Boom - Sabrina Stark Page 0,11

"Alright, what?"

I took a deep breath and just said it. "I'm begging you."

His gaze flicked to the floor. "You're not on your knees."

Again, I tried to laugh. "Oh come on. You don't really expect—"

"Don't I?"

My stomach clenched, and I looked down to my feet. Even now, the puddle in the hallway was spreading. If it spread much further, it would soon be dripping down the stairway like some sort of perverse, slow-motion waterfall.

I didn't understand. Three years ago, when my grandpa had died of a sudden heart attack, my cousin Jason had ended up with the house. Long story there. But, after some serious persuading on my part, Jason had agreed to share ownership with me – and to let me buy his share after I graduated from college.

In the meantime, he'd been supposedly living here – enjoying the house and keeping an eye on things.

It had been a win-win, or so I'd thought.

But now Jason was nowhere to be found. And already, I'd come to the sad conclusion that even though I'd been sending him money for repairs, he hadn't been making them at all.

I blinked away unshed tears. My own cousin had totally screwed me over.

Now, in hindsight, I realized just how stupid I'd been all along. Worst of all, there was nothing I could do about it.

I had nothing in writing, which meant that I had no claim on the house, not officially.

God, I'd been such an idiot.

As I stared down in stupefied silence, the first drops of rainwater began easing down the stairway. Oh yeah. I'd been an idiot, alright.

When I finally looked back to Brody, he appeared angrier than ever – not at the damage. At me.

Under the weight of it all, I felt like sinking to the ground. In fact, I was sinking to the ground. Almost before I knew what was happening, I was already on my knees – whether with raw despair, or as some sort of desperate response to Brody's demand.

Either way, he was getting exactly what he wanted. As usual.

As water seeped into the denim of my fresh jeans, I tried not to dwell on it. I tried not to dwell on a lot of things.

During my twenty-four years on this Earth, I'd never sunk so low – literally or figuratively. Buy hey, I was already down here, just like he'd asked.

I might as well finish it, right?

I stared up at him and refused to flinch or look away, even when his expression darkened with an emotion that I couldn’t quite decipher. As tears slid from my eyes, I choked out, "Fine. I'm begging you. There. You happy?"

Chapter 8

Arden

On the other end of the phone, Cami sputtered, "I'm gonna kill him."

I huddled deeper under the covers and tried to smile. Cami was my very best friend. Until just last week, she'd been my college roommate, too.

She was loyal to a fault, and her righteous anger was a soothing balm to my battered soul.

Even though I was alone in the small, unfamiliar bedroom, I kept my voice low, just above a whisper. "You can't," I told her. "Well, not until he finishes the house, anyway."

It was just past nine o'clock in the morning, and I was giving her an update on everything that had happened between me and Brody. I'd just reached the part where I'd begged him to save the house.

Cami said, "Can I least maim him or something? I mean, seriously, what a lunk-blaster."

As a general rule, Cami didn't swear. Or at least, she didn't use traditional swearwords, which meant that she sometimes had to get creative when she got all worked up, like now for example.

On the phone, she was still raving. "He seriously made you get on your knees?"

At the memory of last night, heat flooded my face. Technically, he hadn't made me do anything, but yes, that had been Brody's price for his promise to save the house.

And he got it, alright – my total humiliation.

I sighed. "Yeah, well, I guess it could've been worse."

"How?" she demanded.

"Well…" My face burned at the memory of me begging in the hallway, with my knees in the puddle and my face at his pelvis. "He could've expected, you know, 'services' while I was down there."

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "How do you know he wasn't expecting that?"

"Because," I said, "I wasn't down there long enough to do anything. Cripes, you should've seen him. He practically yanked me to my feet, like he was worried I'd try to convince him orally