“Where should I start,” he asked, slowly walking toward me. “Do you want to know what I did to you? That night I brought you to Mirna’s? Do you want to hear how I took off your clothes and I ran my mouth down your body while you were unconscious? Do you want to know that I spread your legs and licked your bruised pussy because I wanted to taste you, your weakness. I wanted to swallow you and devour you, so I shoved my tongue inside of you because I fucking could.”

“No, no you didn’t. You wouldn’t,” I stammered.

He huffed. “Now, I know you don’t believe that,” Preppy said, buttoning his shirt as if it was just another day. His cool emotionless expression plastered back on his face, while I was in a state of shock I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to come back out of.

He shrugged. “I thought about fucking you too, but I settled for jerking off on you instead. I came all over your stomach.”

“Fuck you,” I said, only able to muster up enough of my voice to whisper the insult at him.

“I may have pulled you from that tower, Doc. I may have rescued you from that motel room, but I never saved you. You were never safe.” His phone vibrated and the screen lit up, he looked down and tossed it on the bed that acted as a barrier between us, a bumper for the truth. “Go ahead. Answer it. It’s your dad,” he said, not giving me time to process the new information.

“How?” I asked as the phone stopped vibrating before starting back up again.

“He’s been calling for weeks. He wrote you a letter, too. It’s on top of Mirna’s fridge. Blue photo album. He wants you to come home,” he said.

“When?” I asked.

“Since the very beginning.”

“But why?” I asked, but I didn’t know what I was asking. Why he lied? Why he bothered with me?

Why I let him into my heart?

Every word he spoke was another bullet being fired at me, but he couldn’t hit every target. His eyelids were red and heavy. His voice was raspy, “Why? Because I needed you to make those documents for me.” He paused. “Or maybe just because I like unconscious pussy.”

I leapt onto the bed. “You son of a fucking bitch!”

Preppy moved to the door. “Go the fuck home, Doc. You don’t belong here. You never did.” He didn’t look up when he left, closing the door with such force the cheap plastic blinds fell from the window to the floor.

He’d slammed the door shut on the room.

On us.

On everything.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

PREPPY

“Where you stomping off to?” Bear asked, catching up to me as I was doing just that, angrily stomping down the shell driveway. He slapped me on the back of my shoulder. “Everything okay back there?” he asked, lighting a cigarette and jerking his chin back toward the garage.

I was about to snap something back at him, my emotions all bubbling at the surface, a place I hated them to be. My mouth hung open, ready to fire off some sarcastic retort that would have Bear seeing right through me, but I stopped myself and shut my mouth when I saw the concern written all over Bear’s burly face. Or maybe it was pity. Fuck, I’d already caused so much hurt for one lifetime, I could’t stand to see him look that way. So I made a decision right then and there. My shit would be exactly that. My shit. I knew Bear and Grace well enough to know that if they knew how deep things ran with Dre, then they would take it on as their own problem. And for fucks sake, our little family had enough fucking problems to add my shit to the fucking pile.

I slapped a smile on my face and reached into Bear’s cut, plucking his cigarettes from his pocket and tossing him back the pack after I’d slid one from the pack and lit it. “All is good, man. Just got a call from Patty who runs the GG operation off Sunset Vista,” I lied. “The mister in the grow-room is leaking. Gotta go dry out her hallway runner and fix the leak before her fucking pacemaker stops. Gotta keep the GG’s happy. Keep growing that money.”

“You sure that’s it?” Bear asked, scratching his head. “I thought that maybe that girl…”

I cut him off. “That was fucking epic, right? Although, I’m not gonna lie, at one point I think I felt your balls on my fucking leg, dude.”

“Preppy…” Bear said, still attempting to carry on some sort of serious conversation about my behavior. Wasn’t gonna happen.

Not then.

Not fucking ever.

“At least now I know what to get you for Christmas. A good ball trimmer. Or maybe a wax if you’re into the pain. On second thought, maybe I’ll get waxed, might be something I’d dig.” Bear’s face began to lighten as he shifted his focus from Dre to my ridiculousness. The corners of his mouth turned upward into his signature cocky smile.

“That’s where you’re really fucked up. You had your fucking cock deep inside a hot chick and you were thinking about my balls? Sounds like that’s your problem, not mine, motherfucker,” Bear teased, punching me playfully in the shoulder. “But hey, any girl who likes to be double stuffed will make a great BBB. She’ll fit in just fine with the brothers.”

The rumble of an engine started and we both turned to where Wolf was mounting his bike. He rolled up slowly, and it wasn’t until he stopped right next to where we were standing that I realized Dre was on the back. I almost dropped my cigarette, sending bits of red ash flitting around in the darkness when I caught it before it could hit the ground.

“You move quickly,” Bear said to Dre with a knowing smile.

“Just getting a lift,” Dre clipped. “I wanted to thank you for my AUDITION,” she said, stressing the word, “to be one of your club girls, but something came up and I decided to go another route.”

“Okay to give her a ride?” Wolf asked Bear.

“Shame, beautiful. Could have had a lot more fun,” Bear said. He nodded to Wolf, who revved his engine in response. The look on Dre’s face said everything and made me feel small.

I’d broken everything into so many pieces there was no way in fuck it would ever be able to be put back together again. So I guess you could say my plan worked.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t tearing my fucking gut in two.

I stayed the course, shifting on my Preppy mask for Bear. I took a deep drag of my cigarette, casually blowing smoke rings into the air. “Real shame,” I drawled. I grabbed my dick through my jeans. “Guess all this man meat scared her off.” Bear laughed and turned back toward the house.