“What?” I choke out, my heart leaping in my chest.
His lip curls up. “It’s dinner time.” He takes a step forward, motioning at my hand. “What do you have there?”
“Nothing,” I lie. With every thunderous beat of my heart, I feel like I’m going to pass out. “I’ll be right out.”
He holds out his massive hand, a no-nonsense glare on his handsome face. “Give it to me. You look guilty as fuck.”
Lifting my chin, I feign a fierce expression. “I don’t have anything.”
“I heard the sounds,” he grinds out. “Give them to me and I won’t tell them.”
Defeated, I drop the Percocets into his hand. Before I can retreat, his massive hand encircles my wrist, trapping me.
“Planning to get fucked up again?” he sneers, his disgust for me cloying the air around us. “Who’ll be a casualty this time? My other best friend? His son?”
I recoil at his harsh words, snatching my hand back. Unlike Ryan would have, Cal lets me go without a fight.
“Are you going to tell them?” I ask, my bottom lip trembling.
He doesn’t answer as he opens the cabinet to replace the pills. Once he has them safely stowed away, he pockets the entire bottle.
“Would it change anything if I did?” he asks. “You’ll just find more ways to get this crap and they’ll keep fucking babying you. Nah, I’ll keep this shit to myself.”
I bow my head, ashamed but grateful he isn’t going to rat me out. My limp blond hair curtains around my face.
“I won’t let you get away with this,” Cal utters, his tone cold and cruel. “You should be punished for what you did. Jail. Fines. Something. Whose dick did you have to suck to get out of all that trouble? Oh, that’s right, your dad did all the dick sucking.”
His words chase away the despondency, igniting the path to my heart with fire. I’ve felt so dead inside for so long, I’m almost shaken with the intense emotion. My hand rears back and I slap his cruelly handsome smirk right off his face.
As soon as I’ve done it, I freeze, letting reality seep back in. I hit him. Cal Hutton. Town’s lawless bad boy. A Hood River Hoodlum. My new nemesis.
He crowds my space, backing me up until I nearly fall into the toilet. I have nowhere to grab except the front of his shirt. His heart pounds hard against my knuckles. He glowers at me, the heat of his hate burning me.
“Don’t talk about my dad,” I whisper. “You can talk about me, but not my dad.”
His green eyes narrow as he inspects me up close. “A daddy’s girl. Noted.” A dark chuckle escapes him. “So it must have been all you then, huh? Did you crawl out of Ryan’s bed and into his daddy’s?” His eyes darken when I flinch. “Careful, blondie. He’s a dirty cop. Does your daddy know his perfect little girl likes to get filthy with old men?”
“Why are you doing this?” I hiss, harnessing my anger, because he’s not leaving my dad out of this like I asked him to.
“Because you deserve it,” he says simply, gripping my wrist to pull my hand off his shirt as he steps back. “You deserve so much more than anyone will ever give you.”
His words are spoken softly and gently.
A caress.
If we were lovers, I’d hold his words to my heart and never forget them.
But he doesn’t mean to be sweet. His words are cold hate. Meant to stab and sting and destroy.
Cal reaches forward, tugging almost playfully at a strand of my hair. “I’m going to give it to you,” he vows. “I’ll make your life a living hell until I get my best friend back.”
I swat away his hand, hating that yet another man plays with my hair like it belongs to him. Images of Ryan’s fingers twisted in my hair and tugging painfully come to mind. A shudder ripples through me at the reminder.
“Hollis won’t let you hurt me,” I whisper.
“I’m not scared of the rat.”
I fling out words I know will hurt. “Roan won’t either.”
His green eyes flare with anger as he gently grips my chin. “Guess I’ll have to take care of you in secret, Rapunzel.”
Again, his words would sound sweet to anyone else, but he’s using them as a warning.
“My daddy—”
“Your daddy can get on his knees and suck my dick for all I care,” he grinds out. “You’re going to pay for this one way or another, little girl. I’ll make sure of it. I’d do anything for T. Even getting motherfucking revenge when he can’t.”
With those words, he turns on his heel and storms out.
It isn’t until he’s gone that I realize while arguing with him, I’d rekindled some of my old spark that Ryan had long ago snuffed out. Found some of my backbone that had been crushed beneath his shoe.
Cal may think I’m some weak daddy’s girl, but he’s wrong.
Life gave me a second chance to do better, and like a fiery phoenix rising from the ashes of her charred mistakes, I will do just that.
Rise.
My family is good at pretending. Hollis is just like Mom in that aspect. He puts on a smile, engages everyone in conversation, and makes you feel like you matter and are loved. I harbored a lot of resentment when Hollis came out gay and it set off ripple effects that ultimately destroyed my family. But we moved here, found friends, and eventually Dad moved out here too. The beef between Hollis and me went away. Even after Ryan, Hollis has tried to protect me. I’ll always be grateful for his efforts.
“You’re going to get wrinkles,” Penny sasses to Cal. “All that frowning. You have bags under
