“Now that we have your attention”—Lynette drags that last word out just enough to lose it—“we have a little announcement!”
“Me first! Me first!” Sabrina jumps up and down with her hand in the air, doing her best impersonation of someone who both desperately needs to use the restroom and is dying to blurt out the answer in class. “Duncan and I have a bit of news ourselves.” She pats her lips shut for one brief moment. Lord knows you couldn’t stitch those things shut if you tried. She’d simply rip herself free and keep on yapping, bloodied, shredded mouth and all. Come to think of it, all of that vamp red lipstick she insists on wearing sort of offers up the bloodied lip effect all on its own. My sister is beginning to disgust me on all sorts of levels.
Rex leans in from behind, and I can feel the heat, the weight of his body without it ever touching mine. “What’s up with the announcement?” he whispers.
“Probably filling us in on the bedroom scoreboard,” I tease. “She likes to out sex everyone in a ten-block radius at any given time. She’s sort of a dirty little whore that way.” Mostly true.
He pushes out a quiet laugh that strums over my shoulder, and a shiver runs up and down my spine.
“Duncky”—Sabrina pulls him in, and he offers a nauseated smile as if he’s on a boat, the RMS Sabrina, and doesn’t quite have his sea legs—“why don’t we tell everyone on the count of three?”
What can my sister and Duncan ever have to tell anybody in tandem? And why is Duncan’s skin turning a sickly shade of green?
“One—two”—she gives a coy look to my ex-partner in crime, and it hits me. She’s going to out Rex and me. My father will think I’m bumping uglies with Whitney Briggs’s premier ugly bumper, and he’ll never be able to look at me the same again.
“Oh my God,” I hiss just as my sister hits that fated number. “I’M STILL A VIRGIN!” I shout at the top of my lungs just as Duncan and Sabrina shout out something about being engaged.
The room stills. Every single body in this cabin does their best imitation of a wax figure.
My sister’s eyes spring wide in my direction. “Scar Scar?” Her fingers do this funny little dance toward her lady business.
Dad steps over to her with tears streaming down his face, seemingly oblivious to my declaration of purity. “Is my little girl really getting hitched?”
Sabrina’s eyes remain locked with mine as if the ultimate deception had just taken place. Then things turn on a very thin dime, and the room breaks out into congratulations and overall merriment as my father and Lynette shower Sabrina and Duncan as if they were the very first couple on the planet to commit to the idea of wedlock.
“Congratulations,” Rex whispers, and I turn to find that shit-eating grin spreading wide and greedy over his sharp as broken glass features. If that football thing doesn’t work out, he could easily consider posing for one of those underwear spreads that takes over skyscrapers in Times Square.
“I couldn’t care less about my sister and her dunker doodle tying themselves into a big angry knot.” My stomach ties itself into a knot of its own as if to contest the idea. Duncan and I may have never gone all the way, but he was my first real boyfriend. Sabrina knows that part, and now the rest of the free world is in on the chaste story.
“I meant congratulations on keeping yourself sealed shut.” He folds his obnoxious tree trunk like arms across his chest and shrugs.
“Sealed?” Gross. “Never mind. I know what you’re trying to grunt out in caveman speak. I get it. You think it’s hilarious, don’t you? That’s all women are to you, a container of some sort that unscrews itself open for you. Oh, wait, you do the screwing, don’t you?” I turn a hostile shoulder to him and face the music once again. Sabrina and Duncan stand off to the side, stunned. Both Knox and Lawson have their heads twisted away from me as if I were some sort of sexual leper they want no part of, and Trixy keeps sneaking me glances. It’s creepy the way she looks just like Rex with long black hair. She’s stunning, though, yet another creepy element in the Toberman family cookie-cutter attributes.
“Okay!” Lynette claps her hands together. “It seems several of our family members had very important announcements.” Her thin lips stretch eerily into a strange combination of a grimace and a smile. Lynette is thin, sporty for a woman of age, pretty if you’re into that peroxide-hair, blue-eyed combo, porcelain skin, although she’s been cursed with deep-welled marionette lines. I’d like to think my mother would be pleased to know that, pleased to be made aware of all of Lynette Toberman’s flaws both physical and emotional—God knows that fifty-year-old cheerleader routine is grating on my very last nerve. Well, maybe not my very last nerve. I do believe that red pulsing nodule of agitation is reserved for the boy standing before me licking his lips like I just morphed into a USDA choice cut of prime.
