Renegade Hearts (Rebels of Sandland 1)

I was starting to get a clearer picture of the Hardy family and why Sean was so wary of Connor when I met him. “I think he could’ve found a better way to out her as the bitch she obviously was.”

Ryan laughed. “I didn’t much care for her. Couldn’t understand what Liam saw in her to be honest. She was a spoilt brat.”

“Well, they do say love is blind.”

“It must be, ‘cos when she left she took the contents of his bank account with her and he didn’t even try to get it back.”

I winced. “Ouch! That’s brutal.”

“Yep. He definitely dodged a bullet there.”

I knew this park would be a winner. I’d asked Connor for his advice on the best place to take a girl to get her to open up and he’d nailed it. Even baked a shit load of scones and fucking fairy cakes to help me ‘seal the deal’ as he put it. I wasn’t lying when I said Mum loved this park, she did. We usually tore through the gardens at high speed though, back in the day. Racing to get to the open space so we could kick the football around. Mum would’ve loved a daughter like Emily. Someone to share all her lighter moments with. They were mostly lost on us.

I could tell Emily was interested in what I had to say. She hung on my every word and asked questions about my brothers, genuinely interested in my response. I’d never really told anyone about the Liam-Britney-Connor shit-show, because I was a guy. We never talked about feelings and shit. My mates heard what happened, thought, ‘fucking hell,’ the same as I did, and we all moved on. Well, all of us except Liam, but that was another story.

I held Emily’s hand as we strolled amongst the flowers and tried to keep a clear head and not pull her into the undergrowth and show her what I really wanted to do. The place was more or less deserted, save for a few dog walkers and the odd elderly couple. When we came to the little decked pond area, she lit up like a Christmas tree and we stopped to watch the ducks. I would’ve offered to feed the fuckers, but I didn’t want to attract them over to us. I hated the snappy beaked little shits.

“So, I know a little more about you. But I know nothing about how the whole Renaissance thing started. What happened there?” she asked, no doubt fishing for some gossip.

“What, you mean that period of discovery, also known as the rebirth, from the middle ages? Or my three asshole friends from high school?” I replied, stalling for time.

She gave me a playful slap on the arm. “Your friends, dummy. Unless you have a burning desire to give me a history lesson.”

“My knowledge of the real Renaissance ends there I’m afraid.” I gave her my best cheeky smile and then nudged her arm. “What do you want to know?”

“I guess, how you all got to where you are. What made you friends? I know you were always the popular guys at school, but sometimes I watch you with Brandon or Finn and you’re just so different.” She shrugged and went back to watching the ducks.

“Popular? I think you went to a different school than us.”

“Oh, shut up. You guys had the whole school wrapped around your little fingers and you know it. You said jump, and everyone asked how high.”

She wasn’t wrong there.

“Apart from you.”

“Apart from me. But I noticed you.” She leaned against the wood

en fencing, watching a family of ducks swim past us.

“I noticed you too.” I leant across and rubbed my nose against hers. She gave a low laugh and pulled away shyly.

“Are you trying to distract me?”

“Is it working?” I smirked.

“Maybe.”

I thought about getting her off track, and I put my arm around her waist to pull her closer to me. Then I remembered that this date was also a chance to get her to tell me about Danny and the accident. To open up about her dad too. To do that, I needed to open up as well.

“We weren’t always the popular kids.” I sighed. I didn’t like trips down memory lane at the best of times, but today, I had to learn to suck it up. “I guess we were the misfits of middle school who just happened to find each other at the right time in our lives. I was the kid whose mum died, and Zak was the first one to talk to me like I wasn’t a leper. He had a PlayStation at home and we couldn’t even afford an Atari, so I started going to his house most days after school to play Street Fighter and stuff like that. His mum and dad are pretty cool. His little sister is a pain in the ass, but then every family’s got one, right?”

“Like me, you mean.” She gave a sad smile and it was on the tip of my tongue to ask her about Danny. “What about Brandon?” she said, interrupting my thoughts.

“Brandon was always the angry kid. Can’t say I blamed him. He was left on his own when he was three for five fucking days while his mum got high at some crack den in London. Social services picked him up after a neighbour gave them the tip-off. They found him scrabbling through the bins for food, caked in his own shit. Don’t tell him I told you that, by the way. He’d kick my ass if he knew I’d talked about it.”

“That’s heart-breaking.”

“Yep. Good job his Nan stepped up to take care of him. Otherwise, he’d have been chewed up into the system and spit out at eighteen. He has issues, but he hasn’t turned out too bad considering.” I watched the ducks as they waddled back onto land. The parents fussing over their ducklings and fluffing up their feathers. Even animals took better care of their young than Brandon’s mum had. The woman truly was a piece of work.