Conner’s protests from moments ago might as well have been a pile of feathers tossed across the flames. “She made the first move! All right? Enough of this!”
“I didn’t touch you.” Even as desperate as I might be for the pills, I wouldn’t have reached for his shriveled dick. Not without some serious pep talking from my head.
“You’re a fucking freak. Always knew it. What kind of girl carries a knife around?”
“A smart one. Give me the pills.”
Tongue sweeping across his lips, he shifts his gaze lower. “Show me a nipple.”
The request is out of the blue, and I frown up at him. Talk about being a freak. This asshole has no shame. “Go to hell,” I say on reflex.
Before I can even process the idiocy in this, lights flash over the darkening sky, and the clipped sound of a siren has Conner scrambling for his clothes.
“Shit! The cops, man.” Jeans half-buttoned, Conner hops on one foot, wrestling his boot.
It’s not the cops, though. I’d call him my father, but he’s not that, either. More like a pain in my ass for the last nine years, but one who’s served as my guardian. Russ just likes to use his deer light and police siren to scare teenagers. He’s probably chuckling to himself right now.
The flicker of the light, now cast farther down the beach, tells me he’s clambering out of his old jalopy, and if he happens to catch sight of me with these two, they’ll be lucky to walk away without a bullet in their asses.
I grind my teeth at the likelihood that I’m not getting what I came here for. “You’re all the same. All of you.”
“Show me a nipple, and you can have your pills.”
“Yeah, just like I could have the pills if I wasn’t too chicken to jump into the lake?”
“I’m serious. And time is ticking.”
He’s right. Any minute, a gun is going to fire off and he’ll go scrambling away with my coveted pills.
Frustrated, I lift my shirt, and yank down the bra. “There. I showed you. Now pay up.”
He dips his head, as if to put his mouth on me, and on instinct, I whack him across nose with the back of my hand. An accident, really, but the blazing rage settling over his face tells me he didn’t consider it as such.
“Stupid bitch!” There’s no warning for the flash of movement in my periphery, before the hard crack against my cheek sends a pulse of pain shooting up into my sinuses. “Your drunk loser of a father should’ve taught you better manners.”
Finger palpating the ache, I glare back at him and drive my fist toward his face again, but he catches my wrist mid-swing. “Self-righteous prick!” I watch as something sickening ignites in his eyes. The bastard is enjoying this.
“Hey!” A familiar voice calls out, sending a wave of urgency pounding through my muscles.
Still wearing that pricky rich boy grin, Travis reaches into his pocket and throws a bag of pills onto my chest. “Too bad you’re nothing but a freak and a cock-tease. This could’ve been fun.”
Pills finally in hand, I tuck them into my pants that I slide up over my hips, and snap forward to yank on my boots. Conner and Travis are already halfway to the pier, by the time I get to my feet and scramble after them.
The crack of a gun stops me in my tracks, and I exhale a groan, throwing my hands up in surrender. Turning around brings me face to face with Russ, who hobbles down toward the beach. Shaking his head with that air of disapproval I’ve become so familiar with, he kicks sand over the bonfire, knowing full well I won’t try to run now. “Galddammit, Cely, you cannot have a bonfire on private property.”
“How was I supposed to know where rich folk property lines end?” An ache throbs in my jaw, and I run my fingers over the tender spot.
“Don’t matter. No fires on a beach where you don’t live. It’s simple, really.” Curious eyes catch on my face, and those bushy brows of his knit together in a pissed-off expression. “What’s with the cut on your lip?” Finger tipping my chin up, he examines the sensitive spot where I took the hit from Travis. “Did that little shit do this to you? He hit you?”
Jerking my head away, I push at his hand. “I held a knife to his throat.”
“A knife? Jesus … ‘the hell were you thinking?”
“He called you a drunk and a loser.”
The dismissive wave of his hand grates on me.
Hands balled to fists at my side, I want to punch something. “Just because you don’t care about any sort of reputation, doesn’t mean I should have to deal with the things they say! It’s a crap deal having to be tied to you, sometimes.”
Shoulders slouching, he lowers his gaze and nods. “Yeah, kid. I imagine it is.”
I despise the way my chest aches with remorse all of a sudden. I swear this man is the king of manipulating emotions.
Flame completely smothered by sand, he waves for me to follow after him, and I do, stealing one more glance at the empty beach where the two boys are long gone from now.
I plop down in the passenger seat of the beaten-down truck he’s driven for nearly ten years, and shove the pills from my pants into my coat pocket, where they’re less likely to fall out.
Russ falls into the driver’s seat beside me, and there’s a brief moment of silence before he holds out his palm between us.
I glance down at his hand and back to him, doing my best to school my face when I say, “What?”
“C’mon, girl, I ain’t got all damn night.”
On a huff, I reach into my pocket and hand him the bag of pills.
His groan sounds like the raspy chug of a dying engine. “You have any idea how many times you should’ve been locked up by now?”
“You don’t actually want me to answer, right? It’s rhetorical?”
He tucks the pills into his coat and fires up the truck, revving the engine that sounds like the noise he made in his throat just seconds ago. “You’re nineteen years old. How the hell d’you expect me to get on with my life if I gotta keep bailing you out of trouble?”
“I didn’t ask you to--”
“Don’t even say it. This shitshow was a sequence of events that woulda ended with you in jail for the night. And drugs? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Hypocrite. I was fourteen when I had my first sip of alcohol, while sitting out in the shack waiting for his monster buck to come in. Whiskey, of all things. Of course, I hated it, as I’m sure he hoped I would. “But if it was a six pack of beers, you’d be cool with it, right?”
“Beer is different.” The cans he’s accumulated in the back rattle in mocking, as the truck bumbles over the curb where he pulls out of the lot.
“How? Is it addicting? Yes. Could I die consuming it in large quantities? Yes. Is it illegal for my age? Yes.”
“Don’t be a smartass, Cely. It’s different. I don’t worry about you drinking on occasion. But those pills … you don’t know where they’re coming from. What’s in ‘em.”
“Are you kidding me? Travis probably scams them from his mom’s medicine cabinet. That’s top of the line shit. No generics. No additives, or preservatives.”
“You always gotta have an argument, don’t ya?”