Rival(7)

“I do stupid things, Tate. That’s what I do. I’m good at it.” I reached up slowly and tucked the few stray hairs from her ponytail behind her ear, lowering my voice to a near whisper. “My father knows it. She knows it.” I dropped my eyes and then looked back up. “You know it, too, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer. Only studied me, the wheels in her head turning.

My hand fell to her cheek, and I remembered all the times that she had reminded me of Fallon. I stroked Tate’s cheek with my thumb, wishing she’d yell at me. Wishing she didn’t care about me. How much easier it would be to know that I didn’t have anything real in my life.

I held her sweet, unknowing face and leaned in closer, smelling her barely-there perfume as I brought my lips closer.

“Madoc?” she asked, her voice confused as she watched me.

Tilting my head down, I planted a soft kiss on her forehead and then leaned back slowly.

Her eyebrows were pinched together in worry as she stared at me. “Are you okay?”

No.

Well, sometimes.

Okay, yes. Most of the time, I guess.

Just not at night.

“Wow.” I took a deep breath and smiled. “I hope you know that that didn’t mean anything,” I joked. “I mean, I love you. Just not like that. More like a sister.” I burst into laughter and hunched over, barely finishing the sentence as I closed my eyes and held onto my stomach.

“I don’t get the joke,” Tate scolded.

A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, and Tate and I looked up.

“What the hell’s going on?” Jared’s big and angry daddy voice ripped through the bowling alley, making my ears ache.

But as I turned around to face him, I accidentally stepped back onto the slippery lane.

“Oh, shit!” My breath caught as I slid, and I stupidly kept my weight on Tate, which was too much for her. Backward I fell and into my lap she stumbled. We slammed to the floor, hitting the wood hard. I’d probably bruised every damn inch of my ass, but Tate was cool. She landed on me. That was cool for me, too.

But when I looked over at my best friend standing at the start of the lane, looking at us with murder in his eyes, I pushed Tate off me in disgust.

“Dude, she slipped me whiskey and tried to date-rape me!” I pointed at Tate. “She keeps it under the counter. Go look!”

Tate growled and crawled back up to the median, her messy ponytail hanging by a prayer.

“Jax!” Jared yelled to the lane at my right where Jax was crawling back up the lane. “And you.” Jared’s eyes shot bullets at me. “Get in my car now.”

“Ooooh, I think he wants to give you a spanking,” I singsonged to Tate as she stomped down the median to her boyfriend.

“Shut up, doofus,” she spat back.





CHAPTER 2




FALLON


“Was that your first kiss?” he asks, pulling his head back to look at me. I keep my gaze down and clutch the kitchen counter behind me. This feels wrong. He’s pressing my back into the countertop, and I can’t move. It hurts.

Just look at him, I will myself. Look up, you idiot! Tell him to back off. He doesn’t see you. He’s a user. He makes you feel dirty.

“Come here.” He grabs for my face, and I cringe. “Let me show you how to use that tongue.”

This feels wrong.

“Fallon?” The soft, feathery voice broke through my dream. “Fallon, are you up?”

I heard a knock.

“I’m coming in,” she announced.

I opened my eyes, blinking away the fog of sleep from my brain. I couldn’t move. My head felt separated from my body, and my arms and legs were molded to the bed, as if a ten-ton weight sat on my back. My brain was active, but my body was still sound asleep.

“Fallon,” a voice sang out to me. “I made you poached eggs. Your favorite.”

I smiled, curling my toes and clenching my fists to wake them up. “With toast to dip?” I called from underneath my pillow.

“White toast, because multigrain is for pussies,” Addie deadpanned, and I remembered I’d told her those very same words about four years ago when my mom married Jason Caruthers and we came to live here.

I kicked the covers off my legs and sat up, laughing. “I missed you, girlfriend. You’re one of the only people in the world I don’t want to cut.”