Bad Son (Wild Men 3.50)

Just then, the image of her walking down the street with a tall blond guy flashes through my memory, and I clench my pack of smokes in my hand, crushing it.

“No, Merc. Listen to me.” She has stopped pacing, giving me her profile. She’s biting her lip. She does that a lot. “I’m coming over.”

Over where? To the guy’s house?

The hell. My fists curl tighter. I barely notice when my crushed pack of cigarette falls back to the ground.

The moment she starts moving, I’m after her. I need to know who this Merc is, how I can compete with him for Gigi.

It’s not until she climbs into the bus, the same bus we take after school every day, that I realize I have no reason to check out the competition.

I stop in my tracks and watch as she takes her seat and the bus rolls away.

What the fuck, Jarett. Are you out of your goddamn mind?

A girl like Gigi may talk to me and walk with me, but she’d never go out with me. She’s smart, and I’m bad news. She has to know it.

And I have to remember it.

***

“Trust me,” Mr. Lowe says, his deep-set eyes kind. “You’ll like this, Jarett.”

Yeah, about that. I really fucking doubt it.

And I don’t trust kind eyes. They tend to get you into trouble.

He’s working on the engine of an old Impala in the garage, where he usually likes to tinker around. Sebastian is already there, lounging against the car, toying with a screwdriver.

“Seb pretends he doesn’t want to be here, but ignore him,” Mr. Lowe says, waving a dismissive hand at his son. “That’s just his style. Come here, take a look at the engine.”

“Yeah, come in, why don’t you?” Sebastian’s gaze is hard like flint, but he shoots me an indulgent smile, like you’d do to an annoying kid. “Do come and take a look. What would we do without you, Fen?”

“Don’t call me that,” I say automatically, although I don’t mind the nickname.

“Jarett Fenris,” he says, using Connor’s family name, the only one that really belongs to me right now. Drawing out the syllables. Mocking me. “Fen.”

“Stop this,” Mr. Lowe tells him, but without real anger.

Sebastian’s hostility actually makes me feel better, so much so that I approach the car. I can trust that—the annoyance, the anger. You can’t fake those emotions.

Maybe Sebastian does like working on cars, somewhere deep inside his black little soul, but he sure as hell doesn’t like having me here.

Knowing this, at least I’m on firm ground.

“Hold this.” A wrench is placed into my hand. “You okay there?”

“Yes, Mr. Lowe.”

He chuckles, looking up from the engine. “We talked about that. If you won’t call me dad, then Bruce will do for now.”

“Bruce,” I whisper, swallowing hard and clutching the wrench in my hand, because no way am I calling this guy dad, not when Connor died just a few years ago, when this peaceful time won’t last, and certainly not when his son is staring at me like he wants to murder me.

“Know what? I think you two can fix this engine just fine,” Sebastian says right on cue, as he usually does when Mr. Lowe invites me to take part in some family tradition such as this one, and throws the screwdriver over his shoulder. “Catch you later, Dad.”

Yeah, I knew the good times wouldn’t last—and they were good, despite Sebastian’s little tantrums. Much better than most other times in my life. But I had a gut feeling, born from experience. It said, good times don’t ever last, Jarett.

And I was right.