Brutal Kiss
I stare at my father, and he looks back at me like he’s ordering off a fast food menu. His bored stare hides the crocodile I know lurks beneath his surface. My father’s been strangely permissive toward me over the years—I think because he knows how deeply I felt Shane’s loss and how Megan’s accident nearly ruined me—and he’s afraid that if he pushes me too hard and drags me back into the family, I’ll slide into that horrible depression again. I remember the darkness, the feeling that there was nothing for me but a hole in my world, an empty bottomless void, like getting up from bed and putting on clothes and breathing was too much of an effort. He doesn’t want that, and neither do I.
“No, we won’t have a problem.”
“Good,” he says, sounding relieved. “You’ll be escorted home tonight by your guard, and I don’t want to hear any complaining. If you make this difficult, I promise, I will bring you home.”
“I understand.” I take a breath, trying to steady myself. My hands are trembling. “Who is it?”
“You remember Rian Kane, right?” Aidan looks at his fingers as he talks to me. “You two were close back in the day.”
He doesn’t meet my eye. Neither does Dad.
Because Rian Kane is the man who killed my best friend.
Chapter 2
Daley
Rain splatters against my umbrella as I stand on the train platform. It’s dark, the sort of heavy dark that blots out the moon and stars, the night thick with clouds. Nearby lights seem to flicker and bend in the downpour. My shoes are wet and my clothes are damp from walking fast from the pub and into the torrential rain. My head’s spinning, and the station feels like the desolate end of the world—like there’s nothing beyond this nondescript beige building, empty and dark, water stained with peeling stucco and faded orange paint, and an overhang that barely covers the outdoor waiting area.
Nobody else is around. Not many people would be desperate enough to stand outside in rain like this, waiting for a train that’s probably late, anyway. But as soon as my brother said that name back in the pub, I had to get the hell out of there before I exploded with rage and pain.
Memories swirl all around me. I can still hear Megan’s voice, the excited way she’d say my name and hug me and laugh and tug at my hair. She was always so physical—holding hands, hanging onto my arm, bumping knees and hips. We were best friends, closer than I’ve ever been with anyone. Calling her my sister is an understatement. She was the center of my world for a long time, my other half, my twin. We went to the same elementary school, the same middle school, the same high school. We played on the same soccer team and softball team. We ran track for approximately one week and quit at the same time. We sat together at lunch, even when we had different lunch periods.
We had plans. So many plans. Megan used to talk about moving into the city together. We’d sit in front of her parents’ house on the porch with her feet in my lap on a beat-up, old white bench swing and talk for hours. She dreamed about escaping Delco and its incestuous, mob-filled world and the trauma of her drunk father and her asshole brother and her angry mother. She dreamed about college and boys and being happy for once.
All that’s gone now. Her perfect life snuffed out in moments.
Because of him.
Footsteps splash through a nearby puddle. I look over and it’s like seeing a ghost. I feel numb all over, the cold seeping into my bones like snow melting over a drain grate. He’s even taller than I remember, well over six foot, and his arms are wrapped in corded, defined muscles. He’s got the same dark hair, soaking wet right now and plastered down against his head and face, dripping down onto his full lips, and the same dark eyes, so brown they’re almost black. He’s in jeans and a short-sleeve shirt, the cotton clinging to his muscular chest, and his arms and neck are covered in tattoos. I remember he once said he couldn’t stand tattoos, that he thought they made people look fake. Like a canvas for someone else’s work. I can’t make out the shapes in the weak light, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to get to know him all over again.
He’s so familiar it hurts. So achingly familiar, even though I haven’t seen him in years, but also a stranger. The contrast is hard to fathom and more than a little painful.
“Hey, Daley,” he says, that smile ghosting on his mouth, that same smile he always had, even back then. Cocky, like he knows something you don’t, like everything’s a joke to him. Like this is all some hilarious game.