“Bran…” she says, lowering herself into her seat. “It doesn’t matter, right? It’s just a number.”
I rip my head out of my hand and glare at her. “A number that will get me fucking
arrested
!”
The crowd is still going wild for the new Voice. I hardly notice them.
“Do you have any idea how old I am, Lilah?” I growl, the animal inside ripping free of its restraints, freeing the rage I’ve fought so hard to keep buried. “I’m twenty-fucking-six.”
She swallows and more tears leak over her lashes.
As Shiloh launches into the song Lilah wrote, I notice people are shooting us glances. This is my worst fucking nightmare—a crowded set full of people witnessing my undoing.
I stand and yank Lilah up by the wrist. “We’re going.”
She doesn’t resist as I drag her up the aisle and out the back doors. I let her go once we’re away from the sea of bodies and storm to my car, barely caring if she’s following.
“You said you were twins,” I spit when we reach the Torino and I find her behind me.
She shakes her head and there’s fight in her expression now. She’s nearly as pissed as me, but she has no right to be. “
You
said we were twins.”
“But you didn’t correct me,” I say, nearly yanking my door off the hinges.
She shrugs. “We were flirting. I didn’t think it mattered how old I was.”
“And last night, when we were fucking?” I yell over the roof of the car. “You didn’t think it mattered then either?”
She pulls open her door and slides in without answering.
I drop into my seat and tear out of the garage. We’re on the highway before she speaks again. “No one’s ever looked at me the way you do. I’ve never felt how you make me feel.” She pauses, swallows then takes a deep breath. “I started to tell you the other night at the bar…but then I couldn’t because…” She tips her head back and stares at the roof. “I was in love with you and…I didn’t want you to quit looking at me like that.”
“And you thought I’d still look at you that way through my
prison bars
?” I slam my palm against the steering wheel. “Fuck, Lilah! I have two friends who have been arrested for doing what we did. One of them spent two months in jail.”
There’s no response except for soft sniffling, but I refuse to look at her. Miles later, when I finally do, things happen inside me that can’t happen anymore. I can’t want this girl. This
baby
. I can’t be in love with her.
Her phone buzzes and I hear her blow out a shaky sigh before lifting it to her ear. “Hey, Destiny. We’re on our way.”
I hear Destiny screaming excitedly through the phone about Shiloh.
“Yeah, it was amazing,” Lilah says, but there’s no enthusiasm behind it.
Destiny says something else, low enough now that I don’t pick up anything but my name. “Yes, he kept his eye on me.”
My eyes, my mouth, my hands, my cock. I kept a lot of things on her.
She waits through Destiny’s response. “Yeah. He’s been great, Destiny. We’ll be home in a few hours.” She hangs up and lowers her hand. “She thinks you’re a great guy.”
I give my head a small shake, my jaw so tight my teeth ache.
“She wanted me to talk her up while we drove, make you see how awesome she is.” She blows out a bitter laugh. “Instead, I opened my legs for you. That’s the kind of person I am—the kind that stabs her sister in the back. Destiny’s the good one. You should have stuck with her.”
“You should have told me the truth,” I grind out.
I keep one fist tight on the gearshift and the other on the steering wheel, because if I don’t I can’t guarantee they won’t end up around her neck. Or in her hair. Or ripping her clothes off her fucking incredible body. Because, despite everything, I know I never could have settled for Destiny.
Not when there’s Lilah.
Chapter 22
Lilah
Jon honks out front and I grab my messenger bag and head down the stairs. When I slide into his car, he wiggles his eyebrows.
“You fucking slut,” he says, his mouth pulling into that puppy grin.
I know what this is about. Apparently, the cameras cut to me during Lo’s original song Tuesday night and caught me kissing Bran. Jon texted me on our way home last night to congratulate me on Lo’s win and to tell me that, as my boyfriend, he was sorely disappointed in me for cheating on him. But he put one of those winking emoticons after the message. Plus, Jon’s always totally full of shit, so I wasn’t really worried. About him, anyway.
But I was terrified Destiny’d seen it.
She hadn’t sounded upset when she’d called, but I couldn’t imagine that she hadn’t watched the show, so I braced myself when Bran dropped me off at the apartment at one thirty this morning.
