Renegade Hearts (Rebels of Sandland 1)

“Does he still see his mum?”

“I don’t think she’d even recognise him if he walked up to her in the street, wearing a T-shirt that said ‘I’m your son.’ I don’t think she even cares.” Emily scoffed and shook her head. I guess her mum wasn’t looking quite so bad now compared to Brandon’s egg donor.

“That’s so sad.”

“He’s fine.” That was a fucking understatement, but I wasn’t about to wade into the murky waters of the Mathers’ family history and bring us both down. So, I moved onto the last of our crew. “Finn didn’t speak for the first seven years of his life. Not to adults, anyway. His parents palmed him off on so many different counsellors, we all lost count. He’s always loved art though. It helped him to communicate, and then, once he joined our little gang, it didn’t matter if he stayed silent for weeks on end or chatted complete shit about abstract-expressionism or neo-classical whatever. We just let him do his thing. Turns out overpriced psycho-babble is no match for a decent set of friends and someone taking the time out to really get to know you.”

“Wow.”

“Like I said, we were the misfits.”

“And the parties? How did they come about?” She really wanted to get to the nitty-gritty.

“We all wanted to make something of ourselves. When we sat down and put our heads together, the party thing kinda made sense. I do numbers. It’s my thing. So the money side was mine.”

“And the gambling,” she added with a hint of sarcasm.

“It’s all numbers. Who else is gonna manage those odds and get the money rolling in? Zak has the computer know-how. He worked all the technology; messaging people, getting word out there and setting us up on social media. He bagged that D.J. gig from the start too. If we left it to Brandon, we’d all be listening to hard-core rap, gothic rock or dark metal. Finn wanted to do his thing. We were never gonna argue with that. And Brandon? He has three main skills; fighting, drinking and women. He had the last two already covered, so we went with the fighting. It channels his negative energy and we all make a lot of money.”

“You’ve got it all covered,” she said, using our chosen saying with her response.

“Exactly.” I grinned. I was proud of what we’d built. We were four working-class lads with nothing, but now, we were on our way to better things.

“And Danny? Where did he come into all this?” And here it was. My golden opportunity to manoeuvre the conversation round to where I needed it to go.

“He came to a few parties, helped us with some of the legal stuff.”

“Legal?” She scoffed, giving me the side-eye. “What would Danny know about that?”

“He helped me check out venues. Made sure the floor wouldn’t collapse on us all. You know, logistics and shit.”

“He never talked about it. Not to me.” I could tell she didn’t quite believe me. Or maybe she didn’t want to think about her brother being the fifth Renaissance man.

“He didn’t want you involved. None of us did.”

She bit her lip in thought, then turned to me. My stomach flipped over at what she was gonna say, because judging from the look on her face, it wasn’t good.

“Kian said something the other day, when we saw him at the café in town.”

“Kian talks a lot of shit,” I spat back, knowing exactly what she was going to say. Kian had already given me the heads-up. “The guy was born with no filter.”

“I know, but he said that it was you that warned people away from me. Not Danny. I didn’t believe him. In fact, I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up. It’s crazy.”

“It’s not crazy,” I said, hoping a dose of reality might work in my favour. “It’s true. Danny didn’t want you involved in the parties…” I took a deep breath and jumped off that tall as fuck cliff into the abyss. “But I didn’t want anyone else near you.”

She frowned, not getting what I was saying at all. “I don’t-”

“I didn’t want some other douche-bag dating you. I noticed you, Em. I wanted you. So, I put the word out that you were untouchable.”

She sucked in a breath. “What? I don’t get it? I didn’t think I even registered on your radar. I was Danny’s gawky little sister.”

“You were mine. Even back then, I knew you were mine.” I tried to look her in the eye. I wanted her to see that I meant what I said, but she stared straight ahead to avoid me.

“Ryan, that’s crazy, and weird, definitely insane and I should be kicking your ass for totally destroying my high school experience. I went to the end of year eleven dance with Effy as my date. It was mortifying.”

I shook my head, trying to look regretful, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t give a fuck. I did what I did and I still stood by it. The girl was mine. She was too young to be with me back then, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand by and watch some goofy kid muscle in and take her away from me.

“Seriously, I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I wasn’t good enough, Ryan. That’s a really shitty thing to do.” She looked at me now, and the pain in her eyes made me doubt myself a little. I pushed that weak motherfucker to the back of my mind right away.