“What?” Jared whispered, his voice dangerously low.
Inside the house, everyone was watching. They didn’t even pretend not to. And in the middle of the crowd, Clare stood, a slight, empty circle around her, as if her aura of evil had repelled the others.
“The fucking Cadillac, all right?” Adam snapped. “I fucked you and got the Caddy.”
“You made a bet, on my body, to win a car?” Jared hoped he didn’t sound like too much of a pussy. Adam’s face was ice, not twitching, not moving, no emotion. “You are one twisted fucking son of a bitch,” Jared spat.
He was buzzed on the weed and vodka, and sick enough to know there was no choice but to run. With his classmates and the people he’d thought were friends at his back, Jared forced himself to walk slowly back to his truck. He opened the door, fired up the engine, and as he pulled away, the music in the house started to blast again.
With one look in the rearview mirror as he pulled onto the drive that led back to the main road, Jared saw Adam framed in the doorway of the white mansion, backlit like a rock star. Even from this distance, Jared could tell he wasn’t crying, wasn’t thinking, wasn’t feeling anything.
Why he’d expected anything different, he had no idea.
Chapter 12
The worst thing, the very worst thing, was that all Jared wanted to do was go to the one place he felt safe with the one person he actually liked being around and block out the rest of the world for a few hours.
Time alone with Adam in Adam’s bed.
Jared pulled over to the side of the road and threw up compulsively in a gutter until his throat burned and his stomach was empty of vodka, bile, and any residual love. Once purged, he felt marginally better and got back into his truck.
The only place for him to go was home, the home that Hadley had tried to make his too. She was out of town again, this time at a “conference” that was being held, strangely enough, in LA. Jared sent up a silent prayer of thanks that tonight, at least, he didn’t have to speak to anyone or answer awkward questions. He could go back to the big, empty, echoing house and lock himself away.
Inside, the air smelled slightly stale, evidence people didn’t really live here. The house was a political pawn for Hadley and a stopover place for Jared. Neither of them loved it or cared for it, or had made any effort to personalize the space. It just was.
His footsteps echoed on the stairs as he climbed them, already unbuttoning his pants and shirt, ready to get out of these fucking white clothes as soon as he was able.
Jared went to his bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go, kicking his clothes off, then climbing into the steaming water. He didn’t even want to cry. The sickness wasn’t quite gone yet, and his whole body felt strangely fragile and delicate in a way he wasn’t used to.
Adam didn’t want to be with Jared. He wanted to fuck him to get the car that money couldn’t buy. Jared would probably have let him.
Oh, not right away. Maybe not until the New Year or spring. But with the way things had been progressing, the sexual tension building layer on layer and Adam’s seemingly endless patience, eventually Jared would have given in.
He’d never prized his virginity. Not really. It wasn’t something he’d held onto for religious or cultural reasons, or because something traumatic had happened in his past. He’d figured if he was ever going to share that with someone, to be that intimate with another person, they’d have to be pretty fucking special. And, Jared figured, he wasn’t likely to find that person at eighteen years old. Or nineteen. Maybe not for a long time.
When he was finally warmed through again, he turned off the water and quickly dried himself, leaving the abandoned clothes on the bathroom floor as he walked naked back to his room. There, he pulled on pajama pants, a long sleeved T-shirt, and a sweatshirt, huddling under it all for comfort.
He thanked God they had never done anything here. This bed was pure, untouched somehow, and safe to be in. Snuggling under the comforter, Jared pressed his eyes closed and tried hard to sleep.
He couldn’t, of course.
Humiliation was a hot twist in his chest. Everything he’d known about this place was a lie, or a truth told on top of a lie, making the truth dubious and uncertain. None of these people were real, all the things he’d learned about them a careful facade.
Leaving wasn’t an option, not really. He didn’t have a home to go to. Jared’s mother wouldn’t welcome him, not after all these years he’d lived apart from her. There was no way he’d go back to his dad. His sisters were at college; they didn’t want him under their feet. It was this or nothing.
Tap.
Jared assumed the noise was the start of rain. It rained almost constantly here, after all.
Tap tap.
He sat up in bed.
Tap. Tap tap.
Someone was throwing fucking rocks at his window. He was pretty sure no one had done that since 1993. Without checking who was behind it, Jared ducked down out of sight of the window and into the bathroom, fumbling in his pocket for his phone.
Fourteen missed calls from Adam. Two from Ryder. One from Mia. Three from unknown numbers.
Jared had a good idea who was outside.
Back in his bedroom, he walked over to the sash window and threw it up, leaning on the sill.
“What the fuck?” he said to the dark figure hidden at the edge of the tree line.
“Jared?”
“Yes, it’s fucking Jared. What are you doing, you psychopath?”
“You didn’t answer your phone,” Adam said,
