your sister’s old room or the small guest room with the hall
bath. I didn’t want to take your sister’s room and-”

“It’s fine.” I cut her off. It’s
not fine, but it is what it is. Besides, I doubt I’ll be living here much
longer. I’m twenty-six. I fully intend to not be living with my father until
I’m thirty like so many others my age.

I hike up the stairs, feeling the
slick familiarity of the wooden banister under my hand. The upstairs air is
warm and thick and smells of unfamiliar perfume and hairspray and
strangers.
 

When I turn down the hall, I pass
Taylor’s old room, stopping in front of it and daring my hand to twist the
knob.

A part of me is fully convinced
that if I open it, she’ll be sitting on her bed with headphones in her ears
doing her homework. I can even picture her cheesy grin as she stares up at me,
and I can imagine the way her eyes twinkle just before she chucks a throw
pillow at me and tells me to get out of her room.

But I don’t go in there.

Some things are better left tucked
away as memories.

I head toward the end of the hall
to the guest room, which sits next to my former bedroom. As the oldest
Blackstone kid, I had the biggest and best room.

Apparently my father had no
problem giving that away to Jordana.

Fuck, I don’t even know her last
name. She’s a stranger, and yet she’s about to become my stepsister. Guess Pops
was too busy to mention he planned to remarry just like he was too busy to keep
in touch beyond a Christmas card during the years he’d remember.

I fling myself across the creaky
guest bed. It’s just as uncomfortable as I remember it to be. My mom was cheap
when she picked it out, thinking that if it’s too uncomfortable, it’ll deter
guests from overstaying their welcome.

She would always say she was
kidding, but we all knew better. When you have a big, fancy lake house, people
always want a “free vacation” and my mother always had a hard time saying “no.”

That’s why the uncomfortable bed
trick worked so well.

My mother was equal parts sweet
and passive-aggressive. She couldn’t help herself.

A puff of dust flies up around
me, flickering into the stream of light that trails in through the window that
overlooks Blue Pond. My father’s speedboat, Katherine the Great, named for my
mother, rests in the slip next to the dock.

I wonder when he’s going to buy a
new boat and name it for Laticia?

Only a matter of time, I’m sure.

A small rap on the door precedes
Jordana’s entrance. This girl must think she’s my personal keeper, and it’s
really starting to irritate me.

Now if she weren’t my soon-to-be “stepsister”
and someone I could potentially fuck, I wouldn’t mind it, but since she’s off
limits, she serves me no purpose.

She’s a mild annoyance.
A flea on a tick on the back of a dog.

A fucking hot as hell flea, but
still.

“Yes, Jordana?” I sigh loudly,
drawing her name out and making no bones about the fact that her sunshine-y
presence annoys the ever-loving fuck out of me.

Her dark brows arch and then
furrow. “Dinner’s ready. Your dad just pulled in. Mom asked me to come get
you.”

My hand rakes across my face,
disguising my smile. I feel like a fucking high schooler and this insta-family
shit’s going to get old quick.

I stare up at the ceiling.
“Happen to know where my old clothes are? You know, since you stole my room?”

She prances across the room,
tugging at the closet doors and revealing my former wardrobe, color coded and
divided by season.

Who
the hell has time for this shit?

“You do this?” I rise up,
pointing to where she stands.

She nods. “I had some extra time
when I was home on spring break, so…”

I charge toward my clothes,
rifling through the shirts and pulling out an aqua polo before tugging it over
my head. The sleeves are tight around my arms and the fabric stretches across
my back and shoulders.

It’s going to have to do until I
can shop for new stuff.

“Don’t touch my shit again.” I
comb my hair back into place.

She swallows loudly, shaking her
head and tearing her gaze off me. She totally checked me out. Good to know I
still got it, even if I can’t tap that ass.

“Anyway,” she says, heading out.
“You coming?”

By the time we get to the dining
room, my father is seated at the head of the table, his face buried in his
iPad.

“Lewis.” Laticia draws his
attention to the doorway where I stand. He lowers his device to the table,
fighting the struggle to stop reading his article.

Damn
those things have gotten smaller since I last saw them. Thinner too.

