The Rake (Boston Belles #4)(17)

Bugger.





Fourteen Years Old.



First crush.

That’s what they call it.

Now I’m starting to understand why.

It feels like I’m crashing into the ocean.

Not cannonballing either. More like slamming into it horizontally. You know, when breaking the surface feels like hitting concrete.

It hurts like a bitch.

Hurts to look at his brown eyes. The way they zing when our stares meet across the hallway or in class.

Hurts when he lets out a laugh, and I feel it rattling my bones, and then I feel his happiness spreading in my body, warm and sticky, like it’s honey.

Hurts when I see other girls talk to him, and I just want to grab them by the shoulders and SCREAM that he is mine. Because he is. That’s why he saves those smiles and looks and cocked eyebrows just for me.

I don’t know if it’s normal to feel this way. Like this one guy holds the key to my moods.

The weird part is … this is so not me. I’m not boy crazy. I’m more like … I don’t know, a crazy boy.

A tomboy. A scallywag. Always up to no good. Pulling pranks, climbing trees, begging Mom to let me stay out and play a few more minutes before dinner. This is my first encounter with feelings that have nothing to do with my family.

I’ve never had a crush before. So I can’t tell if it’s okay to feel this way. Like he is carrying my heart in his pocket.

One thing is for sure.

Ninth grade is going to be a long year.

Because the person I’m crushing on?

Well, it’s Mr. Locken, my coach.





A little over a decade ago, my sister Persy, my best friend Sailor, Aisling, and I were at a charity ball, hosted by the Fitzpatricks.

As we watched one of our high school friends being paraded around like a prized horse by one of the older men, we made a pact there and then. We promised each other to only marry out of love.

Not because of money, not because of circumstances, or any other ulterior motive.

Not all of us fulfilled that promise with equal success.

Sailor, forever the overachiever, had kept her word. Hers was a love match by the book, full of heart emojis and chubby-cheeked babies, and a reformed manwhore of a husband who kissed the ground she walked upon.

Persy married Cillian Fitzpatrick, Hunter’s brother. Those two were what I called a hot mess express. They’d started as strictly business. But I knew my sister had always loved the eldest Fitzpatrick brother. He, in return, fell in love with her the way you fall into an abyss. Hard and fast, with nothing to grasp on your way down.

Aisling was caught in the poisonous claws of Boston’s favorite monster, only to find it was lethal to everyone but her. Sam Brennan had no fear of God, but touch a hair on his wife’s head and he would tear the city apart.

And then there was me.

I knew I’d never marry, yet I’d still participated in the pact. Not because I believed I’d change my mind, but because I understood my sister, Aisling, and Sailor needed that reassurance.

The reassurance that I was okay. That nothing was broken. That I was capable of falling in love, even though I wasn’t.

Or maybe I was. I wouldn’t know, because I’d never been at risk of facing such a travesty.

“Ma’am? Mistress of the manor? Are you even with us?” Sailor snapped her fingers in front of my face, trying to pull me out of my reverie. We were all flung over the couch in my apartment, enjoying our weekly takeout meal. Peruvian, this time. Me, Sailor, Persy, and Aisling, Cillian and Hunter’s baby sister.

“Her brain short-circuited.” Aisling swept her raven-black hair off her face, snatching my phone from between my fingers while munching on seafood paella. “She must be overwhelmed. Pass me the wine, please. I’ll take over.”

Aisling was tucked next to me. Persy, with her golden hair fanned over my shoulder in silky ribbons, sat on my other side, peeking over my head to watch the screen as Aisling scrolled through my phone. Perched on the coffee table, Sailor—redheaded, freckled, and youthful—refilled all of our wine glasses and wolfed down ceviche.

I’d designed my apartment to express my personality. And my personality, according to the tiny place I occupied, was schizophrenic, fun, and in desperate need of a good scrub.

With palm tree wallpaper, a deep green ceiling, and bright orange couch, you couldn’t accuse me of having conservative taste. I had pop art paintings, a collection of vases from all around the world, and prints of feminist quotes I found particularly compelling.

Oh, and massive promotional posters of me wearing nothing but a thong and a smile, enjoying a champagne bath in a huge glass. Those were plastered all over Boston’s billboards too.

Madame Mayhem: Where Your Morals Go to Die

“I can’t believe you two are drinking.” Sailor peered at Persy and Aisling, both of them mothers to breastfed babies. Aisling, especially, was the kind of woman who couldn’t even jaywalk without breaking into hives. Ambrose, her son, was still tiny.

“I cannot believe you never pumped and dumped.” Aisling “Ash” Fitzpatrick shrugged, taking another sip of her wine. “And people think I’m the nerdy one.”

“You are!” we all said in unison.

Ash had been late to the Boston Belles party. Persy and I knew Sailor through school, but Aisling became part of the gang only after Sailor had met Hunter. She was the goodie two-shoes out of us four. The doctor. The pedigreed, well-heeled daughter of an oil family who went and married Boston’s most brutal and forbidding mafia prince.