Boom - Sabrina Stark Page 0,59

a problem?"

"What do you think?"

Why lie? "I think you're being awfully rude."

"And I think you don't belong here."

"Hey! I belong here you just as much as you do."

He crossed his arms. "Do you?"

Too late, I realized the ridiculousness of my statement. "Okay, maybe I don't belong quite as much as you do. But I do have a contract."

"Not anymore, you don't." He flicked his head toward the street. "So pack your stuff and go. You're fired."

My jaw dropped. "You can't fire me."

"Yeah? Why not?"

Just then, I heard another male voice – this one a lot more familiar – say, "Because I say so, that's why."

I turned to look just in time to see Brody stride up from somewhere behind me. He looked to his brother and said, "So drop it, alright?"

Mason's jaw tightened. "You're not serious."

With growing concern, I looked from brother to brother. I felt like I should say something, but I had no idea what.

Brody told Mason, "I'm plenty serious. And you're forgetting something."

Looking anything but forgetful, Mason replied, "And what's that?'

"This is my job. Remember?"

"Yeah. And my company."

"Our company," Brody corrected. "And it's my fucking house."

Looking more pissed off than ever, Mason replied, "Yeah? So?"

Brody stepped forward until they were standing chest to chest. "So, do I tell you how to run your shit?"

But Mason still wasn't backing down. "Not if you're smart, you don't."

"Exactly," Brody said. "So leave her alone, alright?"

Hearing this, a wave of gratitude washed over me. And yet, I couldn't help but feel incredibly awkward for causing such tension between the brothers.

I looked to Mason and said, "Look, you're obviously angry. And I totally get it. Really, I do –"

"You're wrong," he said.

I frowned up at him. "What?"

"You get nothing." He turned back to Brody and said, "You want this? Go ahead. But don't come bitching to me when she torches the place."

Oh, for crying out loud. "Hey! I'm not the torching type!"

My claim hung there like a cloud in our midst, because all three of us knew that yes, at least some torching had happened in the past – specifically to Brody's truck. And me? I'd been the one holding the lighter.

After a long, awkward moment, I muttered, "Okay fine. But that was a total accident."

And it was, really.

Chapter 33

Arden – Six Years Earlier

Un-freaking-believable.

It was my last week of high school, and everyone was in a glorious mood. Everyone but me.

It was early Wednesday afternoon, and I'd just walked out of school with an advance printout of my final grades. They weren't good. Or at least, they weren't good enough.

In spite of blowing up the chemistry lab and being suspended for two whole weeks, by some miracle – not to mention a whole bunch of extra credit – I'd still managed to pull my grades out of the gutter.

I'd even managed to pass chemistry, but just barely. But barely wasn't good enough, and my scholarship was officially torched, just like my eyebrows.

I looked like a goblin, and I felt like one, too.

But Brody? He looked as amazing as ever. I knew because I still saw him in class – well, whenever he showed up, that is.

We never spoke, not even to argue about what had happened.

After that senseless explosion, I'd called him every name in the book – not that he'd seemed to care, just like he hadn't cared that we'd both been suspended, or that I'd gotten half of the blame for his recklessness.

And why did I share in the blame? It was because although he'd held the lighter, I'd opened the door. The whole thing had been caught on camera, thanks to video surveillance in the hall, and there was no denying the fact that both of us had played a role in what had happened.

Still, it was all so incredibly unfair.

I hadn't done anything wrong. Not really.

But there was nothing I could do about it now. I'd argued and explained until I'd been blue in the face, but none of it had done any good, not even when my grandparents had argued on my behalf.

According to the school administrators, I was just lucky I hadn't been sued for damages or kicked out of school entirely.

Lucky? Not the way I saw it.

Goodbye scholarship. Hello…? Well, I didn't quite know yet.

But I'd have to think of something.

As I trudged along the lonely sidewalk, I reached into the pocket of my jeans and felt around for that godawful lighter. On that fateful day, I'd found it halfway down the hall just before