Cruel Kisses (It's Just High School #2) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,76

isn’t my family, so I didn’t bother to pay attention to who stalks me or who’s obsessed with everything I do or with the skeletons in my family’s closet.

Unlike my brother, Liam who practically thrived in attention and lived to make heads roll with envy and want, I was another issue altogether. Of course, I heard what they said about me; that I was too closed off and cold for anyone to mess with. I didn’t give a shit, so long as they got out of my damn way.

Not Sandra Matthews, though.

She was way past the short road to pissing me off now.

I was pissed with her relentless stalking, not angry.

With me, the two have a fucking a wide margin. They feel different. Manifest themselves differently and their effects have different levels of twisted-up longevity.

Pissed was being followed by a pathetic measly, mentally unstable, crazy girl—whose family I hate—as she pathetically begs me to ‘love’ her, which was never going happen even if hell froze over.

Whereas angry was kissing a siren, a Little Minx, allowing her to sneak into my soul and take a large, fucked-up piece of it hostage then watch helplessly from the sidelines, unable to do a damn thing, as she used her skilled, fiery tongue to hurt my brother without a care in the world, her stunning, aquamarine eyes dark and alight with mirth as she stared back at me, daring me to come after her.

That was anger.

It was the kind I haven’t been able to shake off my shoulders or move on from for years now.

The kind of anger that influences every decision I’ve made since kissing her that first time.

I suspected I had the kind of anger that might kill a normal man, especially letting it consume me after all these years, but I wasn’t normal. I was the monster that was biding his time, getting ready to check her at every turn, make her beg for mercy if necessary. I have every intention of returning the favor.

“Yo, did you hear me?” Liam shouts. I roll my eyes. Some days I hate that he was an attention loving jerk, but he was still my brother and I’d do anything for him. Including ruffling his feathers a bit.

“I find your excitement a bit out of place,” I call back, grabbing my football gear to get ready for the game.

“Wait, why?”

“I doubt you’re playing, asshole!” I call back to my brother as I go downstairs to check on Aiden, with my gear in a bag slung across my chest.

“Fuck you, I’m so playing!”

Liam hadn’t made first-string yet, though he wouldn’t mind selling his soul to the devil just to get there.

I’ve watched my brother work fucking hard to get in tip-top physical shape, his one goal that he took on ruthlessly was to lose weight—something he never cared about before the first day of high school.

See, Liam was a chubby kid growing up but after the first day at his new high school, he came back home eyes red and wild, then basically begged Dad to be transferred to my school, then he practically made a home out the gym. He has since lost a hundred pounds and would put those IG fitness models to shame with the way he’s toned and built up muscle, but there isn’t a single day that he doesn’t work out.

I’m pretty sure something happened at Clintwood Academy, that drives his demons. Sometimes he’s in there in the middle of the fucking night, like he’s trying to expel his demons—or mean words that haunt him.

“Uh, really?”

“Yes! I’m no superstar like you or Cole, but I’m a fucking decent player,” he counters. “Besides, coach already said I’m playing tonight.”

Silence.

I can hear the smug note in his voice, and I sigh. “What kind of deal did you make with coach? Did you promise him to use the private jet again?”

The thing about my brother? He had no illusions about himself.

He knew his limits. Knew where his weaknesses lie, but he was also fully aware of where his strengths are. And he took full advantage of them. Mainly? His charming, deceitful, lying tongue that could either build a person up or savagely destroy that unfortunate soul.

Liam is the only person I know who could argue himself out of hell. Well, him and my aquamarine Little Minx, of course.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he chuckles, popping his head out to stare at me as I pass his landing. “I promised that he could keep fucking Mrs. Gerard—who