want it by Monday, and if you so much as look at more than my name on it, I will fucking leave here.” I look at Chloe. “And you’ll lose your discount.” I look at Heather. “And I’m guessing you’ll lose your fucking job.”
“And what happened to your sisterhood philosophy? The things you say about women empowerment all a bunch of shit to you?”
“You don’t get to question any of my philosophies. Oppressors shouldn’t hide behind the oppressed. I’ve lived, I’ve watched, I’ve learned. And I know all you are is a power-hungry man hiding in a woman’s skin.”
“Savvy, we’re friends,” Chloe says as tears run down her cheeks. “You know—”
“No, Chloe, we’re roommates. And I can promise you, by next semester, that will change.”
“You get that no one else wants to—”
I cut her off before she cuts me any deeper. “Shut the fuck up and get out of here before your ass loses the purchasing power that babysitting my ass provides, and you can no longer buy your friends. Newsflash, Heather: no one likes a cunt!” I
“You can’t just sign out!” she screams at me.
“I do every fucking summer. Scream at me again, and I’ll show you how I survive that at seventeen.”
Chapter 4
“You can’t always get what you want,
but if you try, sometimes you just might find,
you get what you need.”
~ The Rolling Stones
Patrick
Growing up, surrounded by family, never feeling like the only child that I actually am, never wondering who had my back, or where I’d be on a holiday, was something I couldn’t fathom. Hell, no one I knew at the school we just moved from, Saint Mary’s, had that issue either.
Right now, my ass is driving in circles, waiting for the brownie brothers to sober up a bit more before pulling into the same vacation house all our families rent every summer but are now sharing until the houses each of my father’s brothers bought for their families close. Never a moment alone, which is something I’ll never take for granted, but once in a while, it gets a bit taxing.
The move was something all eight of us first cousins and the other distant relatives who didn’t make the move basically begged for since middle school. It wasn’t until my cousins, Truth and Kiki, got in trouble then kicked out of school that it actually happened. It wasn’t a reward for bad behavior; it was the fact that my uncles, Cyrus and Jase, finally saw firsthand how nasty those nuns could be.
And yeah, Kiki found out she was knocked up and wasn’t going back there, so here we are. And yeah, everyone is stoked. But after tonight, I’m pretty damn sure we’ll be dealing with a different kind of mean girls, and not ones in penguin costumes—the nuns—but ones wearing navy blue blazers.
First world problems, I remind myself.
I wasn’t so “privileged” that I was blind to what I just witnessed. My aunt Tara was in the foster care system until she was eighteen, and my parents own a record label, manage artists, and they haven’t shielded me from anything that goes on in that world. But fuck, seeing the little badass at The Bean change when those bitches cut her down, it fucking hurt my soul. Hurt worse that she didn’t accept the olive branch, and not because I want to fuck her. I mean, of course I want to rub all up on her and her all up on me. I legit think I’ve lost my mind with how much I want her, but not when she’s been soul fucked by the sisterhood.
“Tricks,” Amias yawns. “Told Dad we’d be back at eleven.”
I pull into a drug store parking lot and do a U-turn. “And we will.”
After Justice unlocked the lower level doors and Max and Amias snuck in, I pulled into the driveway and parked. I grab my phone off the charger and shake my head as I laugh to myself or, rather, at myself for tonight’s escapades and make a mental note not to fuck another girl who attends Seashore … unless it’s Savannah.
Closing the front door behind me, I kick off my sneakers next to the line of other shoes and try really fucking hard to remember that each of them have taken their own path, and that all made it to this point.
“You okay?”
I look up as Mom comes down the stairs. “Yeah, fine.”
“Oh, shit, Irish”—Dad laughs as he follows her—“he said he’s fine.”