Rocking Kin (The Lucy & Harris Novella Series Book 3) by Terri Anne Browning
“You can’t do that!” I would go insane if I couldn’t leave the house. Winter break was only a few days away and I would be trapped.
Trapped.
With the step-monster and the two step-bitches from hell.
Jillian actually had the gall to smirk at me. Seeing that I was upset now, amused her. “Try me, little girl. What I say in this house is law. While you live under this roof, you will listen to me or…”
“Or what?” I snarled, taking a step closer to her.
Unlike me, she took a hesitant step back, but didn’t lose the smirk on her face. “Or you won’t be able to see, talk, socialize or anything else. No school friends. No long chats with those idiots back in Virginia who think you’re so special. Toe the line, McKinley, because I can make your life pure hell.”
My hands balled into fists and it took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to punch her right then and there. My mother and Carter’s voice was barely a whisper now, reminding me to respect my elders. “It’s already hell, Jillian,” I assured her and turned away, making sure my long red hair hit her in the face as I headed for the stairs. “And trust me, I’ll be out of here the second I turn eighteen.”
Promise or not, as soon as I was a legal adult I was gone from Scott Montez’s house.
Screw this shit.
Screw that bitch.
Chapter 14
Kin
The only good thing to come out of having to take Georgia home the night before was that I hadn’t talked to Jace. I was almost grateful for that. If I’d stuck around First Bass, I would have talked to him. Really, actually talked.
Talking to Jace, I mean really talking to him, was completely different than talking at him, as I’d been doing for months at this point. In the beginning, when Jace had been my world and I’d thought I was his, we had been able to talk for hours about nothing at all and it felt like we had talked about the biggest philosophy questions in the universe. We could talk about everything important and I was left reeling from how close we seemed. How alike we were.
How perfect we were.
Together.
That—and the blazing-hot chemistry we shared—had made falling for him seem like it had happened in an instant even though I knew it had taken at least a month before I’d known for sure. So talking to him? Yeah, that was a bad idea.
I had too much shit on my plate right then. I needed to get through the holidays with the step-monster from hell. Needed to bide my time and keep my nose clean until my birthday in February so I could get the hell out from under that roof. Then there was high school, but that was boring shit. I’d already been through most of the things that the teachers were trying to pass along to us so it was a total snooze-fest that I was forced to endure every day. But I’d take that over staying home with Jillian any day.
I also had college to think about. For some stupid reason I’d applied to some West Coast schools even though I had already decided that I would go to Virginia Tech like Angie and Caleb had done. Since they would be graduating in the spring I wouldn’t have them there with me, but at least I would be closer to home. Still I’d applied to UCLA and several more and gotten in to all of them.
Now?
I was still determined to go to Virginia Tech, but…
But.
There was that but and I didn’t understand it. I tried telling myself it was because I wanted to wait and see where Lucy was going to end up. Tried to tell myself I enjoyed the SoCal weather. Those were all weak excuses when I really looked at them, but I tried not to look at them often. Lucy and I would be close friends no matter where we ended up going to college at, and I was more of a four seasons person than the kind of weather I was faced with in Southern California.
If I was honest with myself—and I really didn’t want to be right then—I knew I wanted a West Coast school because of Jace. Having been forced to see him so often, listen to him talk to Harris and Lucy and countless other people, I knew that he wanted to call L.A. home. Even if it was only for part of the year.
If I was honest with myself, I would admit that after hearing him say that the first time, I’d applied to three different schools all within a few hours’ drive.
If I were honest with myself.
But I didn’t want to be honest with myself, so I kept telling Carter I was going to Virginia Tech in the fall every time I talked to him about it. It was what I told Angie when she questioned me about what dorm I wanted to live in. It was what I told Caleb when he even recommended one of the schools I’d just gotten the acceptance letter to because of their music department.
All three of them had made the right comments, laughed with me about it, but we all knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. Especially them. They knew me too well. Knew that I wanted to stay in SoCal, but I didn’t think they realized why. I hadn’t talked about Jace to any of them, although I was sure Caleb knew since he talked to Cash every so often. They—the three people who loved me for me and didn’t hold that love hostage for the things I could give them—knew that I had something important there and they didn’t need to know anything else.
They just wanted me to be happy.
I wasn’t happy, though.
I was anything but.
Lucy put her hand to her lips for the thousandth time that day and I had to bite back my bitch mode. She was so happy she practically glowed with it, but I was miserable. I wouldn’t take it out on her, however. She didn’t deserve that.
But if she gave me the damn bug that was going around school because she couldn’t keep her hands away from her damn mouth for two seconds and caught whatever it was, then I was seriously going to tit-punch her.
“You know there is some kind of epic bug going around at the moment, right?” I muttered as we exited the school that Friday afternoon.
I felt like I was walking to my doom, knowing that it was the last day before winter break and I would be stuck in the same house with Jillian for an indefinite time. I wanted the next day not to be Saturday. Couldn’t there be school for a few more days? I really wouldn’t mind going on Saturday and Sunday in that moment.
“Hm?” Lucy murmured, still off in her own little world as she skimmed her fingers over her bottom lip for the hundredth time in less than an hour.
