The Masquerade (5 page)

Mark’s Mask party was the night I’d first spent a considerable amount of time with Rick, the first time I drank alcohol, the first time I’d helped a guy so he wouldn’t throw up on himself, and the first time I noticed some sort of rivalry between the brothers.

Rick had watched me with such heat until Justin popped between us—his arrival mimicking the dousing effect of water to a flame. Because—like
that
—Rick cooled off our … whatever it was, then chatted up other girls. But if he did that stuff like Cara gossiped, why did Justin hold onto this concern for a
year
? Justin wasn’t there in our private moments when I hoped Rick’s concern ran deeper than friendship.

I held my jaw in check, not wanting Justin to decipher
the thoughts written in my expression before I was ready to share. “What are you saying?”

“What are
you
saying?” he asked, and raised an eyebrow.

“Spit it out.” I muted the TV.

He removed his arm and rested his elbow on the mattress edge. “He just looks at you funny, Vee. He looks at you the way an adult shouldn’t look at a child. I know my brother and what he does, and it’s not good. I really like you. You know I’d love to be yours. I just wanted to clear the air first,” he said. “I guess.”

My mouth—inside and out—
dried up at the thought of Rick
liking me
. Just last weekend when he picked Justin up from our group at the skate park, he looked at me in such a way I wished I had the space to ask if he had feelings. But there were times like now when I wondered why the hell someone with as much as Rick would
like
someone as virginal, awkward, and unremarkable as me.

I drummed my fingers on my knee
, and Justin glared between them and my face. He was stiff in his shoulders as if he might pounce.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had slapped his thigh with an open palm. “You almost had me. Are you serious?” I smiled for good measure. “He’s so
old
and
giant
and
intense
. He’s so not my type.” I quaked with a cold shiver, nearly believing it myself, except for the burn between my legs.

“Oh.” Justin sighed and put his hand around me.

Dad came in just before the movie finished and warned us it was
ten-thirty
and
a weeknight, so we should wrap it up.

“Sorry, Mr Wyland,” Justin said. “I’ll just phone Mum.”

Dad shut the door behind his exit, and I trembled.

“Mum?” I asked.

“Yeah. To pick me up.” Justin shook his head and smiled as if I were being absurd.

“No, I understand, but your mum has never picked you up from anywhere. It’s either bus, a friend or Rick.”

“Nah, remember that one time,” Justin said, picking up his wallet and walking out my bedroom door, “she came to pick us up midday at school a couple of months back?”

My dad and m
um hung out in the living room, so I couldn’t say anything but goodbyes. We waited outside the front, and Justin got his mum to come.

“Is Rick sick?” I asked.

“Why do you care where he is?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I d-don’t.”

When Mrs Delaney rolled by the kerb in her sedan and beeped, Justin and I jumped. We were on the front porch with a wide gap between us. Justin stood and kissed my lips, pausing long enough that I felt his hand ride up my neck, glide over my
jaw, and tighten behind my neck.

“What’s that for?” I said, eyes closed. It felt … nice.

He shrugged but grinned. “Because.”

“Okay, let me see you off.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s fine. I want to.”

As we approached the car, I waved at Mrs Delaney and said, “Hi! Nice to see you again. It’s been so long.”

She didn’t say anything. I rested my arm on the door and looked through the open window to her. Her eyes were red, and she sniffled, phlegmy and deep.

“Oh
, no, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She raised her red, serious eyes to mine and asked, “Why would I be okay? He left. He just
left
us.”

“He?” I asked. “He?” My questions fired up her tears, and she sunk her nose into a handkerchief instead of saying anything else. I spun to Justin, who bit the inside of his cheek. What the hell was going on?

“Justin, who’s gone?”

His stoic expression
fixed on me. “Rick.”

I turned to his mum who sob
bed harder, then to Justin, whose lips tightened. He banged his fist on the roof. But no one scolded him.

“How long?” My voice trembled, so I cleared my throat. “Where?”

“London,” Justin said.

Mrs Delaney was crying
as if London meant Mars.

“London,” she scoffed. I shivered at how we’d been thinking the same thing. Something must have happened. “Come on, Justin. We both haven’t got a clue if he’ll be all right or if he’s coming back.”

Justin held my shoulder and shr
ugged a sad smile. Then he left too, without an explanation.

His departure stripped the masquerade from my eyes. I saw—through blurry vision—that I had fallen in love with a guy who I may never see again.

• • •

Loved this prequel? Begin Rick and Vee’s love story in book one of the series,
The Rental
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Table of Contents

1
– Rick

2 – Vee

Copyright © 2014 Rebecca Berto

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ISBN (eBook): 9781310576393

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