She was just home from the bar and she threw her arms around me and jumped up and down at Lo’s win. But nothing about kissing Bran. She said Sam Hill had been unusually busy for a Tuesday night and she hadn’t caught the whole semi-finals show, but she’d been able to watch most of the results last night.
I’m so excited for Lo, but everything with Bran feels like the end of my world. I tried to seem as ecstatic as I should be when I told Destiny how awesome the trip was, but I wasn’t feeling it and she could tell. When she asked if I was okay, I told her I was tired and asked if I could skip school today. Her answer was an emphatic no. Thankfully, she was too busy playing mother hen to ask too many more questions about the trip.
So, bullet dodged.
“He looked hot,” Jon says, watching me expectantly. “Who was he?”
“Just a friend.”
“Ha!” he says, slapping his hand against the steering wheel. “Well, as your friend, I’m filing a formal complaint that I have yet to receive my tonsil exam. You seem very thorough.”
I shove his shoulder. “Shut up and drive.”
He peals away from the curb and we wind our way up the hill toward school.
“You should know it was all over Instagram,” he says as he drives. “Everyone’s talking about you.”
My eyes fly wide and cut to him. “What?”
“There were a lot of people from school watching, I guess.” His voice lowers and becomes more serious than I’ve ever heard it. “Someone snapped a screenshot of you kissing that guy and tagged me, because, you know, I’m your boyfriend. It sort of went viral and pretty much everyone at school’s reposted.”
I hang my head. “Fuck.”
“I just thought you should know why everyone’s going to be staring at you as soon as we walk in.”
“Is it going to make things hard for you?” I ask, focusing on that part of this nightmare instead of the part that could get Bran thrown in jail.
He shrugs and tries for a cocky grin. “Not after I break up with you very loudly and publicly at your locker in about five minutes. There’ll probably be pics on Instagram before first period starts, so I’ll be vindicated. I’ll be the ex of the girl whose bestie just won
The Voice
.” He flicks a wrist at himself. “Instant chick magnet.”
I turn in my seat to look at him. “Okay…so where exactly are we in this whole girls versus boys thing?”
“I’m thinking about opting for both,” he says with a shrug. “Why miss out on half the fun?”
I pick his hand off his thigh and hold it between mine as we pull into the lot. “Just be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
He rolls into a space and cuts the engine, then leans over and kisses my forehead. “Too late. My first girlfriend has already crushed my heart.”
♫
Everything at school went pretty much how Jon predicted. I go straight to my job at the market after school and the manager, Gillian, puts me to work restocking the cereal shelves. There was apparently a run on Lucky Charms this morning, so I go to the stockroom to find the case then head back to the shelves.
It’s mindless work, and I let myself drift. Where I land is face up on the bed at the Half Moon Motel, Bran’s solid weight between my legs, driving into me. Every nerve ending in my body catches fire with the memory. Right here in the cereal aisle, my lips tingle and my breath catches and I’m fairly certain I’m about to spontaneously combust.
I close my eyes and trail a finger down my neck, remembering the brush of Bran’s lips there, the warmth of his breath feathering over my skin.
“Delilah!”
Destiny’s panicked voice calling my name rips me from the fantasy just as she grips my shoulder and whips me around to face her. Her expression is a toxic blend of anger and fear when she holds up her phone for me to see. On the screen is the picture of me in the studio audience, pressed against Bran. He’s got handfuls of my ass and I’ve got fistfuls of his hair, and we’re devouring each other.
“What the hell is this?” she shrieks.
I feel my face crumble. “I’m sorry, Destiny…it just…”
I can’t even finish the lie. It didn’t “just happen.” We’d been building up to it for weeks. If I’m totally honest with myself, I’ve
wanted
it to happen since that first night I walked into Sam Hill.
“You’re sixteen!” she reminds me.
I shake my head. “Bran didn’t know that until yesterday…after…”
Her eyes widen. “After what, Delilah? What else happened?”
I bring a hand up to my hide face. “It wasn’t his fault. It was all me. If he knew, he wouldn’t have—”
Her hands fly to her mouth as she cuts me off with her, “Oh my God!”
“I’m so sorry, Destiny. I know you like him.”
