Devil May Care (Boys of Preston Prep 1)

“I know this is a lot, but I just posted something on our family group on Facebook and everyone saw it. The next thing I knew, it had spiraled.” She looks at me, eyes pleading. “Don’t be mad, sweetie. This is a season for thanks, and this is how I want to show my gratitude to them, for bringing you all in my life.” She announces, “We’re going to meet at the barbeque place in an hour.”

I hug my middle, fists clenching. “So they’re all coming.”

“Yes,” my dad says, standing up for my mom. “Bridget, Amanda, Michelle, and Kayla.”

My heart bangs hard against my chest, and suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. Kayla is my mother. I haven’t seen her since I was five years old, when I told my mother that I wouldn’t do it again. The magnitude of this betrayal is so extreme that it barely even seems real.

I shake my head, jaw clenching. “You guys can do what you want, but I’m not being a part of this.”

“Gwen,” Brayden says, reaching for me.

I twist away. “I know you and Michelle get along, Brayden. And that’s great.” I look at the twins, adding, “If you want to see Bridget that’s great, too. But I won’t do it. Not today. Not ever.”

“Honey—”

“I’ve made my feelings on this perfectly clear.” I look her dead in the eye, doing my best to adopt a facade of calm, because I want her to see that this isn’t a tantrum. “You don’t respect my feelings, and you don’t respect me.”

Her face falls. “Of course, I do. It’s just that—”

I stop her. “I don’t want to hear your mental gymnastics at rationalizing this. You didn’t do this for me, you did it for yourself. I’m sorry to be one less kid you can throw in front of their own emotional freight trains for the sake of looking virtuous.” I storm out of the room, climbing the stairs. I’ll hide out in my room if I have to. Or Michaela’s room. Whatever.

I don’t expect them to follow me, and they don’t. If Debbie had been here, she would have stepped in and supported me. Unfortunately, she’s at home with her own family, and that simple fact makes me feel more alone than anything else. The sick, hollow feeling deepens when I hear the front door slam, car eventually revving up outside.

A few moments later, I’m truly alone.

I curl up in my chair and pull out my phone, holding my thumb over my contacts. I want to call Hamilton. I won’t deny it. But we just spoke yesterday, and some niggling sense at the back of my mind is afraid of seeming—and being—clingy. Nevertheless, he’s been on my mind since I got home, a constant loop of the time we spent holed up in my room. I keep remembering him on my bed, the way it felt to rest my cheek on his shoulder, how sometimes his hand would come up and sweep my hair back as he looked down at me, smiling about something we were looking at on the laptop. I remember the way he kept covertly trying to take my temperature and thinking that he was better at taking care of people than either of us gave him credit for. I remember the way he felt sleeping beside me, curled protectively around me. It was only for two nights, but I somehow find myself missing it, all the same.

And I definitely keep replaying us having sex. It was a new, almost scary level of intensity. Gentle. Overwhelming. When he gazed down at me with those heavy gray eyes, I got that crazy swooping feeling in my chest again, like the second after the drop of a rollercoaster.

He was like a completely different person while we were in my room. Or, maybe not different, just more. Better. I want more than anything to believe he’ll be the same person outside of it—that I’ll be the same person, too—but I’m not convinced. There’s just so much baggage between us. So much anger and hate, history and bitterness. How can that all just disappear? How can it do anything but keep creeping back like a sickness?

I’m startled by the shrill ring of the phone, jolting in my seat. I look at the screen, thinking that I’ve somehow summoned him with nothing more than the power of my thoughts. But it’s not. It’s not even my phone. It’s the antiquated landline my parents will probably never get rid of.

I reach over and pick it up. “Um, Adams’ residence?”

There’s a moment of silence before a voice answers. “Wait, Gwen?”

“Sky?” I straighten in my chair, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Hey! Hi!” I’m a little caught off guard. Usually these calls are planned well ahead of time and Mom is all over them. “Oh my god, How are you?”

“Good,” she answers, and her voice is bright, excited. “Mom called earlier, so I was just calling her back.”

“Oh, she’s…” I bite my lip, looking around the empty room, and decide she’s probably better off not knowing where they’ve went, or what they’re doing. “Well, they’re all out right now. How was your Thanksgiving?”

“It was really great,” she says, bubbling with enthusiasm. “We had a big potluck with the residents and staff, then we got to go on a horseback ride. It’s really nice out here.”

I smile at the warm happiness in her voice. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

“Sooo,” she begins, voice growing even more excited. “Since Mom isn’t around for once, I’m dying to hear all the dirt from school. Tell me everything!”

Everything?

Ever since she left, Skylar has been on a need-to-know basis concerning the goings-on at Preston Prep, but I understand her curiosity. She’s blissfully unaware of my ostracism, and I intend to keep it that way. “Nothing much has changed. It’s swim season, so I’m spending a lot of time there.”

“Did you make captain?”

I hesitate. “Yeah. Co-captain, actually.”

She barks a loud, “Ha! Who’s the poor soul that has to work with you?”