Falls Boys, page 19
“Pizza!” he cheers.
“It’s nine in the morning!” I gasp, and growl playfully as I nibble his cheeks. “You can’t have pizza!”
He squirms from my tickling, pealing with screams and laughter.
I meet Hawke’s eyes, softening, because I’m glad he did this. It’s been a long time since Bianca, Matty, and I got to have fun together.
“And then we get to have sundaes!” Matty shouts.
But Hawke holds up his finger, giving my brother a stern look. “On one condition,” he says.
Matty hesitates and then yells, as if on cue, “Chicago-style pizza sucks!” And then again, “It sucks! It sucks! It sucks!”
Oh, Christ.
Bianca laughs, Matty giggles, and Hawke grins, so satisfied.
“Preying on innocent minds that don’t know any better?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Just setting him on the straight and narrow while he’s young.”
I throw a ball of dough at him, Matty laughs and follows suit, doing the same.
Hawke flings one at his nose, and Matty giggles, grabbing for it on the table to throw it back, but when he whips out his hand, the plastic container of sauce tumbles and spills down the side of the table.
We all watch it drip to the floor.
“Aro?” Matty cries, turning to me, his eyes darting between Hawke and me.
“It’s okay,” I say, grabbing a towel to catch the sauce before it spills more. “It happens.”
His fingers go to his mouth. “Is he mad?”
I look to Hawke, who’s already grabbing some paper towels. He hears the question and turns, confusion in his eyes.
But I just smile at my brother and stay calm. “No.”
It doesn’t stop him from crying, though, and he keeps looking at Hawke, waiting for his temper.
I pull my brother in, his breaths short and fast, more scared than anything, and I look up at Hawke, watching the realization start to hit.
Matty’s waiting for Hawke to blow up. His experience with men is that they don’t want to be reminded you’re there.
“It’s okay,” I tell him gently.
But Hawke approaches, squatting to his eye level. “Hey,” he barks.
Matty jumps, and I tense.
Hawke scowls. “You know what I do to cute kids like you?”
Matty is still.
“I…eat them!” he howls.
And he grabs my brother in both arms, hurling him up and gobbling his tummy through his shirt like a lion.
Matty breaks into squeals, kicking his legs.
But all smiles.
Tears fill my eyes, but I turn away, busying myself cleaning up the sauce.
“That was the main course and the vegetables,” Hawke announces. “Now for dessert!”
I look over my shoulder, watching him pretend to devour the kid as Matty thrashes in his arms and laughs.
“All right,” Hawke sighs. “I’ll save some for later, I guess. Come help me choose more sauce. I have extra.” He carries Matty over to the cupboard and opens it. “Which one? Tomato and basil or marinara?”
“Marinara!” Matty shouts, but I’m not sure he knows the difference. Just enjoys being asked to choose for everyone.
I clean up the rest of the mess, kind of sorry Hawke’s homemade sauce was wasted. It actually tasted really good the other night when the two of us made pizza.
Hawke sets Matty down, shaking the jar and then opening it. “Here.” He hands it to Bianca. “You guys put it on.”
She gets busy pouring some on the dough, letting Matty spread it, and Hawke moves to my side.
Lowering his voice, he asks, “Did he hit him or something?”
Our stepfather. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want Matty and Bianca to have a good day.
But Bianca speaks up. “No,” she tells Hawke. “He only hit Aro.”
I close my eyes for a moment. Dammit. Matty doesn’t need to hear that.
I feel Hawke’s eyes on me, and I glance up at him. “It’s fine.” I unwrap the wedge of cheese, ready to grate it. “It didn’t happen that often.”
He watches me, but I’m not letting anyone, including my stepdad, into the kitchen with us today. For now, it’s just us four, and I get to pretend we’re normal kids, on a carefree summer day, making pizza for breakfast.
We sit in the bakery, the shades shielding us from the view of the people on the street, as Matty plays waiter and serves us drinks and food.