Her jaw flexes and rage burns in her eyes. I glance over her shoulder and see a tiny Hispanic woman staring at us from the end of the cereal aisle. Past her, Gillian watches from the counter up front. I knew Destiny and I would have to have this conversation, but I was hoping we could clear the air in private.
Destiny will understand when I tell her we’re in love. I just have to make her see that neither of us meant to hurt her.
But the next second, we knock into the Hispanic woman as Destiny drags me toward the door by the arm. We’re halfway down the block when I realize where we’re headed.
I yank out of her grasp before we make the police station door. “What are you doing, Destiny?”
“He’s a pedophile. You have to file a report. If he…” Her face crumples into a deep grimace as her eyes course down my body. “There might still be evidence.”
I shove away from her. “He didn’t rape me!”
“If he touched you, he did,” she says, her lip curling in disgust.
I shake my head and back away. “I won’t report him. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
I take off running, and end up at Sam Hill, but as my thoughts start to untangle, I realize I can’t go in there. Bran’s probably not here yet anyway, and if Destiny’s at the police station, I need to stay as far away from Bran as I can.
But I can’t let the police get their hands on me either. Because there
is
evidence. I’m sore and bruised and I don’t know how long DNA hangs around.
I keep off the beaten path and work my way up the hill to Jon’s, hoping he’s home from practice. When I get there, the Mustang isn’t in the driveway, so I sit on a rock under a tree in the woods behind his house and hug my knees to my chest while I wait.
When he finally pulls up half an hour later, I sprint for his car and jump in the passenger side.
“Whoa,” he says. “Sneak attack. Look, Lilah, I know this breakup has been hard on you, but—”
I slap a hand over his mouth to shut him up. “The guy I was kissing is twenty-six and my sister’s going to have him arrested.”
His eyes widen and when I don’t feel his mouth trying to move under my palm, I peel my hand back. He just stares at me. For the first time ever, he doesn’t have a comeback.
“I need somewhere I can lay low for a few days until Destiny calms down. Do you think your parents would let me stay here?”
He nods slowly.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath to settle my jumbled nerves. “Okay.”
I follow Jon inside. His brother is in front of the TV, but otherwise no one’s home. We go to his room and he closes his door. I collapse onto his bed, but then realize with a jolt of adrenaline that I need to warn Bran.
I pull my phone from my pocket and dial. After a few rings, it goes to voicemail. “Destiny knows. Call me.” I disconnect and resist the urge to throw my phone across the room.
He’s probably not answering because he’s pissed at me, but if the police show up and haul him to jail, he’s going to wish he took that call.
Chapter 23
Bran
I climb out of my car in front of Sam Hill and see I have a welcoming committee. Destiny’s standing in front of the door, her fists bunched at her sides, ready for a fight.
So it starts.
“You sick bastard,” she shrieks as I approach. Her arm swings out, but I’m ready for her and catch her wrist before her palm makes my face.
I probably should have let her hit me. Fuck knows, I deserve it.
“You got tired of fucking me and moved on to my baby sister?” she spits. “I’m going to make sure everyone in this fucking town knows what a twisted creep you are.” She swings her arm wildly at the front of the bar. “Imagine posters on every storefront with your face and the caption ‘baby fucker.’ Think that will get people’s attention?”
“Do what you have to do,” I say, brushing past her.
“Tell your mother I quit,” she shouts at my back. “I can’t even make myself set foot inside there to do it myself. And if you ever come near me or my sister again, I’ll call the cops and have your pedophile ass thrown in jail.”
I push through the door, then stop and rub a hand down my face. “Fuck,” I growl under my breath.
Because my sorry truth is, I can’t stop thinking about Lilah. No one’s ever turned me inside out the way she does. No one’s ever had me thinking past the first fuck. But Lilah has flipped everything on its head.
My phone rings and I fish it from my pocket. When Lilah’s number flashes on the screen, I take a breath and brace myself for everything that voice does to me. But then I realize, if I do this, hold on when I should let go, Destiny
will
follow through on her threat. Lilah will be dragged through the mud. She’ll be forced to testify to every depraved thing I did to her.
I’m not going to put her through that. So I send the call to voicemail, then delete the message without listening.