Broken Empire (Boys of Oak Park Prep 3)

“God. Fucking. Dammit!”

He pounded his fist against the steering wheel so hard I was afraid he’d break it, his face contorting with rage. Then he slumped forward, pressing his forehead against the top of the wheel as he sucked in ragged breaths. His eyes closed, and his hands bunched into fists again, coming to rest beside his head.

“Goddammit,” he muttered again.

My entire body ached for the boy before me, as if the pain was too big and too deep to be contained by just my heart. I felt it everywhere, and it made me want to throw up.

“I’m sorry, Cole. I shouldn’t have come—”

“It’s not your fault.” His voice was rough but full of conviction. “Don’t put this on yourself, Legs.”

“Did he hit you?”

Without lifting his head, he nodded. For the first time since I’d met him, Cole’s body seemed to get smaller. I’d seen him puff up with rage so many times, but I’d never seen the opposite happen. Like the pressure of the world was literally compacting him, making him deflate under its weight.

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered bitterly. He lifted his head off the wheel and stared ahead, unseeing. “I was expecting it. At least now I’m not fucking waiting anymore.” His gaze cut to me, pain and something like a challenge blazing in his eyes, as if he was daring me to call him a pussy or something for letting his dad beat him. As if I ever would. “And I’d rather it be me. As long as it’s me, it’s not Penny, and it’s not Mom.”

“It shouldn’t be any of you,” I whispered.

He chuckled dully. “Yeah, well. Shouldn’t doesn’t usually mean shit. You know that.”

I nodded. He was right; I did know. I’d learned that truth so well it was practically branded into my skin by now.

“Penny’s lucky she has you.”

He shook his head before I even finished speaking, anger flashing in his bright blue irises again.

“No, she’s not. I can’t do shit for her. What the fuck can I do? Take a few punches from my dad? Fuck that. She needs help, real help.” His lips pressed together, and I could feel his anger spiking like a blast of heat. “He won’t let her have it though. Calls her fucking disabled, like she’s less than a whole person. It’s like he’s mad at her for being born the way she was, and he’s trying to fucking punish her for it.”

The horrible feeling of helplessness kept churning in my gut, and I realized it was just a fraction of what Cole felt toward Penny. I wanted to help him, he wanted to help her, and we both had to watch someone we cared about suffer while we sat by with what felt like ropes tied around our wrists.

My hands shook as I unbuckled my seat belt, and I shifted awkwardly in the seat so I could face the boy next to me fully. “I’m sorry, Cole. I’m so sorry.”

He turned to face me, blinking several times as if he’d just realized I was still in the car with him. I took advantage of the movement and reached up to cup his face in my hands, trying to keep him with me, to keep him from sinking down into that awful place of guilt and anger and despair.

I had been there. I had lived there for too many years, and I knew how hard it was to work your way back to the light.

“Penny is lucky, Cole. So much of her life is unfair, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s lucky she has you. She needs you. To counterbalance all the shit. To love her. To protect her the best way you can.”

Cole tugged against my hold like he wanted to shake his head and turn away from me at the same time, but I tightened my grip, kneeling on the seat to give myself more leverage. Then I did the only thing I could think of to do.

I kissed him.

I kissed him the way he’d kissed me after I had told him the truth about my father, about how I’d been hurt too.

I kissed him to make him believe me, to pour my feelings directly into his soul.

I kissed him as if that could heal him—and even though I knew it couldn’t, I had to fucking try.

His body went stiff for a second, and I could feel him struggling not to give in, not to let anything good penetrate the blackness wrapped around him. Not to accept the light I was offering.

Then his lips pressed hard against mine, and before I knew what was happening, he was scooting his seat back as far as it would go and hauling me across the console into his lap. My knees ended up on either side of his hips, digging into the seam of the seat as I wedged into the small space between him and the steering wheel.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but comfort was the furthest thing from my mind as Cole deepened our kiss, crushing my body against his with his massive arms.

My hands ran through his hair, which had grown back to its usual cut of short on the sides and long on top, mussing up the blue-black strands. As our lips moved together in a consuming, deep, endless kiss, I ran my fingers over his shoulders, down his chest, and along his sides. He winced slightly as I moved over the ribs on the left side, and I jerked back, breaking the kiss.

There was barely room for me to lean away from him, but I pulled back far enough to slip my fingers under the hem of his dark t-shirt, sliding it up past the cut lines of his abs to reveal the dark red bruise blooming through the tattoos on his side.