Other than that, he doesn’t leave Hawke. Riding on his shoulders. On his back. In his arms.
He refuses to sleep until he just can’t keep his eyes open anymore, and when it’s time to go home, he tells me I can’t come. He wants Hawke to himself. And I let him take them alone because I’ll cry if I have to watch them go back in that house without me.
I know my sister has it under control, but I don’t want her to have to. She’s not his mother, any more than I am.
But for a minute, it felt like we were a family. The four of us.
I liked pretending. They’re ours. We protect them.
And he’s mine.
“Damn him,” I whisper, but I still smile. Giving me glimpses of something better, and I’ll be chasing that useless hope for the rest of my life now.
Slipping back into the hideout, I slide into some shoes and pull on my hat and jacket.
I dial on my phone, still remembering her number from when she tried to evade payment. Dylan Trent answers almost immediately. “Hello?”
“It’s Aro Marquez,” I tell her. “I need a favor. Do it, and we’re square.”
“Did you take ibuprofen?” she asks, fidgeting in the seat next to me.
“Yes.”
If there’s anything Hawke has a lot of in that place, it’s first aid supplies.
And food. I know where I’m going when the zombie apocalypse hits.
“Juliet says it hurts,” she tells me, “but it goes fast.”
I look over at her as we sit in the Zen lounge of the day spa, complete with a giant Buddha and a bowl of water chimes. “You’ve never done this?” I ask her.
I thought all rich girls were perfectly groomed.
But before she can answer, a woman calls us. “Ladies?”
We rise and follow the technician, who’s dressed in dark blue scrubs into a room, bamboo flutes drifting out of speakers from somewhere I don’t see. Two massage tables sit parallel, separated with a privacy screen.
“This’ll be my first time too,” Dylan finally answers.
I take off my jacket, another woman turning down the sheet on each bed.
“Remove everything,” the short-haired blonde one tells us. “Wrap yourself in the robe and then lie on top of the sheet.”
Both of them duck out, closing the door, and I kick off my shoes. “You don’t have to do it with me,” I tell her, seeing her shadow on the other side.
But she chirps, “I want to. You know, just in case.”
Just in case…
We strip, and I spot the shadow of her wrapping the robe around her body and hopping up to the table. I follow suit.
I bob my feet as I lie there, my pulse picking up speed. She’d texted me right after we hung up and told me to take a painkiller, but it can’t be that bad, right? People do this all the time.
But they also give birth all the time too.
“Juliet,” I repeat the name she’d said. “Hawke’s mom?”
“Yeah.”
Juliet Chase writes Young Adult novels about a world happening right under our noses where ninjas, pirates, knights, and other elite warriors still exist. It usually centers around young women finding their power and leading, no fear, strong, etc.
I try to picture someone like that raising Hawke, and how he is makes total sense and then none at all. Does he like her books?
“She and my mom are besties from high school, but I don’t dare tell my mom about this,” Dylan continues. “She’ll tell my dad, because she tells him everything, and then that’s going to be a tantrum I don’t want to deal with.”
“Your dad seems like a baby.”
She laughs quietly. “He’s set in his ways, but it’s more than that.” She pauses and then continues. “He was a right asshole at my age, you know? Now that he has a daughter, he knows he’d kill anyone who treats me how he treated my mom at first. I’m pretty sure he still thinks he doesn’t deserve her.”
Well, regardless of what their parents were like, it’s clear they’re a big family. All three of those men I ran into at the park helped raise Hawke. They must’ve done something right.
And Dylan, I hate to admit, isn’t all that bad. “They seem like good parents,” I tell her.
“I’m not complaining.”
A knock hits the door, and then the dark-haired one pokes her head in. “Ready, ladies?”
“Let’s pluck!” Dylan calls out.
Pluck? Not with tweezers, right?
I flinch a little, dread curling my insides. It goes quick, she said.
