Mad Boys (Blue Ivy Prep, #2)(103)

I could have floated out here forever. When the music changed tempo though, she didn’t flow away, just danced right up next to me and I kept an arm around her waist for when she wanted to dip.

The third time I swung her back up, her hand pressed to my shoulder as her gaze locked on mine. I don’t know how long we hung there but one moment we stared and the next our lips connected.

The kiss lit me up as her mouth opened to mine. Soft, silken, electric, and the throb of the music seemed to match the rhythm of my heart as it thudded out a base note for how she tasted.

I’d kissed exactly three girls in my life. The first one had been Natalie Porter in fifth grade. She’d kissed me on a bet. It had been gross.

The second was Melissa Tarrington in sophomore year. She’d been really sweet and kissing her had been… weird but not unpleasant.

Kissing KC was like fireworks on the fourth of July while eating the hottest wings on the planet. I was burning up and dazzled at the same time. When I lifted my head, she opened her eyes to stare up at me then dipped her gaze to my lips again.

Hers were shiny, and pink, damp from the kiss and she tasted a lot like more. I wanted the hot burn of her on my tongue, and I wanted to feel the way her breath changed. I flattened a hand against her back, the pound of her heart the tempo I wanted to follow.

We flowed apart as the music changed again, but her eyes were shining and her smile was even wider. The next time there was a slow song, she nuzzled a kiss to my chin and then I stole another from her lips.

It was how the rest of the evening passed, Aubrey and Forrest had slipped out earlier, but KC and I stayed until it was almost midnight. Then our walk back to the dorm was slow. We held hands, traded little kisses, but no words. KC didn’t need words from me.

We were almost back to the dorm when my phone went off with a news alert. I only had a handful set, usually about Mom and Gibs, so I pulled it out and stared at the screen. It was a video.

KC leaned against my arm. “Someone send you something?”

“It was uploaded,” I told her. Maybe I should just watch it later.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “He is your stepfather.”

So she had recognized the screen, and I hated Gibs a little bit right now because there was a shadow passing over her eyes, diminishing the soft glow of the earlier light.

“Go on,” she teased, almost playful. “You know you want to.” And was she being playful to make it easier for me?

With a sigh, I hit play. It was a video from a concert. Were they on the road again? I honestly didn’t remember. They’d been working in the studio at Christmas.

Then suddenly the camera zoomed in on Gibs where he stood on the stage with a guitar strapped on and a wild smile on his face. “Glad to be out here tonight and I’ve got a little something I want to share with all of you thanks to one of my favorite kids…Jonas, man, this is for you.”

The first three notes vibrated out of the phone, and I recognized it instantly. Where had he gotten that? I jerked my gaze up to KC and all the light was gone. The animation in her face had disappeared behind shutters and her smile vanished.

The look on her face crushed me. The apology she was desperately owed seemed glued to my tongue, and my mouth wouldn’t work.

“So… you gave it to him.” The song I’d written, the one she’d put the lyrics to and Gibs was singing them with such passion it would totally be a hit. “Cool.”

Then she just walked away and didn’t look back at me once.





Forty-Two





KC


Friends.

We’d become friends. Or at least, I thought that was what we were doing. Even Jonas seemed to behave like we were. When I did the lyrics for his song, I never asked him what he was planning to do with it…

Then Dad called him one of his kids.

One. Of. His. Kids.

That hurt way more than it should have.

His singing that song in particular only served to dig fingers into this fresh wound. At the end of what had been a fantastic night, and with my lips tingling from the kisses I’d shared with Jonas, I had no idea what to do with the burn of that revelation.

Jonas seemed surprised. I didn’t even think that was manufactured, but he gave the song to Dad. Fine. Whatever.

Then Dad dedicated it to him.

That…that was taking a lot longer to get over. We tap danced around the step sibling drama. I thought we’d begun to find a natural rhythm living together. My issues with the other douchebags aside, I’d actually started to let myself forget they were douchebags.

Big mistake.

Huge.

“Can I do anything?” Yvette asked on the phone while I painted my toenails. Aubrey glanced over at me from where she was working on her nails.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Like every single time I think I have a handle on this normal life shit, it just all goes sideways. I talked to Frankie a few days ago and she said that sometimes, life just sucks and you can only push through it, and if I wanted Jake to beat the shit out of the boys, he was in.”

“Oh, I vote for that,” Yvette said with a laugh. “In fact, I’ll come down and help. I’ll ask Jean-Paul to come as well.”

“Oh, ho,” Aubrey pounced verbally. “The mystery man has a name and it’s your ex-boyfriend?”