Ricochet (Addicted #1.5)(77)

“It is late,” he says, scrutinizing our position on the couch. I want to disintegrate into it. “So you two are together now?”

“Yeah,” Lo snaps. “I told you that five days ago.”

“Don’t talk to me with that fucking tone, Loren,” he retorts with the same hostility. “I heard you before. I just didn’t think you two were serious. When you were seven, you said she was your fucking wife.”

I blush, remembering our “pretend” wedding. Rose told me I was stupid during the whole ceremony. I suppose not everything changes.

“I’m not seven anymore,” Lo tells him.

“I can see that.” Jonathan eyes me for a little longer than I like, and I shrink further in the cushions. Lo shifts so my half-naked body is hidden better from his father’s view. “Do you agree with what my son did, Lily?” he asks. “You think it was right of him to fuck with another person’s property?”

I shake my head repeatedly. “No, sir. In fact…” I clear my throat, willing on a bit of confidence. “I’ve told Lo that if we’re going to be together, he’s going to have to change.” The lie tastes gross in my mouth, but I better get used to it. There will be far more from here on out.

Jonathan mulls this over and then says to Lo, “Hopefully a woman can knock some fucking sense into you.” So he’s going to let Lo stay?! We watch as he takes measured steps to the liquor cart, ignoring our not-so innocent position on the couch. He pours himself a glass of bourbon. “I paid for the damages you incurred on the Smith’s house, but I’m taking a portion out of your allowance.”

Lo drills holes into the couch arm above my head, glaring at the object instead of his father. I think that’s a wise decision. “Thanks,” he says.

Jonathan swishes his glass. “I talked to that bitch principal of yours. She’s going to take your suspension off your records. You’ll stay at Dalton unless you fuck up again.” I can barely celebrate the news because he tops the statement off with, “Stop tarnishing my name.”

Lo grits his teeth, his nose flaring to bridle his emotions. I want to tell Lo that his father refuses to even acknowledge why Lo retaliated against Trent Smith. Maybe if he heard the reason, he would understand.

I wonder if Lo is going to try to end the conversation or if he’s going to provoke a volatile reaction from his father. “Okay,” Lo says through clenched teeth, choosing to drop it. “You can leave now.”

After a long pause, Jonathan asks, “You have protection?” Oh my God! I nearly scrunch into a ball, but Lo keeps a hand on the outside of my thigh that hugs his waist.

Lo closes his eyes and then opens them, his glare deepening. “Yeah,” he replies with the same hard-edged voice, as though each word is lethal.

“Good. I’d rather not explain to her father why my son couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.” If only he knew. He goes to the archway that’ll lead him away from us. “And Loren?”

Lo cranes his neck over his shoulder to meet his father’s hardened eyes. In all my life, I’ve never seen them soften.

“Don’t be such a sick fuck.” He watches the way Lo’s face contorts into anger and pain, and I look for the glimmer of remorse in his father’s eyes. But I see none. He drowns it with the liquor in his palm and disappears into the darkened hallway.

Lo sits up for a second and sets his hands on his head, breathing heavily as if his father chased him around the room with a gun.

“You’re okay,” I whisper. “Lo, you’re not sick.”

“I doused his door with pig’s blood.”

I cringe. “It was supposed to be poetic, and what he did wasn’t much better.” I flush at the raw memory where I opened a package sent to my house, addressed to me. Lo sat with me on my bed, thinking we ordered a comic book we’d forgotten about. And when I pulled the flaps of the box, I screamed at the contents inside.

A dead white rabbit.

Lo found a note spotted with blood, and I pushed the box away, the smell as ghastly as the image. “Here’s something you can hump,” he read. Trent signed his name at the bottom. What an idiot, I thought with thick tears. Apparently his girlfriend broke up with him because we had sex at a hockey game months ago. He was on the “away” team, driving in town a couple hours to beat Dalton Academy.

And Trent blamed me for the breakup. As though he had no part in it, as though I was a siren who seduced him.

The next day after I received the “hate” package, I spent the night at my house. Rose wanted me there since my mother’s book club usually ran late. She didn’t want to be alone with her, so I stayed. Lo got wasted, and then I heard, he was thrown in jail for vandalism and underage drinking.

All I could think: At least he took a cab. At least he had enough sense not to drive drunk.

“Maybe it was fucked up,” Loren whispers.

“I liked your note,” I murmur.

His brow rises. “Drink up, pig?”

I smile. “Yeah.”

His eyes drift to my lips. “You’re strange.”

“So are you.”

“Good.” He leans closer. “We can be strange together.”

His heart thuds against my chest while his hands fall on either side of my shoulders, pressing to the cushion. His head dips low, and his mouth hovers an inch from mine. He stays still for a moment, and my nerves prick at the way we’re melded together, the way he seems to fit perfectly against me.