“Okay, lift this leg,” the lady tells me, opening my robe.
I don’t, tempted to pull the garment closed again. I don’t know what I was thinking, but she’s staring at all my business.
She scrunches up her face in sympathy. “First time?”
A rip that sounds like a Band-Aid the length of my leg getting torn off goes off to my left, followed by a long, sharp intake of breath. “Oh, motherfudger,” Dylan pants.
I blink wide eyes at my tech.
She just smiles. “I’m fast. Don’t worry.”
She takes a Popsicle stick of wax and smears it in the crease between my leg and hip, and I stop breathing for a second. “Ohhh, that’s warm.”
Hot, actually, but it’s getting better.
“So, why did you want to get waxed?” Dylan asks.
Another rip from her side, and I hear her whimper.
I gulp, but then blurt out. “None of your business.”
I’m not going to tell her that her cousin might want to take off my underwear next time.
“Why do you want to get waxed?” I lob back at her.
The tech smooths over a piece of cloth or paper towel, I’m not sure.
“It’s cleaner,” she shouts. “No shaving rash. Makes exfoliating easier. I’ll look great in a bikini…”
I nod. “Same.”
Good enough answer for me.
But then she starts to peel the paper up, and everything inside me tightens. Then, riiiiiiiiip…
Fire spreads over my tender skin, and it feels like two dozen pairs of fingers are pinching me simultaneously.
I growl. “Ow, what the fuck?”
“Are you okay?” the tech winces, like she’s the one in pain. “I know the first time is rough.”
“The first time?” I look down seeing a clear strip of skin. “Screw this.”
It’s going to be at least twelve more before she’s completely done.
I start to rise, but Dylan’s voice stops me. “Well, look who’s the baby now,” she teases. “Run, Rebel, run. I got this.”
I arch a brow, hearing her third strip being pulled.
I slam back down onto the table, balling my fists. “Hurry,” I tell the tech.
Dylan’s a year younger, and Weston women can handle anything.
The techs do their work, and I get the hang of it, really only panicking when they start to peel up the tape. The pain dissolves pretty quickly. Not sure I’d want to put up with this every few weeks, but we’ll see what happens.
“Almost done!” Dylan calls out.
“Who are you…” I stammer, waiting for the strip to get pulled off. “Who are you trying to look good in a bikini for?”
I hear the smile in her voice. “Me. Just me.”
Either she doesn’t want to say, or she’s experimenting. Nevertheless, I’m kind of glad I didn’t have to do this alone.
“Do me a favor, would you?” she asks.
Another rip. I suck in air through my teeth. “What?”
I groan as the pain fades.
“Be kind with him?”
I go still, something in her voice giving me pause.
She goes on, “Hawke probably wouldn’t be as nervous as he is, or held off this long, if girls hadn’t fucked with his head so badly in high school.”
I barely feel the next strip, and I don’t move.
“They started pushing so hard, like he was an obstacle or something to achieve,” she tells me. “They wanted him, but they didn’t love him, and when he didn’t take what they were offering, they saved their pride by talking shit.”
Oh, they did, did they?
Anger curdles in my stomach.
“He just became a locker room joke.” Her voice drifts off. “He counted the days until graduation, Aro. He couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
My fingers hurt. I uncurl my fists a little.
“And I can’t get in another fight, defending his honor with bitches,” she says. “My nose still doesn’t look right from the last one.”
I smile, trying to keep my laugh to myself. I’m not ready for her to know I kind of like her.
He’s lucky. His dad, his uncles, his cousins… They’ve all shown up for him. If I ever hurt him, I’m not sure these people and their love for him would be any less of a threat to me than Green Street.
And suddenly, I’m a little jealous, because I want to be the one protecting him.
She drives me past the bakery, into the alleyway, and I sneak up the fire escape and back into the hideout.
Hawke is still out, but I’m kind of glad. I climb into the shower, opening his body wash and inhaling the scent. The black-tiled walls make me feel hidden, and the feet of cement between us and the street above keeps this place so quiet most of the time.
