Get Bucked (The Valentine Boys 4)

Then we came out the other end, and I remembered exactly why it was familiar.

This was where Gibson and I used to spend a lot of time. Not in the alleyway, but at the park that was just beyond the alleyway.

“I remember this place,” I finally said. “Gibson and I used to buy alcohol from that store right there and drink it on the swings.”

Waylynn snorted. “The gas station would sell you beer?”

I nodded once. “Yep. Gibson knew the owner. He was a good guy. Died about five years ago, though.”

Waylynn looked flabbergasted that anyone would sell us beer underage.

“I just… every single time I tried to get beer when I was a kid, they’d tell me no. I was never able to sneak in anywhere, either,” she continued. “I tried to get a fake ID once, and the bouncer saw straight through it because I blushed like a damn cherry. It was so embarrassing. He kept my ID and told me to go home.”

I snorted.

“You gotta appear confident when you use those, otherwise they will see right through you,” I teased. “I remember this one time that GQ and I snuck in somewhere. I’d stolen Callum’s ID and used it to get in. Only, what I didn’t know at the time, Callum was already in the bar. So when I showed him the ID—one he’d already seen once that night because I didn’t realize Callum had gone to the DMV to get a new one, I got my ass handed to me by my brother.”

She snickered. “You totally deserved that.”

I had.

For sure.

I really had been an asshole when I was younger.

I’d deserved all the beatings that I’d gotten for sure.

She walked over to the swings then, her face closed off.

“Sometimes I wish that I were born to different parents,” she said softly, kicking her feet. “Then I feel like an asshole because my dad gave me the best he had to offer. Which was more than some kids ever got.”

I walked to the swing directly next to her and took a seat, kicking my feet out in front of me, back and forth, as I gained speed and height.

When I was where I wanted, I lazily pumped my legs and said, “You know what happened to my parents?”

She looked over at me.

“I do,” she confirmed.

Everybody knew.

It was hardly a secret.

From the night of the accident on, life hadn’t been the same for me.

At first, everybody tried to be understanding when it came to me, the now youngest in the family.

But that understanding had only gone so far.

That understanding had quickly turned to disgust at how I was acting, which then turned to annoyance, and finally to indifference.

“Before my dad killed my mom, two of my brothers, and attempted to kill the rest of us, I would’ve said no way. I don’t want a different life,” I said. “But now? I kind of wish I’d grown up normal. That I’d had the stability that a young kid needs when they’re at such an impressionable age,” I explained. “But I can’t complain about where I ended up. I have a college degree. A job lined up. A roof over my head.”

I looked at her when I said that, causing her to grin.

“Damn right you do, spider killer.” She fist pumped.

I stopped then, staring at her with worry.

“Just how many spiders are we talking about here?” I wondered.

She widened her eyes. “So many.”

***

She wasn’t joking about the amount of spiders.

She did have a lot.

Outside.

I didn’t see many inside.

The one and only one I’d found was a small one the size of a small grain of rice. It was on the ceiling and so harmless that I would’ve never given it a second thought.

Waylynn on the other hand?

She was still wanting it dead.

“You have to kill it,” she said. “Now that I know it’s there, it has to die.”

I took the broom off the floor where it was propped up against a counter, and then twisted it bristle side up, and smashed the spider.

The moment it was dead, I heard her audible sigh of relief.

I looked over at her with amusement on my face.

“What’s with your aversion to spiders anyway?” I asked quizzically.

She moved her lip up into a silent snarl, then went to the floor with a paper towel that looked as if it’d magically appeared into her hand and wiped it off of the broom.

“When I was twelve, I had a spider crawl into my ear,” she said, shaking violently when she admitted that. “When I realized something was in there, it took my dad three days to get home. And all the while I could hear it crawling around in there.”

I shivered right along with her at that thought.

“When my dad finally got back, he took me to the hospital and they pulled a spider out of my ear. A black widow,” she widened her eyes. “It was the most awful experience of my life.”