Lynette jumps from foot to foot clapping and whooping. “Duncan, welcome to the family! We’re so very glad to have you.”
Rex and I exchange a curious glace. Who the hell is she to welcome anyone to my family? I study Rex for a moment who seems just as ticked at his dear old mom as I am.
“And Sabrina”—she stretches out my sister’s name painfully, psychotically slow—“I would be honored to shop for bridal gowns with you. I think a girls’ trip to NYC is in our future!” Trixy claps up a storm as if she approves of the Big Apple bridal stomp. And who the hell says N-Y-C? Which funny farm did my father pluck this woman out of? “Of course, we can’t forget our Batter Bits.” Her emotions temper at the drop of a hat. Lynette turns her attention to me, thus directing the remainder of the room to do the same. “I think everyone in this house can learn something from a young lady of such distinctive upstanding virtue.” Dad wraps his arm around her shoulder, his tearful gaze never leaving mine. Dear God, is that pride in his eyes? Sadly, I don’t recall a single moment in my life that my father has looked so distinctly proud of me. Who knew keeping my knees shut would bring such glory? My face burns like fire, and I wish to God I would combust to put me out of this awkward virginal dilemma.
Lynette cocks her head in an effort to continue. “Scarlett Amethyst Kent is a testament—”
“Amaryllis,” Dad gently corrects while lovingly patting her hand, and now I’m not sure what has me embroiled in silent rage more at the moment—my spontaneous confessional or the fact my father insists on treating this woman as if she actually means something to him.
“Amaryllis?” Rex huffs a dull laugh, butting his shoulder into mine, and I swiftly take a step away.
Lynette clears her throat, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I’m just so proud of our baby girl.” She looks to my father, and they share a brief kiss.
Our baby girl? This woman needs to be committed, and fast.
Rex leans in. “This is getting weird,” he whispers. “You want to start throwing knives and shit? I think maybe we should have that horrible breakup now, liven up the mood.”
I glance to my sister, and she’s still beaming that same smug grin of satisfaction ever since she officially claimed my ex as her own. As if I give a rat’s ass. My stomach does a quick revolution as I spot their conjoined hands.
“We’re not breaking up,” I whisper.
“What?” Rex steps in, allowing his chest to warm my back, and my heart thumps straight into my ears.
Dad presses a kiss to the top of Lynette’s head. God, if I see him pawing at her, swapping spit with her one more time, I might just throw knives at random just to lessen the pain for everyone involved.
“Lynette and I have a special announcement of our own.”
Here it goes. I bet she talked him into selling Kent, billed it as retirement, and now our family will be thrust into financial ruins. Sabrina, Lawson, and I will have to team up just to boot her off Kent Island.
Dad grins at Lawson, my sister, and then me. I knew it. This is proprietary to our family, and the Toberman tribe is listening in where they don’t belong. “Knox, Trixy, Rex.” My father looks to them each in turn
. Ha! He’s going to boot them right out on their matching pointy ears. “I’ve asked your mother for the privilege of her hand in marriage, and she said yes.”
“What?” Rex and I cry at the same time.
The room breaks out into an odd mixture of shock and awe.
“We’re going to be one big happy family!” Lynette shouts while pulling Sabrina and Duncan in an awkward tangle of limbs. “Group hug, everybody. Let’s go! Up on your feet! You’re not losing a mother or a father. You’re gaining one and then some. Come on, give your new siblings some love! In just a few short weeks—the Toberman and Kent families will unite as one, forever!”
“Oh my shit,” I whimper as Lawson and Knox slap one another an unenthused five. Trixy leaps forward, and her mother is quick to swallow her into the growing blob of flesh.
Rex growls while glaring at his mother. He looks to me and grunts as if I were spearheading this wedding endeavor.
“No,” I say as if anything that came from my mouth mattered, as if anyone could hear me over the irresponsibly growing glee in the room.
