But screw that.
And screw him.
“Then maybe you should rein your boy in.” I jabbed my finger at him. “I can take him messing with me. But not Flick. She’s not a part of this.”
He leaned in, curling his fingers around mine. “And you don’t think when he finds out you did this, he’ll come after you with everything he’s got? Think about it, Sunshine.”
“Stop calling me that.” I couldn’t think straight when he said it.
Cameron’s mouth curved, only a fraction, but enough for me to know he was enjoying this. Asshole. He was just like my step-brother. Worse even, because there had been a time when I truly believed he was different. But I was young and foolish and I’d learned my lesson where Cameron Chase was concerned.
“What are you going to do?” He frowned at that, so I added, “Are you going to tell him?”
“Let me worry about Jason, you just worry about yourself.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
More voices pierced the air and Cameron glanced to the gate beside the garage. “Shit,” he mumbled. “You need to get out of here.”
“But what about—”
“Hailee, just go. Now.”
“Hails?” Flick burst through the trees, her eyes glassy and wide, panic etched into her soft features. Cameron cussed under his breath. “Are you both drunk?” he sounded pissed.
“I… we…” My eyes moved to the gate, the clunk of metal catching my attention.
“Get her out of here, now. And don’t come back.” Cameron wasn’t talking to me now, he was glaring at Felicity as if she was somehow to blame for all this.
“Don’t look at her like that,” I started but Flick already had her hand on my arm, trying to pull me away.
“Yo, Chase? You out here?” My step-brother’s voice was close now. “I thought I heard a car.”
“Go, now,” Cameron’s voice was a deadly whisper.
Vodka obviously gave Flick super-strength because she yanked me into the trees like I weighed nothing, Cameron’s face no longer fully visible through the leaves. “What the hell was that?” she hissed.
But I couldn’t answer because I didn’t have one.
“Motherfucker!” The boom of Jason’s voice, the anger dripping from every syllable, drowned out all my thoughts.
“Shit.” I jumped into action. “We need to get out of here, now.” My hand found Flick’s and started pulling as I moved quickly through the woods. We’d walked to Asher’s house from Flick’s. She only lived a couple of blocks over, but it was far enough for Jason to find us if we didn’t hurry the hell up.
Once we were clear of the Bennets' property, we ran. Neither of us were very athletic but we didn’t need an excuse tonight. Our feet pounded the ground, trees and branches rushing past us, shadows dancing across my vision. When we spilled out of the woods onto the street, I’d never been happier to see Flick’s house up in the distance.
“Come on,” I said breathlessly, linking my arm through hers, and glancing over my shoulder one last time. “We should probably get inside.”
Forty minutes later, we were both showered and lying on Flick’s bed in our pajamas. “I can’t believe Cameron caught you,” she said, taking a bite of Twizzler.
“I wonder what he told Jason.”
“I guess you’ll know soon enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My brows crinkled.
“Well, if he does tell Jason, you can expect some awful retaliation, and if he doesn’t, then I guess you’re safe… for now.”
“You make it sound like an episode of Game of Thrones.”
“More like the Battle of the Sexes,” she joked, and I nudged her shoulder with mine.
“It was weird though, right? Cameron could have cussed me out right there, but he didn’t. He told us to go.” Flick smirked, and I added, “What?”
“Nope. Nothing…”
“Come on, tell me.”
“I know you think he doesn’t want you, Hails, but you have to admit, it seemed a little bit like he was protecting you.”
“Protecting me?” I sounded incredulous. “Two minutes earlier he was saying goodnight to his little fuck piece.”
“Little fuck piece?” Flick exploded with laughter, rolling onto her back, but I wasn’t laughing. I didn’t know what I was anymore. Senior year was turning out to be more confusing than I anticipated.
I rolled over too, lying shoulder to shoulder with her. We both stared up at the ceiling, letting the events of the night settle over us. “Did you have fun?”
“Fun?” she balked. “Getting chased off Asher Bennet’s property by Cameron after you tagged Jason’s car, isn’t my idea of fun, Hails. Why?” Suspicion dripped from her question. “Did you have fun?”
“I think I’m wired wrong,” I admitted. Because while I’d been terrified coming face to face with Cameron, I couldn’t deny a part of me liked it. The danger, the heart-pounding thrill as I stickered Jason’s car with his rival’s logo.
“You’re not wired wrong,” Flick sounded sad. “You’re just so used to being on the defensive, to playing these stupid games with Jason, that it’s altered your perception of what’s fun and what isn’t.”
“You mean I’m hardened?” I flinched, remembering the word she’d called me earlier at Ice T’s. It already felt like a lifetime ago.
“Yes… and no. I do think you're hardened, Hails, but you’ve had to be, I get that. But this thing with you and Jason, the constant back and forth; you don’t have to prove anything to him.”
Prove anything?
She thought I was trying to prove myself to him?
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I said, but as the words came out, I realized maybe she had a point. Jason had been so quick to write me off when our parents first got together. He never even gave me a chance. And maybe part of me engaging in this battle of wills with him was about more than knocking him off the pedestal the school, the town, put him on. Maybe deep down, I wanted him to realize I was a good person. A person worth knowing.
A sister worth having.
Ugh. I hated feeling like this. Weak and at his mercy.
I hated feeling like Jason’s opinion of me mattered at all.
Rolling onto my side, I turned away from Flick. After a couple of seconds of silence, her voice drifted over me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s fine,” I choked out, swallowing the tears threatening to fall.
I wouldn’t cry.
Not over this.
And definitely not over my asshole of a step-brother and his friends.
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said, rolling behind me. Flick slipped her arm around my waist and tucked herself against my back. “I know you, Hails, and I know you’d never let things go too far, but Jason? I’m not so sure about him. He has to be the best, come out on top, whatever the cost. You should know that by now.”
I did.
He was cold. Focused. Determined to succeed no matter what.