He squints at me from across the
room, like it’s finally dawning on him that he hasn’t seen me in five years.
Dad rises. He looks shorter now. His face is little rounder, as is his belly.
His dark hair has thinned out, fading to gray at the temples. He grabs his
glasses and pulls them off, studying me intensely before he makes his way
across the room.

After dead silence, he extends
his hand to me, which is a relief because I’m not a person who particularly
enjoys hugs these days.

“Titan. Good to see you.” He says
it with minimal conviction, as if I’m a burden and this is a formality. Judging
by the fact that he can’t be bothered to stand up and offer any kind of formal
salutation tells me he’s not exactly excited to have me home.

Laticia and Jordana take their
seats as my father returns to his, and evidently my future stepmother has
already taken the liberty to dish up our meals as if we’re helpless saps.

It smells delicious. I’ll give
her that.
Much better than prison food.

I hunch over my plate, elbows on
the table, and shovel the meat and potatoes mixture into my mouth. I inhale
this meal like it’s my last, and damn if it isn’t the best one I’ve had in a
long time.

“Your father tells me you were
studying engineering,” Laticia says, neglecting to add, “
Before you beat up the drunk driver who killed your mother and sister
and before you were shipped off to prison for assault with willful injury
.”

It’s okay.

She doesn’t have to say it.

We all know.

“Civil engineering. Yes.” I
inhale another bite of tender, savory roast dripping with brown gravy.

“Do you intend on finishing your
studies?” she asks sweetly.

Bless her little heart.

I chew and swallow. “That’s the
plan.”

She turns to my father. “You’ll
help him, Lewis, won’t you?”

My father doesn’t answer. He
takes a bite off his plate and then reaches for his wine glass, taking his
sweet as time mulling it over as if he hasn’t already thought about t his.

I know he has.

“It’s something Titan and I will
have to discuss.” He doesn’t meet Laticia’s gaze. She shoots an uncomfortable
smile my way. Try as I may not to like this woman, she might be the only
advocate I have here. The woman barely knows me and yet she’s already in my
corner.

I like that.

And I hate that.

I want to hate Laticia.

I want to hate her for sliding in
and assuming my mother’s rightful place as the woman of the house.

But I can’t.

She’s too damn sweet.

But her Mary-fucking-sunshine
daughter over here, she’s a whole ‘nother story.

I could easily hate the shit out
of her bubblegum nail polish and her ear-bleed music.

I could also fuck the shit out of
her too, hate-fuck style. A guy could take great pleasure in replacing those
picture perfect smiles of hers with lip-biting orgasmic screams.

I shake my head.

I need to get my mind out of the
gutter and get fucking laid. It’s been way too long.

“So what’s the plan, son?” Dad
asks, plating his fork. He leans back in his seat, dabbing the corners of his
mouth on a white linen napkin.

“The plan?”

His steady surgeon hand balls
into a fist, resting on the table next to his place setting. “You going to look
for work?”

“Of course I’m going to look for
work.” I spit my words slowly. “I’ve been out all of a couple of hours. And
it’s a Sunday.”

“You can stay here thirty days,”
he says. His hand rises, slicing through the air to emphasis his point. “No
more. You’re to find work and get a place of your own.”

He makes no bones about his
distaste for me. Ever since I beat the fuck out of that drunk driver, he made
it perfectly clear that I disappointed him.

But it was never about me.

It was about his image.

He became the surgeon with the
tarnished reputation – the one the nurses gossiped about at work. The one
the people in town whispered about when he drove by in his white Mercedes. The
once revered and admired doctor had fallen from grace, losing his wife and daughter
in a tragic accident and left all alone when his only son got shipped off to
the state penitentiary.

Never mind that I was avenging
his wife and daughter’s deaths.

I made him look bad, and for
that, I lost his love and respect.

A small price
to pay in my book.

“Thirty days?” Laticia chimes in.
“That’s not a lot of time to get on someone’s feet.”

My father shoots her a quick look,
silencing her commentary. I peer over toward Jordana, who’s pushing her carrots
around on her plate and avoiding all forms of eye contact.

“I’ll be out in less.” I stand
up, gripping the white ceramic plate in my clenched hand. “Don’t worry about
me, Pop.”

Jordana whips her face my
direction, watching as I leave the dining room.

Jordana and Laticia and my father
aren’t my family.

As far as I’m concerned, I have
no family. My family died five years ago.

Fuck
those
people.