Bayward Street (17 page)

“You sure can pick an enemy,” Liam said as I finally reached him. “Jay Crowler? Really?” He shook his head.

“You know her?”

We rolled down the sidewalk, my home disappearing behind me as we headed for the skate park. I could have just gone inside, but right now, I needed something to take my mind off what just went down.

“Everyone knows her. Not only is her dad the Chief of Police, but her mom is also one of the most well-known models in the industry.”

It made sense now. She did think she was invincible.

“Her and Heath Carson dated last year. They broke up a couple months back, just before Christmas.”

My skate caught on the footpath, and I almost fell flat on my face. “Heath and Jay?” I gasped when I finally steadied myself.

Liam laughed. “Yeah, they were Diamond Cross’s couple.”

“But she’s like—”

“The most vile bitch you’ve ever met?” he offered, his voice darkening.

I snorted. “Understatement. Why did they break up?”

“I guess the king figured out his queen wasn’t the person he thought she was. Jay is an actress, and a good one at that. She snapped one night and beat the daylights out of a girl at a party that was flirting with Heath. He saw the real bitch, and since then I guess she just decided not to hide it anymore.”

“Let me guess, her daddy got her off any type of charges.”

He laughed. “The girl she beat on was too scared to even press them. It was kept quiet. I only know because I was there.”

We rolled across the bridge that led to the park, it was filled with teens, both boys and girls. Most smiled at me as I passed with Liam, and I welcomed the exchange which was so different to what I’d experienced over the last few days.

Liam pulled to a stop in front of me and looked me directly in the eyes. “My advice would be to stay the hell away from Heath Carson. There’s something fucked up in that girl’s head, and you do not want to be the one on the receiving end of that level of crazy.”

I swallowed tightly. “Little hard when I live with him.”

Liam’s eyes grew wider and wider. “You’re fucking joking.”

“Unfortunately not.”

He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward an empty bench. Pushing down on my shoulders and forcing me to sit. “This… I’ve got to hear.”

The explanation was short. Rehashing my life story was not something I enjoyed, and after the reaction from the Diamond Cross student body at the beginning of the week, I wasn’t sure how it would be received.

“So the rumors were somewhat true, huh,” he mused, more to himself than me.

“Rumors?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Word was some illegitimate child had shown up on the doorstep.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Just your regular juvenile delinquent.”

“Liam!” We both looked up as a young kid who must have only been about ten years old came running over with a huge grin on his face. “Can you show me that trick again, I’m gonna get it this time, I know it.”

I desperately wanted to ask him about Heath and Jay’s relationship. But seeing the bright eyes of this young boy looking at Liam like he was a hero, I gave him a shove. “Go on. Let’s see your skills.”

He shook his head, laughing softly. “I don’t know if you’re quite ready to see my mad skills just yet.”

“Liam is the best,” the kid said excitedly, bouncing on his feet.

“Oh, is he now? I can’t wait to see.” I wiggled my eyebrows at Liam, and he just smiled and shook his head.

“Come on, Seb. Let’s go way over there, so Fable can’t see when I make an ass out of myself.” He threw me a wink over his shoulder, and I giggled, pushing off the bench and heading toward the skate bowl, ready to leave some of my worries behind and let the joy and adrenaline take over.

Sweat had built on my skin, and my breathing was heaving after over an hour of chasing Liam and his little friend Seb around the skate park.

“Okay…” I laughed, bending over and bracing my hands on my knees, “…you win, I’m done!”

“Yes,” Seb called, throwing his fist in the air with triumph. Liam skated over and held up his hand, Seb high fiving him with glee.

“It’s getting late, you need to head home,” Liam told him, scuffing his hair.

“Yeah. My mom will freak out. Bye!”

Liam and I walked out to the curb and watched him carefully as he headed to a house just up the street.

“You’re good with him,” I noted.

Liam shrugged, tucking his board under his arm as we moved down the street toward home. “He doesn’t have it so good at home. I guess I just wish I’d had someone when I was that young and going through the shit he is.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

“What?” he asked, hitting me with a smile of his own.

“Nothing.”

A car pulled up to the curb beside me, slamming on its breaks. Liam’s arm came across my body and pulled me back as if to protect me. But with just a quick glance of the car, I knew immediately who it was. Both front doors opened, and Heath and Braydon climbed out. I was about to greet them, but the stern looks on both their faces froze the words in my mouth.

“Heath, Braydon. Long time no see.” Liam’s voice held a certain edge that I’d had yet to hear. It surprised me and made me wary. I slipped out of his hold and moved closer to the brothers, who had still to speak. The air was tense, and I could feel something building that I didn’t like.

“Come on, let’s go.” My hands pressed against Heath’s chest, but he didn’t budge. With my blades on I struggled to get any type of grip on the ground, fighting a losing battle. I tried a different tactic. “Heath, please, let’s just go.”