“Yes.” Rex narrows those dark brows my way. His cutting gaze slices right through me. “Welcome to the family, sis.”
A week floats by with all of that unnatural trauma and drama still clotting up both my head and my heart. Rex and I slept on opposite ends of the bed and left bright and early the next morning without exchanging a single word on the long drive back to Hollow Brook. I’ve been avoiding him like the unwanted plague his family has become. I’ve also been avoiding Sabrina and her incessant text messages claiming she needs to have a serious sit-down with me and my “virginal” behind. As soon as she put virginal in quotes, I knew she didn’t believe me. Not that my unbroken hymen or I really care one way or another.
Daisy and I head into the Black Bear on this oven-heated Friday night. The music pours in loud from the overhead speakers, and the thick scent of cologne mingling with scarves of flowery perfume greets us at the door. Although the coeds and the frat brats are out and about, a good portion of the student body has dispersed, taking off for Caribbean blue pastures and other summer friendly getaways, so the population isn’t quite as dense as it’s known to be.
My own friends and I are staying put this summer. Daisy is working down at Stilettos as an exotic dancer, sans the nudity. Cassidy has a waitressing gig right here at the bar.
We wave to our perky blonde friend before taking our traditional seats near the back.
Piper is seated with Roxy who I happened to spend the entire afternoon with on a marathon delivery run. I rode shotgun as we made our way to the four corners of the mountain. She says I can fly solo starting next week, and, sadly, those words sent a bone-chilling shiver down my spine. I can’t see how I’m going to get away with avoiding the highways. I’d ask a friend to help out, but they’re all so busy with their own lives. I hate that I’m psychologically unable to do what comes naturally to everyone else on the planet.
Baya is seated next to Roxy, and their friends, Laney and Izzy, are there as well. Baya and Laney are best friends. Baya’s husband owns the Black Bear along with a few other bars, and Izzy is Laney’s sister. I met them all through Piper at her psychotic birthday party a few months back. Roxy is the one that made the chocolate confection for that little firecracker of a birthday cake. Boy was that a cake to remember. Cassidy dumped it all over Sammy Spears’s head for trying to steal her man. It was an unfortunate disaster that was just as hard to witness, as I’m sure it was to live.
Rex catches my eye at a table not too far away with Owen and their friend, Jet, who happened to gift me one of my favorite tattoos, my only tattoo, that of a raven with its wings in flight right over the back of my neck.
Wait—Rex!
For a fleeting moment, I imagine Rex and me in his truck with a stack of cake piled high in the back. On second thought, I should take a cue from Cassidy and shower him with one instead.
I shake the thought loose as I take a seat between Piper and Daisy. Cassidy comes over, offering to take our orders with that sing-song twang of hers.
“Not so fast.” Piper pulls her into the seat across from us. “We’re plotting trouble. I think we need your input. Trust me, nobody knows how to stir up some good old-fashioned shenanigans like Calamity Clayton.”
I wince. I’m pretty sure that’s not the verbiage she’s looking for. “What’s with the shenanigans?”
Baya leans in. “Annie and Marley are getting married next weekend, and we’re plotting their final soirée as single women.”
Marley growls out a laugh. “More like plotting our destruction.”
Laney leans in with her petite frame and cute, pinched features. “They made us swear we wouldn’t pull any stunts. They just want to hang out.”
I scoff while looking to Roxy. Surely, she’ll be the voice who can withstand all of the reason running amuck, but she simply shrugs.
“Et tu, Roxy?” I gag for a moment on the flood of words trying to evict themselves from my throat. “Surely, you of all people understand that her shenanigan days as a single woman are fleeting.” As are Roxy’s, considering the fact she’s practically hitched herself. Speaking of hitched, my father has forecasted the biggest mistake of his life will happen this coming August twenty-seventh. I glance over my shoulder and catch Rex casually leaning against the wall with three tall blonde cheerleaders ready and willing to leash their long, svelte ponytails to any part of his body. His eyes snag on mine, and he gives a friendly nod, but I turn back around, landing my attention right where it belongs with my shenanigan-plotting friends. My stomach burns with heat, and it takes a moment to catch my breath. I’m not sure why, but ever since we shared mattress real estate, he’s had all sorts of erotic thoughts churning in my head—mostly when I’m sleeping, i.e., out of my right mind.
