Chapter
One
“I don’t know how you live under the same roof as him, Lyric,” Marie, Lyric’s best friend said in a hushed tone. “I’d be frightened he would go postal one day.”
Lyric and Marie were in the cafeteria at school sitting in a corner table, and staring right at Lyric’s stepbrother, Landon. He was across the room, alone as usual, with nothing but a can of pop in front of him and his phone in his hand. Even from a distance she could make out the hard lines of his body.
At only eighteen years old he was built like a tank, could have probably kicked ass at football or any other contact sport like that because of his strength and sheer size alone, but he was a loner.
In the last three years since he’d been going to this school and living under the same roof with her, he’d done nothing but start shit.
When Laura, Landon’s mother, had married Brent, Lyric’s father, she knew her life would change, and although they weren’t close, Landon had impacted her life.
He was her stepbrother by all accounts, married into the family, which connected them, but she never had any kind of pull to him, not in a brotherly way, at least.
“Honestly, he keeps his distance from everyone.” Lyric grabbed her bottle of water and took a drink from it, all the while watching him. “He keeps to himself at home, too, well, unless he’s coming home all scuffed up from a fight.”
“Yeah, I can see him getting into a lot of fights, and winning.”
So could Lyric. “It’s like he has a perpetual chip on his shoulder.” She looked over at Marie for a second. “He’s angry at everything.”
“But he’s gorgeous, I’ll give him that. Too bad he is also kind of scary.”
Lyric looked back at Landon after Marie spoke. “I guess I’d be upset, too, if I was uprooted and had to finish off high school in another city.”
“I thought you said he was having issues at his other school, too?” Marie asked. Landon had been here for the last three years, since he was a freshman in high school.
“Yeah, or so I heard.”
“What did you hear again?” Marie asked, sounding very interested.
Lyric stared at her friend for a second, her eyebrow lifted. “You do realize I’ve told you this before?”
Marie shrugged. “Tell me again. It’s interesting.”
Lyric exhaled. “I overheard my dad and Laura talking about.” It wasn’t like Lyric was eavesdropping on her stepmother and dad, but when she’d overheard them speaking about all of the fights Landon had gotten into, all of the trouble he was surrounding himself with, Lyric couldn’t help but listen to how her stepbrother really was.
“You think he’s like that because his dad ran off?”
Lyric shrugged. “Maybe, or maybe he’s just one of those guys that doesn’t like the world or anyone in it.” Just then, as if he’d heard Lyric speaking, which was impossible, Landon lifted his head and stared right at her. Even from the distance she could see the startling clarity of his green eyes.
She didn’t know what it was about him that had her so curious, as if she wanted to just reach out and hug all that anger away. But every time she looked at Landon this part of her wanted to comfort him, get through to him … hell, just be his friend.
The first time Lyric had seen Landon Boscoe she’d known he was a bad boy, even if she was only fifteen years old. It was clear he didn’t care about anyone but himself, and he would be more trouble than she was used to.
He was hard around the edges, had this attitude that was slightly frightening, and she didn’t know if she should also be one of those people that knew better and stayed away.
He had been tall and muscular, not like any of the other fifteen-year-old guys that went to their school. Just the sight of him could have people crossing the street because he looked intimidating, and over time he just got bigger, stronger … more frightening.
It was not until Landon came in her life that she realized she had never really known what dangerous and volatile really meant.
“Oh damn, look who’s going over there,” Marie said in a hushed whisper.
Lyric pulled her thoughts back to the present. Devon, the school’s resident asshole and jock, was coming into the cafeteria with his three buddies that never left his side, trailing behind. Devon not only bullied anyone he didn’t like, but he also picked on the kids that he didn’t think were up to his “popularity” standard, which would be the majority of the school.
In the last three years Devon and Landon had gone at it only once, but the tension was always there between them. Lyric knew it was because Landon had been kicking Devon’s ass, and if not for the teacher that stopped the fight Devon would have been seriously hurt. Of course, Devon had deserved it all.