I’ve never been kissed this way before.

Not by him. Not by anyone.

His mouth disconnects from mine, and it takes me a few seconds to register what’s happening.

“The rarest thing in the world should not be given to a basic bitch. I hope you didn’t save me your firsts because I have no interest in taking them,” he whispers into my ear, and my eyes snap open. Penn shoves something into his back pocket, then steps back. He turns toward the door, and before I have time to tell him to go screw himself or drop dead, he coils his head over his shoulder.

Those snake eyes, they speak to me.

They tell me that he doesn’t want to be my friend.

That he is fully prepared to be my enemy.

“Nice seeing you again, sis.” He slams the door in my face.

My hand jumps instinctively to my sea glass necklace, preparing to clutch it in shock.

It’s gone.

 

 

Like all families, mine has a mind-numbing routine that rarely changes and includes me very sparsely.

When Melody picks up Bailey from school every day, they go straight to ballet, and Dad comes home from work around six. That means I have at least four more hours to avoid the jerk living under my roof, and I’m starving, thirsty, and constantly reaching out to play with the necklace before realizing it’s not there anymore.

I pace my room, text Blythe and Esme, then decide to write an entry in my little black book.

Entry #1,298:

Sin: Snuck into Penn’s room when I heard the bastard taking a shower and stole his pencil (Who uses pencils anymore? Is he five?). Swirled the eraser around my clit and masturbated with it. Put it back in his pencil bag.

Reason: Jerk walked in on me naked. On purpose. And I didn’t hate it. At all.

Sometime after exchanging texts with my friends, I crash in front of Teen Mom. I wake up to a gentle knock on my door, the colors from the TV frame dancing over my bedroom walls.

“Lovebug, dinner’s almost ready,” Mel singsongs from the other side. I fling an arm over my eyes. I don’t want to face him. I especially don’t want to face him after he saw me naked and kissed me and made my nipples hard and then told me he doesn’t want anything to do with me.

“Coming,” I yell. I change into super short plaid shorts and a tank top. I’m going for the unaffected-by-your-bullshit look with a touch of just-because-we-kissed-doesn’t-mean-I-want-you-loser.

Mel and Bailey are in the kitchen. Bailey is chopping vegetables, and my mother is marinating the chicken breasts. They’re talking ballet. I ignore the sting that accompanies being an outsider and plop on a stool by the kitchen island. It’s all cream-colored wood with dark brown granite counters. I pluck a cherry tomato from the salad bowl and pop it into my mouth.

“Hey, Bails, how was school?”

“Bumpin’. I have a new lab teacher, and she says I can use it after school under her supervision.” My sister flashes her braces with a smile, each band a different color, like the LGBT flag. One day, she’ll be a rose in full bloom, but for now, she is content being a wallflower. Her petals are already beginning to open, and I need to come to terms with that.

“How was yours?” she asks.

I think about Principal Prichard and my latest visit to his office.

About my new, humiliating classroom.

About the text messages burning my cell phone.

“Amazeballs.” I flash a white-toothed, straight smile. My eyes are already drifting. I try to find Penn around the open floor plan.

“Can you be a doll and take this to your dad? He’s on the patio.” Mel doesn’t lift her head from the chicken.

I take the platter of marinated chicken from her hands and pad barefoot toward the patio, ignoring the heat spreading through my cheeks. My dad and Penn are standing over the grill, and I chuckle bitterly. She didn’t even give me a heads-up that he was here. My dad uses the tongs to flip the steaks. Each of them is holding a bottle of beer, and they seem to share an easy conversation.

Dad is drinking beer with him? Great. Penn is only eighteen, but it doesn’t surprise me. My parents sometimes let me sip wine at family dinners. They firmly believe that if you make teenagers feel responsible about booze, they won’t go around getting shitfaced when they finally get their hands on alcohol. I never get drunk at parties. Sobriety equals a certain amount of boredom, which is necessary to make sure my game face remains intact.

I slide the glass door open and stop to watch them.

“I don’t make a habit of trusting boys with busted knuckles around my daughters, but my wife loves to fix things, and since I’m a past project of hers, I thought it would be fair to pay it forward,” my dad drawls. Penn stares at him with guarded curiosity.

“I appreciate your help, sir, but I don’t need fixing. I ain’t broken.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Dad presses. “It’s okay not to have your shit together at eighteen.”

“Don’t worry about my shit,” Penn retorts. “I’d appreciate if no one knows I live here. It’s not my school district, and I’m the starting wide receiver at Las Juntas. My scholarship’s on the line here.”

“Graduating from a prestigious high school like All Saints would look better on your college application.”

“It’s too late to transfer. I’m a captain of the rival team. There’s no way I’d fit in at All Saints High. Besides, All Saints already has a wide receiver even though he’s a total prick,” Penn says point-blank. A giggle tickles at the back of my throat, but I swallow it down. They still don’t know I’m here. I think.

“Point is, you live under my roof, you do not touch my daughters. Don’t try me, boy. I have ties older than you. Word to the wise? These tongs”—Dad snaps them in Penn’s face while the latter taps an unlit cigarette over his thigh—“they’re good for more than just flipping steaks, kiddo.”

“No offense, sir, but one of your daughters is entirely too young for me, and the other is entirely too Daria for me.” Penn’s voice is like black lace wrapping around my throat. I don’t think my dad notices the dangerous tilt in his tenor, but I do. That’s how I know that while my father is still oblivious to my presence, Penn isn’t. Those words are meant for me to hear.

“What does that mean?” Dad growls.

“I think you know exactly what it means.”

With that, Penn spins in place and gives me a close-lipped smirk.

Those eyes saw me naked. Those lips were on mine this afternoon.

Then they told me to get lost.

I remember Via was gorgeous, which bothered me, of course, but I don’t remember her being that pretty. No guy has ever affected me like him. Ever. Even if I take all my encounters with hot boys and combine them, it still doesn’t match the feel of just one measly look from Penn. He grew up from a dirty duckling to a dark swan.

“Chicken,” Penn hisses, his lips maneuvering into a smile that is too calculated for a teenager. He tosses the unlit cigarette into a nearby trash can, his eyes still on mine. Where did he learn to be so sophisticated?

“Excuse me?” I arch a threatening eyebrow.

“Thanks for the chicken, sis.” He walks over with the beer in his hand, snatching the tray of marinated chicken from me. He is taunting me with this sister BS. I bite my inner cheek because Dad’s here, and his big thing is thinking before acting.