I could take out my dick and force it down her throat, or I could humiliate her in front of a room full of people by laughing in her face and shoving her away. Neither choice does anything for me as I stare down into her desperate face, feeling nothing but a keen sense of boredom with life in general.
Maybe I need fucking antidepressants.
“Go get me a drink,” I command her, even though there is a nearly full beer on the table next to me.
“Of course, Vin,” Sophia purrs in a voice I’m sure she thinks is sexy. She uses her hands on my thighs to lever herself up onto the sky-high heels that clack too loudly on my tile floor.
“An import. Check the fridge in the house.”
I watch her go, partly because she has a semi-decent ass, but also because I’m secretly hoping one of those heels flies out from under her and she ends up crashing to the floor. No such luck, I think, as she tottles to the sliding glass door and pulls it open.
My stepmother doesn’t compromise on her beauty sleep, so the the main house is locked down tighter than virgin pussy right now. It should buy me a few minutes of peace while Sophia figures that out. She knows better than to come back empty-handed.
“If you don’t hit that soon, her head might shoot off into the stratosphere from all the built up pressure,” Cal comments from the sofa a few feet away.
“She might need to find a different release valve. I’m not into sloppy fifths, or is it sixths? I heard some rumors about the football team from Verdes Hills last fall.”
Cal laughs, but it isn’t a pleasant sound. “Maybe she really likes you.”
Bullshit. If anybody but the other Vice Lords actually likes me, I’ll suck my own dick. “She’d be the first.”
“Poor little rich boy. People only want him for his money.”
“Fuck off.”
Hooking up with me is like climbing Everest. Something people do for the status, to say they did it, regardless if they think that they’ll actually enjoy it.
I don’t kid myself that there is some deeper connection going on here. If I didn’t have the power and the status that comes with the Cortland name, none of the chicks at school would give me the time of day.
My bad attitude and general viciousness make sure of that.
“Maybe you need a few more hits, man. You look tense as hell.”
The vape hangs loosely in my hand, and I realize I haven’t taken a pull from it in several minutes. It’s gone cold, so the heating element has probably shut off. I don’t know where my head is right now, but it definitely isn’t here.
I study the room through the haze of smoke, wondering how soon I can kick most of these assholes out of my place. There are even a few people I don’t recognize, more evidence of how off my game I am tonight.
Maybe I should screw Sophia like she so desperately seems to want. If I make her do something depraved enough, I might actually feel something.
“You looking for anyone in particular?” Cal asks, following my gaze as it tracks around the room.
“Nope. I pride myself on keeping chicks interchangeable.”
“You’ve always been all heart, Cortland.”
That is the pot calling the kettle an asshole. Cal has been combing pussy out of his hair ever since he came back from a year abroad with his father’s family in Italy talking with a slight accent. I guarantee he hasn’t been keeping a catalogue of their names, and I’m almost certain he wouldn’t recognize most of them on sight. “You’re confusing my heart with my dick.”
“Tell that to Sophia.” Cal slouches further down on the couch as a random brunette straddles him. He brings a beer to his lips and takes a swig, barely looking at the girl on his lap. “You’ve had that fish on the hook for months, and you still haven’t reeled it in. What’s up with that?”
Girlfriends. Permanence. Commitment. Those might as well be four-letter words to us and a great way to mess up a good thing.
But it’s all starting to feel empty.
I shake off the disturbing thoughts as Cal continues to stare me down. The look on his face might mean something to me if I hadn’t smoked enough weed to kill off an acre of farmland, but I know I don’t like it.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, okay.”
His expression turns musing as he surveys me. I can tell from his expression that he’s about to say something to get under my skin. Cal is one of the few people on planet Earth that I let give me shit, and he takes full advantage of the privilege. “Unless there is someone else that you’re thinking about, like Zaya Milbourne maybe.”
No one says her name. No one acknowledges her presence. No one so much as speaks to her without my permission. Those are the rules that have been in place since freshman year when the kids from the Gulch funnel their shitty middle school into Deception High.
Anyone else would be flying through the plate glass door, but Cal is one of my closest friends.
Instead, I pluck a still lit cigarette from the ashtray on the table. Moving fast enough that Cal doesn’t have a chance to react, I press the end into the exposed skin of his knee just below the line of his shorts.
“Jesus Christ, man.” Cal leaps back with a curse as he frantically brushes ash from his leg and inspects the mark on his skin. “This better not leave a scar, you psycho.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.” My voice is pleasant and easy as I take another pull from the vape and blow cool smoke out through my nose. I know I look like a raging bull from a cartoon strip, but deliberately
