Kiss Me in the Dark Anthology - Monica James Page 0,165

me, thrumming along to the beat of my pulse until my palm twitched with the need to hurt Able back. I needed to slap him. Punish him. Rob him of his dignity. Embarrass him like he’d embarrassed me. I considered how I’d look in an orange jumpsuit, doing twenty to life, but I lunged for Able anyway.

I parted from Nash, bridged the space between me and Able, and slapped him across the face. Twice. Nash stepped in front of me when I went in for a third slap. He captured my hand and released it.

Without a word, he pulled something from the jacket and shoved it into his pants pocket so fast, I only caught a glint of brown. He slipped off my dad’s suit jacket and slid it over my shoulders. I’d never felt more like a child than I did now.

“Take her home, Reed.”

Nash pressed the car keys to his 90s Honda into Reed’s palm and curled his fingers around it when he wouldn’t grab it. Reed had once said Nash’s car was quite possibly the only thing he’d ever formed an attachment to. It didn’t seem like it as he gave the keys to Reed without so much as a flinch.

Behind Nash, Able dragged a foot back, trying to slip away, but Nash gripped his shirt and tugged him back to us.

“Nash,” Reed tried to argue, his eyes blistering angry and streaking a flash of violence I’d never seen in him before.

The ferocity excited me, though a part of me feared it made him look too similar to his brother. The boy who used to stumble into my kitchen to steal ice for his bruised fists and black eyes.

“You should see the other guy,” Nash always said with a half-assed smirk before he vanished out the back door, and I’d have to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

I’d been too scared to narc. Even the temptation of eating a bowl of ice cream without fielding Mother’s judgment couldn’t lure me back to the kitchen. I’d stopped the midnight munchies trips until one night, Nash had been arrested and Reed told me Betty Prescott had made him swear to never get into trouble again.

And he hadn’t. I’d been safe to eat my ice cream in peace, and our ice had been safe from Nash Prescott’s blood. I’d also never talked to Nash Prescott again until tonight, not that today nor back then constituted as talking.

“Take. Her. Home.” Nash gave Reed a long stare-down, and one, two, three seconds passed before Reed finally nodded his head.

I let out a pent-up breath, realizing I didn’t know what Nash would do if Reed disobeyed him, and I didn’t feel like sticking around to find out. I liked Reed’s face arranged exactly as it was, thank you very much.

“Fine.” He spared Able one more glare. “Yeah, okay. Fine.”

I felt like I was coming up for air as Reed interlaced his fingers with mine. That choking feeling evaporated, and another feeling took its place. Like something had grabbed my chest and dug its claws inside.

“I’m okay,” I promised Reed.

But I wasn’t.

I’d realized what this feeling was.

Emery

Love.

It always felt wrong that people chased something so fickle. Something that could be there one day and gone the next.

Love reminded me of Nash’s car—scattered with bruises from a past owner; well-cared for by its current tenant; and still ticking as it awaited its fate, abandoned in some North Carolina junkyard.

The shrink Mother had sent me to when I was eleven and caught Mother a little too close to Uncle Balthazar would tell me I was examining life too carefully again. Mother also paid her to keep my mouth shut by all means. I had overheard that particular conversation on my way back from the restroom.

The whole thing was pointless. It didn’t matter if I told Dad. The maids gossiped about my parents’ fights, saying he’d leave her as soon as I graduated high school. I believed them. Dad and Mother rarely talked, and when they did, their conversations revolved around business.

During my sessions, my shrink told me Uncle Balthazar was my mind’s representation of my demons. My mother was supposedly an analogy for strength, if you could believe that. Strength.

And the proximity between Uncle Balthazar and Mother? According to North Carolina-certified psychologist Doctor Dakota Mitchum: strength slaying my demons.

Dad was a planner. He anticipated moves like a Chess grandmaster and countered them with a ruthlessness I envied. I figured if I rebelled too hard