Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (192 page)

She turned away from her reflection.  She went to the ticket counter and asked for the price for a ticket to Brentwood.  She did have enough money and there were still seats on the bus that was leaving in forty-five minutes.  As she handed the money to the woman behind the counter, she had a sudden urge to laugh.  She’d never thought that she would actually look forward to going back to Crestview Academy.  Even the pain of being ignored by her parents was usually preferable to the fake bullshit atmosphere of the private school.

She took her ticket and went to sit in an uncomfortable seat.  The bus station was virtually empty.  She wished again for a car but she still didn’t have enough money to buy even a piece of shit car. 

Her phone beeped at her from her purse.  She ignored it, because she figured it had to be Ricky.  She doubted that it was her parents, because they never seemed to care whether she was home or not.  She wondered if she should call them and tell them that she was going back to Brentwood, but decided against it. 

Her parents had been so drunk when she’d left that they’d barely said a word to her when she said she was leaving for Ricky’s.  If they didn’t care that their daughter didn’t spend the holiday with them, she doubted that they would care that she was going back to school early.

She sighed and wondered what she had done to deserve the life that she had been given.  She was seventeen years old, would be eighteen in a few months.  She had been walking around in a state of half death for a long time, going through the motions of living because when you’re not quite thirteen years old and your sister dies and your parents shut down like a door that will never be opened again, you realize that it doesn’t really matter what you do. 

She’d pretended to be happy for a long time, and she had had good times.  Her best friend where her parents lived had been the only one that could make her laugh for a really long time.  Joanie was the only person she had talked to about Adrina’s death, about the death of her niece or nephew that had never had the chance to see the light of day.  She certainly hadn’t been able to talk to her parents, and she’d never felt comfortable enough to speak up in the support group that she’d gone to a few times. 

Then her parents had had the brilliant idea to send her to Crestview Academy.  She’d been glad that she didn’t have a roommate all freshman year because she cried herself to sleep a lot of nights.  She’d put on a bright shiny smile when she was in the halls and chatted right along with the stupid popular girls while she was really disgusted by them in private. 

She’d drifted apart from Joanie because their lives had grown to be even more different than they’d ever been before.  Joanie had been home schooled her whole life.  They’d met at a local
park and had become friends.  It had been even better when they’d realized they lived right down the street from each other.  Now she barely talked to the girl that she’d felt was her only real friend.

When Adrina had been alive, she’d felt like she was in her sister’s shadow.  Adrina had been so beautiful and so smart and so good.  Mellenda had always known that their parents favored Adrina, but until she’d died, she’d always believed that they loved her too.  Adrina had just had more in common with both Mr. and Mrs. Brooks.  She’d baked and gardened with their mother and went fishing and jogging with their father.  Mellenda had always felt like a stranger in her own family. 

Adrina had been the picture of their mother.  She was tall and slender with wavy dark hair and bright blue eyes.  She had their father’s darker skin tone, but it only brought out the color of her eyes even more.  Mellenda was shorter than their mother and her body was curvy.  Her eyes were too dark to match the color of their father’s-his were a much lighter brown.  Mellenda’s hair was straight and neither of their parents had straight hair.  She’d asked Adrina if she was adopted, and her sister had laughed at her and told her that her eyes and her straight hair came from their paternal grandmother, a woman that Mellenda had never met because she’d died before she was born.

Mellenda missed Adrina terribly right then.  She hadn’t let herself miss her sister in years.  She felt tears prick her eyes again as she stood in line, waiting to show her ticket to the bus driver.  He looked young and was definitely giving her the eye, but she looked away from him and went up the steps and onto the bus.

She took a seat in the back, glad that the bus was almost empty.  She didn’t want to have to share a seat with anyone.  She leaned her head against the window and willed her brain to shut down.  But it didn’t.  It raced all the way back to Brentwood.  By the time the bus driver parked in the bay at the bus station, she felt like she was boiling over with anger. 