It’s like another world, but it’s starting to feel as if I belong here. Like I’m shedding a skin.
Reeves will be collecting soon. We’ll have proof, and we can leave.
I can’t help but hope that Reeves never comes.
Then I never have to go.
Hawke
I slip inside the back door, walking through the kitchen and seeing heads turn toward me. They don’t say anything, though. They’re used to seeing me sneak in and out of places.
Getting back to work, the servers load trays, and I push through the next door, the rolling thunder of balls hitting pins filling the air.
I scan the bowling alley, spotting Aro’s “brothers”, sitting there bold as brass, right in the middle of our town.
Which one of them has been with her? No idea why I care, but all of a sudden, I do. She said she didn’t like sex. Did they not take their time with her? Did they take advantage of a kid when she needed a family?
Charging over, I pull my hood down, not caring who sees me. I swipe a chair from Hugo’s table, watching his gaze pop up, and I plant my ass down. “You’re on the wrong side of the river,” I say.
Axel swipes his phone off the table, but I level him a look. “Don’t bother texting Reeves,” I tell him. “I’m not staying.”
I spy the cameras positioned at each corner of the lanes and know there are more behind us. They know the cameras will see me. But they’ll see them too.
Hugo settles his gaze on me from across the table, and I look at his leather jacket that probably reeks of cigarettes and his dirty nails, but… I spot a larger version of Aro’s tattoo on his neck and know young women flock to him. Reeves got the perfect asshole to reel them in and get them to do what he wants. There’s no way Hugo kept his hands off her.
“It’ll cost a hundred-and-fifty thousand to pay for everything you destroyed,” he tells me, laying down the situation. “Not to mention the missing bag of money. We only found one in the trunk.”
I keep what I know about the second bag to myself.
“So, let’s say two-hundred-fifty thousand,” he states.
“Added a little interest on, did you?”
“Just a little.”
Yeah, their loss is maybe one-seventy. At best.
“You know this won’t go anywhere good,” I tell him. “Take the loss.”
Shelburne Falls may seem like a Hallmark village, but it wasn’t always like that. My family knows people, too. Jared’s popular, Madoc’s powerful, his father-in-law is more dangerous than Green Street, and my dad is scary smart.
“You don’t want our attention,” I remind him.
“And you want to go to college.” His eyes dance. “If you want a deal, I’ll need her back.”
I stare at him.
“He doesn’t want you,” Hugo tells me, and I assume he means Reeves. “I mean, he does, but he knows better. We’re well aware you’re untouchable. But I need my girl back.”
“She’s not your girl.”
“I’ve known her a lot longer than you,” he taunts. “I’m the reason she’s stayed fed the last three years. Aro is special. I have plans for her.”
“Oh, I know you do.”
“Don’t give me that look,” he fires back. “I’m sure she’s taken a bath by now, and you know what’s underneath those clothes.”
Axel breathes out a laugh, and I feel Nicholas shift in his seat.
Hugo leans forward, a gleam in his eyes. “Does it look as good as I think it does?”
Fire flows under my skin, but at the same time, I exhale a little. He hasn’t seen her. He hasn’t touched her.
When I don’t answer, that seems to be answer enough. “Then she’s safe,” he says in a smooth tone. “I’ll keep her for myself, if that’s the case. It’s time I started a family.”
I steel my spine.
“She’d be a great mother,” he continues. “It’s a good life for her. She’ll be taken care of, I promise.”
I rise, done with this conversation. She likes astronomy.
And if I have anything to say about it, she’s done raising kids until she’s damn well ready.
I start to leave, but I hear him behind me.
“Or…” he says, stopping me. “She can be yours and then she’s protected, too. No member of Green Street touches another member’s woman.”
What?
“Think about it.” His tone is soft and seductive. “The tattoo would look great on you.”