“We’re having a party tonight, maybe you boys should come,” Liam offered sarcastically.

Braydon held his arms out wide. “Or maybe we could have our own little party right here.”

I heard Liam chuckle, and the scratch of his board against the sidewalk as he mounted it. “I’ll see you round, Fable.” Turning to look over my shoulder, I gave him a quick wave.

“Not fucking likely, Bremmer,” Braydon called after him as he disappeared down the darkening street.

Sighing, I released Heath and skated around him, pulling open the backdoor of the car. “You guys still pissing all over everything or can we go now?” I called before slamming the door shut behind me. I watched them through the window as they spoke quietly together. Heath grabbed Braydon’s arm just as Bray was about to take off in the direction that Liam left.

Heath gave him a shove in the shoulder, turning his body back to the car. Braydon’s jaw was clenched tightly, but he took his brother’s prompt and stormed around to the passenger’s side and climbed in. Heath followed, his shoulders sagging in what seemed like relief as he jumped in and started the car. The atmosphere was tense, and I wondered whether I should say something. Apologize maybe? But for what?

The clock on the dashboard read 5.37 p.m. I’d been out for more than a couple hours.

“Sorry you guys had to come get me. I didn’t realize what the time was.” Neither of them seemed to acknowledge my apology, and I was confused.

Had I really made them that angry?

The rest of the ride was in silence. The boys not even speaking as we pulled up to the front of the house. Heath followed me up the stairs after I’d removed my blades and placed them by the front door. I could feel the tension radiating off him, but I was still confused as to why he was so upset. Liam and the kids from the skate park seemed like normal teenagers to me.

They didn’t roll around in flash cars or have Olympic sized swimming pools in their backyards. They had average income families who worked their asses off for very little but managed to make ends meet.

When I heard Heath shut my bedroom door behind me, I whirled around. “What the hell is your problem? You’re making me feel like a criminal, and you’re my prison guard.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Liam Bremmer is not someone that you should be hanging out with.”

“Why?”

“Trust me,” he growled.

My head shook from side to side. “No, Heath. You need to give me more than that if you think I’m going to change my mind about him.”

Heath took a step forward. “I thought you trusted me.” I could almost hear a twinge of hurt in his voice. But I figured I must have imagined it because his posture never faltered, his scowl hitting me harder than ever. “He’s not who you think he is.”

“You mean like your little girlfriend, Jay?” The words came so fast, but Heath didn’t look surprised or shocked. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When I felt it was important.”

I threw my hands in the air, frustration filling me. “Yes Heath, because your word is law. God, maybe you’re more like them than I thought.” Tears burned at my eyes and anger heated my skin. “I keep thinking things will get better. First, it was my parents, then the streets, and now I’m here. It’s not getting better, it’s like moving from one kind of hell to another.”

Even through the blur of my tears I saw his face soften. He was in my space within a second, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him, tucking my head under his chin. I fought against his arms, trying to push away from his chest but he only pulled me in tighter. I wanted to tell him to fuck off, to storm out, but I found myself giving up as he smothered my attempts to fight against him.

“It’ll get better,” his voice whispered softly.

I wanted to believe him. But I was starting to think that maybe I should have stuck with the devil I knew.

“Why did you pick Fable?” Heath asked as we lay on the floor at the foot of my bed. He sat back against the wooden frame, and I looked up at him from where I lay with my head on his thighs.

“I wanted to be able to pretend that the life I was living wasn’t real.” Heath’s fingers danced through my hair as I spoke, the light brush soothing my whole body. “I wanted it to just be a story–a fable, so that when I finally found my place and moved on, I could close the book and go back to being Keira.”

“Should I be calling you Keira then?”

My throat clogged. As much as I wanted to say yes, I knew that I still wasn’t sure I’d found what I’d been searching for my entire life. And until then, I would still be Fable, just a girl in a story. “Do you really think this is the place I was meant to end up?”

“Why not? You’re smart as hell, and with a school like Diamond Cross behind you, there’s no way that you won’t get a scholarship to a good college. Both Bray and I are relying on sports to get scholarships.”

“Yeah, your mom mentioned how amazing it was.”

He sighed as he continued to pull his fingers through my soft waves. “I know the teachers can be assholes, and a lot of the students have their heads so far up their asses they need to be surgically removed, but the school demands the best from its pupils. My parents both went to Diamond Cross, my mom didn’t grow up wealthy, but my grandma and grandad worked their asses off to earn enough money for her to go there.”

Heath’s mom had come from nothing and worked her way to the top. It was admirable, and my already high respect for the woman only seemed to grow.

“Why didn’t any of you kids go into acting?” It was something that I’d thought about for a while now. It seemed the obvious choice with a movie director father.

He laughed, the sound making me smile. “My dad felt like we all needed to find our own path. If we wanted to go into acting, he said we had to go to auditions and try out just like every other person had to. Mom and Dad want us to succeed, but they were also very sure about teaching us that hard work was the way to get to where we wanted. There are no free rides in this house.”