“Lucy, there is a seriously bad bug going around this school,” I told her in a cooler tone than I normally would have used with her. “At least a third of the student body is out with it. And yet you have done nothing but touch your mouth. All. Day.” I tapped my fingers to the back of her uninjured hand to emphasize what she was doing. The other hand was still in a soft cast and would be that way for a few more weeks.
Lucy frowned as we continued to walk. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eyes, saw the flow of emotions and the kaleidoscope of thoughts as they passed over her beautiful face. Seriously, the girl didn’t realize just how beautiful she was, and when she was having a conflicting inner moment like she was right then, she was that much more beautiful.
Reaching out, I caught her arm and pulled her around to face me, forcing us both to stop before we could reach the doors that led out into the student parking lot. Where I was sure my step-bitches were impatiently waiting on me.
“What’s up with you today?” I asked the question, but I already knew the answer.
Harris.
Love.
I wasn’t jealous. At least not of them together. Just of what they had. How effortless it seemed. How perfect they were together. How…everything they were together.
Lucy started to touch her lips again and I was about to slap her hand away from her mouth when she dropped it and let out a sigh. “Sorry, I’m just a little…”
Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but laugh, but it held little humor. “In love?” The word tasted flat on my tongue and I grimaced.
Love was a bitter pill to swallow when you refused to let yourself feel it.
When my best friend just shrugged, I wanted to beat it into her head to no
Love was beautiful, but I didn’t want to see its beauty right then.
“Just be careful, Lucy,” I told her in a quiet tone, not wanting to spoil her love high, but unable to keep from warning her. “I know how wonderful it feels to be in love like that. It’s like you’re walking on a cloud. Nothing could possibly bring you down. Until he breaks your heart.”
“Kin—”
She started to speak but I cut her off. “Look, I’m not trying to bring you down, babe. I’m just warning you to be careful. Okay? Just take it…slow.”
Knowing brown eyes narrowed in understanding and I wanted to shy away from her, hating how close we were for a moment because she could see how deep my pain was. “You didn’t take things slow with Jace, did you?”
I dropped my eyes, unable to let her see it all. “No.” It came out practically a whisper, but I cleared my throat and forced myself to look up again, but not meeting her eyes. “No, things went at warp speed for us. That’s probably why we didn’t last. I gave it up too soon and he lost interest. Why else would he have found it so easy to leave without a backward glance?”
It was what I’d told myself countless times in the past, but right then I didn’t believe it. Not completely. I knew his music had come first and I respected that.
I’d just wanted to come in a close second. Had that been asking too much?
“Because he’s an idiot who doesn’t realize what a good thing he had,” Lucy said as she wrapped her arms around me so tight I had to hug her back. “Harris isn’t like Jace, though,” she tried to assure me. “He’s one of the good guys.”
As much as I knew that, I knew that even good guys did stupid shit. “Even the good guys have their douchebag moments.”
She didn’t answer and after a moment of silence where I knew I would never be able to convince her that Harris Cutter was anything but her knight in shining armor, I let her pull me toward the exit. “What are you going to do over the next month? You can spend as many nights at my house as you want.”
I didn’t want to think of what I would be doing; instead, I wanted to do what I always did. “I know what I wish I was doing,” I confided in her. “Every Christmas we went to Aspen for at least a week. Carter has a cabin up there and we go out and cut down our own tree. Then we decorate it with all kinds of stupid things.”
I lowered my lashes, trying to hold on to the memories that were assaulting me. Of snowball fights with the twins. My mom making her special gingerbread cookies that we would all sneak into the kitchen to steal when her back was turned. Of going to bed Christmas Eve to the sounds of Angie humming and my mother’s voice as she’d read The Night Before Christmas to us still echoing through my head. Waking up knowing that no matter what was under the tree for me, I was going to be thankful for it and love it because my mom had given it to me…
None of those things would be happening this Christmas.
“My mom, she saved every handcrafted ornament that we ever made in grade school,” I told Lucy to distract myself from the things I would have that Christmas. “So there are a lot of bells, construction paper, and Styrofoam-cup reindeers.” Tears burned my eyes and I found myself confessing the conversation I’d had with my father. It was so memorable because we had so few of them, but that particular one was like a thorn in my side. “When I asked my father if I could go to Aspen with Carter and the twins, he refused to talk about it with me. Apparently, Jillian has a big social calendar this time of year, and I’m expected to go to all the parties with them.”
To show my face with Georgia and Carolina so that when people saw my picture on all the gossip tabloids they would associate them with me. What. The. Fuck. Ever. Why were parties so important when all I wanted was to spend a few days with Carter and the twins? Didn’t what I want matter?
No. No, it definitely didn’t matter to them, that was for sure.
Unconsciously, my gaze went to the car where Georgia and Carolina were already sitting inside. I slowed down, walking at a snail’s pace, hoping to prolong having to dive face-first into the pit with the three vipers that were Jillian and her clone-like daughters.
“Step-sandwich!”
