“Hey, you got a pen I can borrow?” I whispered.
The look she gave me was so full of derision and outrage you’d think I’d asked her to get on her knees and blow me in the middle of class. It was just a fucking pen.
She looked away without even a response.
I’d wanted to be left alone, but this was ridiculous. How hard was it to be polite every once in a while?
Someone tapped my shoulder with a pen, and I turned in my seat. The chick one row back and to my right was holding out a black pen with a friendly smile.
I frowned and eyed the pen, wondering if it was laced with arsenic. She was one of Donna’s girls—and I’d picked up enough from overheard conversations to know that Mena was Donna and Harlow’s cousin and very close with them both.
So what the fuck was she doing acknowledging my existence?
“It’s just a pen.” She rolled her eyes, but with a hint of humor.
I took it and nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her smile seemed sincere as she sat back and returned her attention to the front of the class.
“Mr. Hawthorn.” Mrs. Shepard’s voice had me doing the same. “Am I boring you?”
“No, ma’am.” I held the pen up. “Just borrowing a pen.”
She gave me a skeptical look and got back to the lesson.
I did my best to pay attention, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the anomaly that was Mena. From what I’d seen, the girl was genuinely friendly and sweet. She had a purple birthmark on the right side of her nose that would’ve made her a target for bullies at my old school. Fulton was almost identical, but Mena was one of the most popular girls, protected by her close friendship with Donna.
It didn’t fit my assessment of who Donna Mead was and what she was about, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that I was suddenly wondering what made her tick. It had been a long time since a chick had made me curious, and I didn’t have time for it.
I drove home in the brand-new Tesla Model S my parents hadn’t even questioned the price tag on. I resented having to take anything from them in the first place, but public transport in this part of Devilbend was a joke, so I’d caved and let them buy me one. But I’d chosen a ridiculously expensive one just to spite them, and the most environmentally friendly one to put some semblance of good into the world in a vain attempt to make up for all the bad I’d done. They’d just paid the bill, not even an angry message to their disappointment of a son.
Being sent to the other side of the country to live with my aunt was almost as much a relief for me as it was for them.
Aunt Hannah lived on the edge of the nicest part of Devilbend. Her townhouse was spacious and nicely decorated, but she didn’t have the sprawling land some of the ostentatious estates boasted—the kind of property I grew up on back in New York.
I parked on the street, not wanting to block the one-car garage when she got home.
As soon as I finished shoveling a sandwich into my mouth, I changed into sweats and spent the next couple hours zoning out with the help of video games. I got so engrossed in the explosions on the TV I didn’t even notice the front door opening.
“Hendrix?” My aunt’s voice made me startle. She stood next to the couch, her arms crossed over her silk blouse.
I immediately ended the game and dropped the controller on the coffee table. “Hey. Uh . . . how was work?”
She ignored my question. “Have you been playing video games all afternoon?”
“Yeah.” I cringed. I was eighteen and she wasn’t my parent, but I was here and not with my asshole parents because she allowed it. “I’m going to do homework after dinner.”
She just sighed and gave me a disapproving look. She’d looked at me with disapproval a lot in the month I’d been staying with her. It grated on my nerves, but I kept my reaction tightly under wraps. Considering the reason I was here, what I’d done, I deserved the disapproving looks.
I got up and started clearing the plates, cups, and chip packets. I liked to eat while I played. “Um . . . how was your day?”
“Fine.” She followed me into the kitchen and dropped her oversized purse on a barstool.
“Cool.” I nodded and pressed my lips together.
Hannah was working her way up through the ranks at some marketing company. She worked hard, sometimes doing long hours and often bringing work home, her laptop and piles of paper spread over the dining table. She was in her early thirties, had no kids, and had no idea how to handle me. I wondered, almost daily, how my parents had gotten her to agree to let me move in while I finished high school. She and my dad weren’t exactly on good terms. I’d only met her a handful of times at family events—where she generally kept to herself in a far corner, scowling and getting slowly but surely drunk. But she’d been kind to me as a kid, bringing me little gifts and dropping the scowl if I happened to come up to her.
“I’m staying at Robbie’s tonight.” She leaned on the counter. Robbie was her boyfriend, whom she rarely talked about and I had yet to meet. “Do you need me to leave you some money to order takeout for dinner?”
“No, that’s OK. Bank of Dad has it covered.” I gave her a wry smile. My credit card had a very generous limit. My father may have sent me away like the blight on his reputation that I was, but he wasn’t about to cut me off.
“Right. Good.” She stared at the counter, and I shuffled my feet. I was glad she was finally spending more time with her partner. My guess was she’d been spending every night at home because of me, and I felt bad.
“You’re not to have anyone around.” She finally straightened and fixed me with a firm look. So, this was what was making her pause. She needed to lay down the law.
“That won’t be a problem.” There wasn’t a single soul in Devilbend I would consider a friend.
“I’m not messing around, Hendrix. I need a night to spend with my boyfriend, but leaving you alone makes me nervous. I won’t tolerate . . . insubordination.”
If I hadn’t felt like shit to my very core, her attempts at a firm reprimand would’ve been amusing. She was a petite woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a tasteful manicure. I had a foot and a hundred pounds on her. There wasn’t much she could do to make me do anything, which made the fact that she hadn’t had her boyfriend over to intimidate me even more perplexing. I admired her, really. She was taking me on all on her own. But she had nothing to worry about.
I’d spent the month since I’d arrived doing nothing but what she’d told me. She had only two rules, which she’d made crystal clear within half an hour of my arrival: maintain a B average, and stay out of trouble. The slightest hint of my breaking either rule would result in immediate removal from her home. I had no intention of letting her down.
We’d hardly spoken since then, but I’d been respectful, cleaned up after myself, gone to school, stayed out of her way. I was doing all I could to show her I was serious, but she still felt the need to remind me I was on thin ice every few days. As if she was worried I was just waiting for her to let her guard down so I could go back to being the douchebag I’d been before.
I’d avoided talking to her about it because I really didn’t want to discuss the reason I was here in the first place. But I needed to man up and say something. As frustrated as I was with the constant side-eye, I knew I deserved it, so I made sure my voice was calm, contrite even, as I leaned on the counter opposite her.