“Damn, here I was thinking this was my chance to be famous.”

Heath chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint.”

I shrugged. “I guess I could always marry into fame. Does your dad bring actors around often?”

“Remember that first night we met?”

My nose screwed up. “How could I forget.”

“We were headed to the Twisted Transistor concert, Dad was going backstage to meet with the guys about doing a movie, kinda like
One Direction
did. How they became famous and all that.”

“No way!” I gasped. “Are they doing it?”

He shrugged, but a smirk played on his mouth. “Don’t know. They haven’t decided.”

“You missed out on meeting them, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but meeting you was so much better.”

His fingers stayed wound through my hair as I pushed myself up and twisted onto my knees. He used his hold on me to pull me closer.

“That’s stupid.” My voice came out on a whisper as my face moved in, his other hand cupping my hip.

“Why?”

“I’m just me.”

His lips brushed mine, and my eyes fell closed. “You’re also beautiful, strong and stubborn as fucking hell.”

“I’m glad you started that with beautiful, ass—” He swallowed my insult before I could finish by pressing his mouth against mine and sending a wave of excitement through my body. Heath may test my patience and challenge me at every turn, but God I loved it. He may seem quiet, but with Heath, passion filled everything that he did.

He showed it in the way he stood up for the people he cared about, and the way he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. And it was even more present, with the way he tormented me with his touch and his kiss. His hand hooked under my butt and lifted my body over his legs, bringing his knees up so that I slipped forward. He held me captive there, his lips leaving my mouth to blaze a fiery trail across my jaw and down to my neck. A satisfied sigh fell from my lips as I tilted my head to the side, enjoying the way he kissed and nipped playfully at the sensitive skin.

I felt him smile. “Do you know how many people would have the balls to call me an asshole?”

“Two, Braydon and Lucas. Maybe Flick if you really made her mad.”

Heath shook his head, laughing softly. This was the Heath that others didn’t get to see, the Heath that let everything around him disappear and just lived in the moment. I wished he would do it more. He was always so serious, trying to control every aspect of his life. The only other place he was like this was when he was in the water.

The fact that he felt as though he could be himself around me made me feel high. So high that there was nothing that could bring me down.

Jay’s threats resonated in my head again.

You’re not the only one who can make someone disappear.

At this point, I was still unsure about the lengths she would go to fulfill that promise of violence, but until I could find out, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to see Heath like this. He was happy and carefree, and the tension that had been between the two of us was fading.

Even if Jay’s threats were real, and she came at me, having Heath for just a moment in my life would be worth it.

“Asshole,” I whispered.

His lips were on me again, and I couldn’t help but giggle against his mouth as I felt his excitement flow through me.

“Hello, love birds!” The door burst open, and Braydon waltzed through, uncaring and joyful, a complete change to the mood he was in when they picked me up earlier. “I figured I’d given you two enough time to kiss and make up.”

“Go away, Bray,” Heath muttered, his head falling back against the wooden frame of my bed.

“Hell no. Dad’s on his way home, and you two aren’t ditching us just so that you can get down and dirty.” He placed his hands on his hips and pointed like a child.

My cheeks burned with embarrassment and Braydon’s laughter filled my room. “Oh shit, I made the street brat blush.”

Heath eyed me curiously, obviously noting the rose color that had spread across my face. I wiggled in a futile attempted to escape Heath’s hold, but he just gripped me tighter.

“Oh crap, um… he said he’d be here in an hour.” Braydon suddenly seemed strangely awkward as he rushed to get out of my bedroom. Slamming the door shut behind him.

“Fable.”

“Heath.”

I looked around the room, trying my best to avoid his eyes.

I knew Heath had had sex before. Bray too. It wasn’t like it was uncommon for teens to go out and sleep with each other, no matter how much adults liked to think they waited until they were twenty-five. But for me, I thought myself lucky for managing to keep that part of myself, and not have it stolen away by some pimp on a street corner or some guy who roamed the night looking for young girls to prey on.

Luck had been on my side.

“Come on, we should go get dinner started for your dad.”

Heath didn’t move, those beautiful blue eyes that drew me in every time stared at me with an intensity that I couldn’t figure out. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to ravage me or run and not look back.

“We’ll get back to this later,” he said, his words short and to the point. Even though I was still unsure about what the point was. His lips kissed the corner of my mouth before he lifted me to my feet. “Put on something nice, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

I laughed loudly. “This is as nice as it gets, Heath.” I held my arms out and did a twirl.

“Perfect,” was all he muttered as he disappeared out the door leaving me frowning at the wood.

I was nervous to meet Arthur, I had to admit. I wondered what he was like, and what he thought of me just invading his home like this. Helen had said that his family came from money and she didn’t, so it made me feel a little better knowing that if he loved her, maybe he would accept me too.