“I think she’s right.” Izzy pulls a strand of dark hair under her nose like an elongated mustache. Laney and Izzy are sisters, and as much as I find it endearing, there’s a kernel of jealousy in me. Why can’t Sabrina and I be that close in proximity without wanting to claw one another’s eyes out? God knows if my sister’s hair were that long, I’d noose her with it. “Shenanigans should be had,” Izzy stresses. “In fact, I plan on entertaining any and all shenanigans right up until my own wedding day this August, so I say let the plotting of trouble begin.” She gives a cheeky grin, and the table begins to buzz with a flood of ideas.
“Excuse me,” a deep voice emanates from behind. The rich, spiced cologne hits me before I can turn around, intoxicating me to whoever this might be. I jump, only to find Rex and the look of rapid concern blooming on his face. “We should dance.” He pulls me up before I can protest, before I can formulate a single thought as to why this might be happening. Rex leads me by the hand, weaving us in and out of an entire thicket of limbs, only to bury us somewhere in the middle of the dance floor, his arms finding a home around my waist.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” I slip his hands off my hips, and they spring right back.
He cocks his head, and that sarcastic lopsided grin makes its reprisal. “You’ve gotten into me.” His hand rides up and down my back as the smile slides off slowly. “She’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?” I struggle to remove him for a moment before spotting an all too familiar face who, although I’m quite used to seeing, still looks foreign to me at the Black Bear.
“Sabrina!” I pull Rex in tight until his body adheres to mine, the girth and width of his chest demands my attention in far too many erotic ways for me to process at the moment. He’s so solid, I can’t help but touch him.
“Here you are!” my sister squawks over the music. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun, her lips heavily pigmented in magenta. There’s a garishness about her I’m not used to. Sabrina has always been a natural beauty, the one who wore her hair wild and free while spending her days in blue jeans and a T-shirt. I glance down at her leather mini skirt, her oddly geometrically shaped sweater with litt
le pink sequins sewn into it.
“Working the streets later?” I give a little wink.
“Never mind that.” She yanks me free from Rex and drags me toward the entrance where the noise level is slightly subdued. “You two can’t be doing this anymore.”
I glance up at Rex who has dutifully followed us over and frown, because for one, I’m actually loving the out she’s about to offer us. I know just where this familial train is headed, and, for once, it’s in the right direction.
“We’re going to be siblings,” Sabrina scoffs at Rex with a clear look of disgust. “Now that the branches of the Toberman-Kent family trees are touching, you’ll each have to bark up another drunk coed trunk.”
“I object.” Rex lands his arm around my waist in an act of clear defiance. Judging by that disgruntled look on his face, he’s putting on a pretty decent act.
“You can’t object.” Sabrina wastes no time in plucking me free from his grasp once again.
“She’s right.” I bite down on my lip in an effort to keep the smile from bouncing right back where it wants to be. He shakes his head, just barely as if to ask the question, and I give a little shrug in response. “I’m afraid, now that our parents are making it official, we’ll have to call it quits.”
“Just like that?” he flatlines. His lips twitch, but overall he’s pulling off quite the convincing act. Apparently, Rex Toberman is an Oscar-worthy force to be reckoned with. Maybe if that football thing doesn’t work out he can hit Hollywood.
“Just like that.” Sabrina pulls me next to her and lands her arm where Rex’s was warming my body just a moment ago.
“Wait a minute.” I step out of her grasp and land next to my fake ex. “What brings you to the Black Bear?” This is by far Sabrina’s stomping ground. She and Duncan are at another private university in the next town over where she’s busy majoring in every foreign language known to man. Speaking of Duncan, where the hell is he? A thought comes to me, and I gasp. God, she’s set her sights on Rex now, too. That jealous look in her eye should have clued me in. “Is that what you came for? Are you here ensuring my unhappiness?” Now it’s me wrapping my arm around Rex’s waist. Crap. This boy’s body is solid as iron. “Well, I’m not having it. If Sexy Rexy and I want to continue seeing one another, there’s no way you’re going to stop us.”