The bus driver gave her a flirtatious smile as she got off of the bus.  She shot him a dirty look and tamped down the urge she had to flip him off because she knew that he was checking out her ass.  She walked to the nearest bench and sat down, wondering what in the hell she was going to do with herself until it was time to go back to school. 

She sat there for fifteen minutes, staring off into the distance.  A good looking guy had sat down next to her and given her a look that was full of unveiled interest, but she’d given him an even dirtier look than she’d given the bus driver.  He’d got up and walked away, muttering something under his breath.

Finally she got up.  She had decided that she was going to the grocery store to get enough supplies that she’d be able to stay in her room at Crestview until she absolutely had to come out again.  She walked briskly, ignoring everyone around her.

When she was in the grocery store, she happened to catch a conversation going on between a pretty woman with blonde hair and a busty redhead with buck teeth.  They were talking about Molli.  She started to walk away, until she realized that they weren’t talking about her being pregnant with Ricky’s child or even Jude’s child, though she did hear Jude’s name mentioned.  The redhead seemed to want to have sex with Jude, though it looked like she was in her thirties.  Mellenda made a face and took a step closer.  The two women were talking about Molli being pregnant with some guy named Eduardo’s child.  A man that they said had a wife and children that he didn’t bother to take care of.

Mellenda stifled a laugh as she moved towards the checkout stand.  How funny was that?  Molli boning a married guy.  And stupid Ricky stepping right into the pile of shit and wanting to marry that stupid slut and raise another man’s kid.  Damn, she thought as she walked outside with her purchases after she had checked out.  She wondered if Jude knew about it.  She was sure that he’d hear it sooner or later, but with the way she felt right now and the way that Jude had undressed her with his eyes every time she’d seen him in town, she felt like spreading a little misery.

A girl who looked about her age was standing against the side of the building, wearing a vest like the employees of the grocery store wore.  She was smoking a cigarette and texting on her cell phone.  Mellenda walked over to her.

“Excuse me.”

The girl looked up at her, giving her a look of total disinterest.  “Yeah?”

“Do you know Jude?  Goes to Brentwood high, drives an old piece of shit truck?  Likes to date girls from Crestview Academy.”

“I go to school with that asshole.  Why?”

Mellenda hid a smile. “Do you have his phone number?”

“Girl, if you’re looking for a piece of ass, I’m pretty sure you can find one better than Jude.  He sucks in bed and he’s a prick.  I know this from a very disappointing personal experience.”

“The last thing I want to do is hook up with a moron like Jude.  I need to talk to him about something.  It’s important.  Do you have his phone number or not?”

The girl sighed.  “I do.  I figured that if I got desperate enough I might give him a call.”

Mellenda wondered why the girl would want to have sex with Jude again if she’d thought it was so terrible in the first place, but she kept the thought to herself.  “Will you give it me please?”

“Yeah.  Just a sec.  Let me send this message to my boyfriend.  He’s an asshole too.”

“They all seem to be.”

“Yeah.”  The girl finished typing out her message, and then pushed buttons on her phone.  She lit another cigarette.  “I’ve got it.  You ready?”

Mellenda dug her cell phone out of her purse.  “Go ahead.”

The girl rattled off the digits.  “If you’re looking for an easy lay, you should try Tony Wilson.  He’s fine and I heard that he’s good in bed at least.”

“Uh thanks.”  She thought that she might give Tony a call later actually, or just show up on his doorstep, but that could wait.  She was hardly horny with what Ricky had done to her.

“No problem.  See ya later.  Hey, you go to Crestview don’t you?  What’s that place like?”

“It sucks.”

The girl laughed.  “I figured.  Have a happy new year.”

“You too.”  Mellenda turned away.  She figured she’d be spending New Year’s alone in her room.  She had planned on seeing the New Year in making love to Ricky, but he had written his own prison sentence, wanting to marry a girl like Molli.

She walked to the park that was a few blocks away from the grocery store and pushed the button to dial Jude’s number.  He picked up on the second ring. 

“Hello.”

