I happily pop the cap off a beer for her and grab a few more for her friends. The best part about rich girls coming to slum it out here with the townies is they’re easily amused. Tell them a few embellished stories about near-death exploits and running from the cops, and they eat that shit up. It scratches their sticking-it-to-the-parents itch, allowing them to live dangerously from a safe, vicarious distance, and gives them something to tell their friends about. Normally, feeling like I’m an attraction at a zoo would piss me off, but tonight I’m not the one with the sour face.
As the chicks let their hands linger on my arms while they laugh at my jokes and peel up my shirt after I tell them I have tattoos, Gen is staring daggers from her spot near the fire. Hitting me with a glare that says, really, them? And I don’t give her the satisfaction of a response, because if she wants to pretend I’m dead to her, then I’m cold all over.
“I’ve got one too,” the bravest of the girls informs me. She’s cute, in a cookie-cutter clone sort of way. Nice rack, at least. “Got it on spring break last year in Mexico. Want to see?”
Before I can answer, she pulls her skirt up to flash the inside of her thigh at me. Her tat is a jellyfish, looking like it’s gliding up into her lacy panties. I don’t know how that’s supposed to be sexy. But Gen watches me look, and that’s kind of hot.
“Did it hurt?” I ask her, meeting Gen’s eyes over the girl’s shoulder.
“A little. But I like the pain.”
“Yeah, I get that.” It’s almost too easy. This chick is practically begging me to take her back to the house. “It’s pain that teaches us what pleasure is. Or how would we even know the difference?”
Eventually, her friends give up trying to share me and wander off to find their own one-night stands, and it doesn’t take long before she kisses me and I’m copping a handful of her ass. It’s a familiar routine, one I’ve indulged in plenty of times this past year. Forgetting myself in a hungry tongue and eager body meant forgetting about Gen for a while, not having to remember the cold truth that she’d left me without a word.
But right now, she’s the only thing on my mind. When I come up for air, I spot Gen biting her lip at me like she’d slit my throat if there weren’t so many witnesses. Ha. Too damn bad. She started it.
“Motherfucker!”
I blink, and suddenly there’s some polo-wearing douchebag crowding my sightline. His face is red with anger, making him look like a pissed-off lobster. He calls the girl Ashlyn, who scrambles away from me with a guilty look about a second before the dude sucker punches me. It isn’t a great shot and barely naps my head sideways.
“Well, that was rude,” I remark, readjusting my jaw. I’ve taken so many hits in my life, I barely feel it anymore.
“You stay the hell away from her!” He’s all hopped up on his macho bullshit, and he’s got his buddies behind him.
I look over at Ashlyn, but she’s not at my side anymore. She’s huddled with her friends five yards away, refusing to meet my eyes. The smug gleam on her face as she watches Mr. Polo tells me I was more than frivolous entertainment for her tonight. I was payback.
“Easy, there,” I tell the guy. A few heads turn, then several more as the party becomes aware of the confrontation. “Your sister and I were just getting acquainted.”
“That’s my girlfriend, asshole.”
“You’re sleeping with your sister? That’s fucked up, dude.”
His second punch is stronger. The taste of blood fills my mouth as I lick at the gash in my lip. I spit a wad of red mucous in the sand.
“Come on, pretty boy,” I taunt, smiling with red, wet teeth. My arms tingle with expectant energy. “You can do better than that. She even showed me her tattoo.”
He comes at me again, but this time I dodge the shot and send him to the ground with blood pouring out of his nose. We wrestle, sand sticking to the blood streaking down our shirts. We exchange blows, rolling around until some of his buddies and mine finally jump in to tear us apart. My friends tell the clones to get lost. They’re outnumbered, after all. Still, as pretty boy and his group are retreating, I can’t help feeling interrupted, my muscles not nearly tired and the adrenaline still running hot.
“Come again any time,” I shout after them.
Then I turn around to a wave of salt water splashing me in the face.
When I wipe my eyes, Gen’s standing there with an empty red cup. I smirk at her. “Thanks, I was thirsty.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“He hit me first.” My lip stings and my hand is sore, but I’m otherwise unscathed. I reach for her, but she steps away.
“You haven’t changed a bit.” At that, she tosses the cup at my feet and leaves with Heidi and Steph, her look of dismissive disgust landing harder than any blow I endured from the party crasher.
I haven’t changed a bit? Why should I change? I’m the same person she’s always known. Only difference is she disappeared for a year and came back with a superiority complex. Pretending to be someone she’s not. Because I felt it, the other day at her house. The real Genevieve. This new chick is an act, and not a very good one. I don’t know who she thinks she’s impressing, but I’m not about to feel bad about being honest. At least one of us is.
“What was that?” Cooper follows me up to the house as I reach the back deck.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I say, pulling open the sliding glass door to the kitchen.
“Hey.” He grabs my shoulder. “Everyone was having a good time until you had to start some shit.”
“I didn’t start anything.” This is so typical. Some random dude messes with me, and Cooper makes it my fault. “He decided to throw down with me.”
“Yeah. It’s always the other guy. But somehow they always pick you. Why is that?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” I try to walk away again but Cooper gets in my path and shoves my chest.
“You need to get your shit together. We’re not kids anymore. Picking fights because you’ve got some chip on your shoulder has gotten real old, Evan.”
“Just once, it’d be nice if you took my side.”
“Then stop being on the wrong side.”
Fuck this. I push him aside and go upstairs to take a shower. Cooper has always refused to see my side of anything. He’s too busy being a judgmental prick. Must be all warm and cozy in his Good Twin delusion, but I’m sick of it.
Waiting for the water to heat up, I stare at my reflection in the mirror and experience a jolt of shock. My lip’s a bit swollen, but not too bad. No, it’s the ravaged look in my eyes that startles me. It matches the broken, battered feeling I’ve been struggling to ignore since my best friend skipped town on me, but I hope like hell I wasn’t wearing that expression back there with Gen. She knows she stuck a knife in me when she bailed, but I’ll be damned if she sees the damage it wrought.
CHAPTER 6
GENEVIEVE
It’s dark outside by the time I shut off the computer in the office Friday night. I hadn’t intended to work so late—everyone else had long since gone home—but I was in a spreadsheet trance and just kept going until Heidi texted to remind me that I’d agreed to meet up later with the girls. It’s taken me the better part of two weeks, but I’ve finally managed to get a handle on the invoice tracking system. By next week, I should be caught up on all the outstanding accounts just in time to make payroll. I had to give myself a Google crash course on the software, but thankfully Mom had it set up to automate most of the process. Last thing I need is a bunch of angry employees when their paychecks are screwed up. While part of me is worried that doing too good a job might make me indispensable, I’m hoping that efficiency will help motivate Dad to allow someone else to take over soon.