Royal Prick (A Stepbrother Romance #2)
J.L. Beck
Chapter One
-Royal
I turned the music up on my stereo, trying to ignore my mother’s annoying yelling. I already knew what it was that she wanted. She was always bitching and moaning about me fighting at school, and it was starting to get on my last damn nerve. Why on earth she thought talking about the issue would make it better was beyond me.
All I could say was she thought way f*cking wrong. Every single time she brought it up, it made me want to do it more. To disobey and see what she would say next. It was like knowing the fire would burn you if you stuck your fingers in the flames, but doing it anyway because it might hurt less than last time.
“Royal!” Her voice was stern. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
“I warned you. I told you what would happen if I got another phone call from the school saying you were fighting. What the hell is wrong with you, child?” My mother finished just as she barreled through my bedroom door. I took in her dismantled appearance. Her dark brown hair which was usually flowing freely down her back, was in a messy bun, her face had worry lines on it, and her deep blue eyes had unshed tears in them. I sighed into the air.
Fucking Christ.
I almost felt bad about what I had done, and about what I would continue to do, but I couldn’t. Not when it would happen repeatedly for months to come. The complaints about it wouldn’t change my mind. I growled out loud showing her my irritation and meeting her angry stare with one that said, who really cares?
Not me. Not Royal Black. I had more important shit to worry about.
“If this is the same shit you always bring up, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve heard it half a dozen times now. You don’t want me to fight; you don’t want me to get hurt,” I mocked, shoving the same words she had said to me time and time again back at her.
I was going to do what I wanted either way. I was a f*cking * like that.
I continued on, “You don’t want me to become a criminal. You don’t want me to ruin my future.” I air quoted her words.
“I’m going to do whatever I want, no matter how much you tell me you don’t want me to. It would be easier if you just saved yourself the time and breath and walked away.” I shrugged my shoulders, pretending like I didn’t care that she was hurt by my words or what I was doing. Still even I could see the sting of what I was doing like a slap across the face to her.
“Royal,” she choked out my name, and actual tears started falling from her eyes. Yeah I couldn’t do this with her again. It was difficult being the hard, cold, * that I was. Worst of all, because it wasn’t my mom's fault that I was this way, she just ended up having to take the brunt of it all.
I pushed up off the bed where I was laying down. My mom had blamed herself for years for the reason her and my father were no longer together. We both knew it wasn’t either of our faults.
“Mom,” I started, my eyes connecting with her.
“I love you. You know that, but I have to have some type of outlet for the bullshit that runs through me. When my temper and rage hits a high point, there is only one to release it. I have to cope in the only way I know how.” I paused, forcing myself to look away and anywhere but at the tears that continued to fall from her eyes.
“I have to find a way to remove that hate from my body, otherwise, it will eat away at me. If I do nothing, who knows what will happen. I don’t control the pain. The pain controls me.” I hated how much truth was in my words.
There wasn’t one word that left my lips that was a lie. If she didn’t believe me, then that was completely on her. I had never lied to her about the fighting that I was doing. It was always right in plain sight.
“You need to understand that the type of anger you have is fixable. We can take you to therapy.” It was as if she was trying to come up with a solution when there wasn’t one.
“There is no reason to be fighting in school. Do you have any idea what kind of parent it makes me look like?” She wiped away any lingering tears, her face turning cold. I knew what she was doing.
Coming up with excuses to make me stop, to make me feel guilty. Once upon a time it had worked. It had made me think through things before reacting. Now it did nothing. My only reaction was a fist to someone else’s face, and then there was the things I could do with my dick, but I wasn’t about to make my mom a grandma any time soon. I just liked to f*ck.
I blinked my eyes closed and took a deep breath trying to calm myself. I could feel the burn of acid rising from my stomach and up into my throat. It burned almost as much as the painful distance I was putting between us did.
I was beyond f*cked up, and I was barely over legal age. I had a long ass road ahead of me. I couldn’t bear to drag her down with me. I knew more than anyone that my mom didn’t need this shit. After everything life had already given her, with being a single parent, and doing all that she could on her own for years, then to put up with the shit I was doing on top of it all.
Yeah she deserved better from her son.
Still, I was selfish. I needed to do what was best for me. Not what was best for her emotions, or what she felt was best for me. My mother didn’t understand that the best thing for me was to hurt other people, when she should’ve based that off of the amount of pain I’d caused her.