“Is this Jude?”  Now that she had him on the phone she wasn’t sure what she was going to say to him.

“Sure is.”  A flirtatious note entered his voice.  “Who does this sexy voice belong to?”

Mellenda rolled her eyes and took a sip of water from one of the bottles she’d purchased at the grocery store.  “This is Mellenda.”

“Like Crestview Academy Mellenda?  Molli’s roommate Mellenda?  No wonder your voice sounds so sexy.  You sure as hell have the face and the body to go along with it.”

Mellenda shook her head.  What in the hell had Tory ever seen in Jude she wondered?  “Shut up Jude.  I didn’t call you so that you could hit on me.  I called you because there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Okay.  What is it sexy?”

“Shut the hell up.  I don’t want to hear anymore bullshit come out of a man’s mouth today.  If you don’t stop coming on to me, I will punch you in the face next time I see you.”

“Damn girl.  It sounds like you’re having a really bad day.”

“You could say that.  Have you heard any rumors going around town lately?”

Jude laughed.  “There’s always rumors going around Brentwood babe.”

Mellenda groaned.  “My name is not babe or sexy.  My name is Mellenda.  Not Mel, or Lin or any other stupid nickname you can come up with.  I’m doing you a favor by calling you at all you stupid asshole.  Do you want to hear this or not?”

“I’m sorry.  I act like an idiot when I talk to beautiful women.  It’s a guy thing.  What is it Mellenda?”

“Molli is pregnant.  There’s talk around town that the baby belongs to this older married guy named Eduardo.  But my stupid ex-boyfriend is marrying her because he thinks he loves her.  They’ve been screwing around under both of our noses for who knows how long.”

“The only Eduardo I know is a Hispanic guy.  He’s around thirty and has a hot wife and two kids but he lives with this nasty crack head in a shithole apartment over on Fifth Street.  There’s no way Molli would sleep with that guy.”

“Why not?  She’s a whore.”

“I know that she pissed you off, but there’s no need to talk like that.”

“You’re defending her too?  What in the hell is wrong with men?  I know that you all walk around with constant hard ons and your brains usually reside in the region of your penis, but give me a break.  When you see a whore, you should at least admit that she’s a damned whore.”

“Honey, I think you need a cigarette.  Where are you?  I’ll pick you up.  We’ll smoke a couple cigarettes, and then maybe smoke a joint.  We can talk all about it baby.  I can make you feel so much better.”

“Fuck you.  I just told you your girlfriend has been fucking my boyfriend and you’re still trying to get down my pants.  Did that bitch even bother to tell you that she’s pregnant?”

“No.”

“What the hell Jude?  You’re an even bigger moron than I thought you were.”

“You’re a bitch Mellenda.  But I don’t mind. I think it’s kinda sexy.  I’ll let you hit me to take out your anger as long as you promise not to hit me too hard.”

Mellenda closed her eyes.  She wanted to throw her phone at Jude’s head.  “I told you what I needed to tell you.  I’m hanging up now.”

“I’m sorry Mellenda.  You’re so hot that you make me say crazy things.  If you want to talk, we can talk.  This really sucks huh?”

She sighed.  “Yes Jude, it does.  I have to go.  I’m sorry I was such a bitch to you.”

“I really would like to take you out sometime.  You’re so beautiful and so smart.  I’ve had fantasies about you since the first time I saw you in town.  I could have sworn that a model was walking the streets of Brentwood.”

Mellenda snorted.  “Give it up Jude.  I don’t need to go out with another guy that’s going to cheat on me and lie to me.  And I’m definitely not going to let you get my panties off without dating you.  I’m not like Molli.  If acting like Molli is what it takes to keep a guy, I don’t need one.”

“You’re talking to the guy that Molli cheated on.”

“Like you didn’t mess around on her. I’ve seen you in town with other girls.  I’ve seen the way you look at me too.  This sucks, but there is no way in hell that I’m going to cry on your shoulder.  It’s probably not even big enough.”