I froze as Lucy was suddenly pushed away from me and I was wrapped into two pairs of arms that felt so familiar I didn’t want to question their sudden embrace. It took me two seconds before tears were burning my eyes and a happy laugh bubbled out of me. I met Angie’s eyes, knew that she was real from the happy tears in her own gaze, and we both started jumping up and down as Caleb’s massive arms stayed around us like a bear protecting its two cubs.
I wasn’t the bubbly, jump-up-and-down kind of girl. Angie was, though, and I loved her enough to do the bubbly, jump-up-and-down thing with her. I screamed, laughing and crying as she held me tighter.
It was several moments later before Angie calmed down enough that we could stop. When I did, I looked up into Caleb’s laughing eyes. “Miss us?” he teased.
“Miss you?” I didn’t know if I shouted it or whispered it, but he laughed so it didn’t matter. “So much it hurts.” I kissed Angie’s cheek, pushing back a few strands of blond hair when it seemed glued to my damp cheeks. I wiped the tears away and hugged her closer. “What are you two doing here?”
“Daddy said that your step-monster wouldn’t let you come to us for Christmas, so as soon as the semester ended we grabbed the first plane out to be with you,” Angie explained. “You have to put up with Caleb’s ugly face for four full weeks. Daddy will be here on Monday. He had some business to take care of before he could get here, but we couldn’t wait to see you.”
In that moment it didn’t matter that I wasn’t the bubbly, jump-up-and-down kind of girl because I was doing just that as I squealed, “Yes, yes, yes,” I said, excited. Four weeks of my favorite people. Four weeks of my family. Four weeks of peace.
A throat was cleared and only then did I remember Lucy. Glancing up, I saw her standing behind Marcus where he must have moved her. “Lucy, come meet my brother and sister.”
Angie turned before Lucy could even move, offering her hand. “Lucy? I’ve heard so much about you. Thank you so much for taking care of Kin for us.”
I hadn’t held back about telling the twins about Lucy and life with Scott Montez. I didn’t tell Carter nearly as much as I did them.
Lucy’s face showed her surprise. “Don’t thank me,” she told Angie. “Kin’s been my life saver.”
I frowned, missing the rest of their exchange as I looked at Lucy closer. I’d saved her? What did that mean? I tried to think back to the first time I’d met Lucy, tried to compare how she was then to how she was now, but she seemed the same happy chick who had helped me through such an insane time in my life. Sure, she was in love now, but that was the only difference I really saw.
What had I missed?
It niggled at me, making me want to pause to go back over all the months we had been best friends. As I looked at Lucy, watched how she interacted with Angie and Caleb, I realized that maybe there was a difference. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Caleb turned from hugging Lucy, forcing me back to the moment as he thrust his hands into his pockets. “Are you really grounded? Your email to Angie said you were, but you didn’t know for how long. What the hell did you do, Kin?”
I knew he was teasing me, but remembering that I was grounded burst my happy bubble. “Nothing,” I grumbled. “For once, I didn’t do a damn thing. Georgia rushed the stage, kissed the guy performing, and got escorted out of the club with her hands cuffed with zip ties.” I didn’t mention it had been Jace she had kissed. I wasn’t ready to dive into that conversation with the twins yet. “Lucy gave us a ride home and Marcus here walked us to the door to explain to my father and Jillian what happened. Georgia got a pat on the head by mommy dearest and I got grounded indefinitely for not using my ‘influence’ to get her out of trouble.”
It
A honk echoed off the school walls behind us and I clenched my hands into fists as I told myself I needed to keep my nose clean. That meant not punching my step-bitches in the face. Although I was pretty sure that Jillian would use it as a good reason to enhance her daughters’ features.
“We’ll see how long you stay grounded once Daddy gets here,” Angie muttered more to herself than to anyone else as she flipped the step-bitches the bird.
Ah, I loved Angie so damn much. She was a little goddess. The sister of my heart looked like what most would call an angel with her long blond hair and those brilliant blue eyes. She had a sweet voice that she used to her advantage often and had gotten us out of trouble more than a few times with it. The thing about Angie, though, was that appearances had never been more deceiving. She was anything but an angel.
She was pure hell on high heels when she needed to be—or more like when she wanted to be. And when she was with me and her twin, she wanted to be. Often.
Caleb, on the other hand, looked like a gorgeous beast from hell. He was scary with his hulk-like body and sometimes menacing scowl. Like his twin, appearances were deceptive. The brother of my heart was more angel than his sister could ever hope to be.
“But we aren’t going to get to hang out tonight, are we?” Caleb said with a cute little pout, bringing me back to the situation at hand.
“No,” I muttered as fresh tears stung my eyes. Damn it. I had cried more in the last ten minutes than I had in six months.
Lucy was quick to step in, though. “How about I take you two out on the town tonight? Marcus and I will pick you up at your hotel and take you to dinner and then to First Bass. I’ll give you the full VIP experience.”
I forced a smile for her. “Yeah, you two.” I knew that Lucy would take care of the two people who meant so much to me. “Go out with Lucy and have a good time. When Carter gets here we can have our time.” Georgia hit the horn again and I was ten seconds from punching her in the face, so I hugged the twins again. “I’m so happy you two are here. I love you both so much.”