“Millie doesn’t have it.” There it was again. Was he hoping to catch me in a lie? Because if I were a liar, I was pretty sure I would have tried to sell myself as having a superpower or Einstein’s IQ. I snorted out a laugh, because it was attractive and all.
“Well, Millie’s lucky,” I spat out. She was. In more ways than one. “Just because both parents carry the gene doesn’t mean all their kids will get it. Call it nature’s Russian roulette, if you would. And it’s me who got the bullet in the effing neck. There’s your fun fact for the day. Now can I go?”
With any other guy, I would have turned around and left. Simple. But with Dean ‘Ruckus’ Cole, nothing was simple. I wanted to milk every second I had alone with him. I wasn’t even sure why. It felt strange, agonizing, and thrilling to have him around, and then the moment he was gone, I knew I’d hate myself for every single word I’d said, every way I’d acted, and every single breath I took.
“Rosie.”
I lifted my head, and before I knew what was happening, I felt his rough palms on my waist and my body flying into the pool. I didn’t have time to brace myself for the fall. Literally or figuratively. My body hit the water flat, the plunge painful like I smashed right into concrete. I used my arms to swim my way up to get some air. The chill of the water only hit me when I took one, desperate breath. I opened my eyes, my whole body shivering violently, and before my eyes adjusted, there was a huge splash beside me. Dean jumped in, too.
My heart went haywire, jackhammering everywhere. I felt it pounding against my ribcage, dipping down, trying to fight its way outside, through my stomach, through my throat, wanting out, out, out. Dean’s body swam to mine, pinning me to the tranquil-blue wall, and I started throwing fists at him. Frantic, angry punches. They weren’t the kind of banter-slaps a girl gives a boy to flirt or warn him to stay away. No. I clawed at his chest with my fingernails, wishing to draw blood.
Then I started crying.
That, too, was completely out of character for yours truly. I’d never cried in front of people I didn’t know. And for the sake of argument, anyone who wasn’t Millie, Mama, or Daddy was a stranger. Yet there I was, my hot, salty tears mixing with the cold, sweet water.
Life ain’t fair.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I roared, my fists continuing their assault on his chest. He’d taken his jacket off before he’d jumped in, and now the only thing separating our flesh was his tight black and gold tee and my soaked hoodie. His skin was warm despite the water and I needed more of it. He wanted to give it to me. His whole body said it. Sang it. Shouted it from the rooftop of this monstrous mansion. No words were spoken at all, which made our body language so much louder. Dangerous chemistry, it warned. Run away, Rosie.
“Your lungs work fine,” he growled into my face, capturing both my wrists and jamming me to the wall, hard. What was he doing? Vicious could see us. Hell, Millie could, too. If she walked in the gate right now, what would she think? Her boyfriend and sister in the pool together. Body to body. Soul to soul. “You’re fucking fine!” he added, his forehead inches from mine.
Was he trying to convince me, or himself?
And why the hell did he care, anyway?
I forced myself to calm down. I needed to talk some sense into this guy. He had to let me go before we got caught doing whatever it was we were doing.
“Dean,” I said, as coolly as I could, freeing my wrists and placing my palms flat against his chest. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. His lashes dripped water, and everything about him was raw, wet, and delicious. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew that this was monumental. This thing we shared in that moment. I’d never feel it with any other guy again. This slice of life was ours, even if I didn’t want it to be.
“Rosie,” he countered.
“I’m sick,” I repeated.
“Don’t say that. You’re not sick. It’s just a fucking condition.”
I shook my head, water and tears flying back and forth. “It’s not just a condition. I’m going to die really young, Dean. In my thirties, maybe forties…fifties, if I’m lucky.”
“Shut up,” he hissed between clenched teeth. His palm slammed the wall behind me, and I shook with more than just the cold.
“This is bullshit!” he spat out. “No, you’re not.”
I needed to find another tactic. Fast.
“Listen, you can’t do this, okay? We can be friendly,” I lied, because I knew by that point that we couldn’t. “But you can’t throw me into pools in the middle of the fall—first of all, I really am sick, and even if I wasn’t prone to pneumonia, it’s not that fun to be thrown into icy water anyway—and Millie. It’s not fair to her. You can’t treat her sister like that. Like…like…”
“Like what?” he challenged, his pupils flaring.
Like you want me.
Does he?
My hormones were rebelling. My morals charred me from the inside. Every hair on my body stood on end. His hand snaked between us and cupped one of my cheeks, tilting my face upwards, forcing me to look at him. “Like. Fucking. What. Rosie?”
There was something in his eyes. An intensity I’d never seen before. It was unsettling, because that something told me he had no idea what he was doing. He just knew it was wrong. And like me, he was confused, hurt, and angry.
“Like you want me,” I echoed my thoughts quietly.
“But I do,” he supplied. “Maybe it’s time for some musical chairs. Your sister doesn’t care for me too much, Baby LeBlanc.”
He didn’t care too much for her either. He cared about her. Which made him even more alluring, because our goal was mutual—protecting the person I fiercely loved.
But at the same time, bitterness ate away at me every time I watched the complete and utter waste that was their relationship. When I witnessed how her eyes drifted to Vicious when he was around. How Dean and I looked at each other from across the room. I wanted to grab my sister by the shoulders and shake her. Tell her to pull her shit together and go with the guy who made her heart swell. But I was in no position to ask her for anything, considering my parents ripped our family from our home in Fairfax, Virginia, and moved us all the way to California so I could have better health care. Since I had friends and a social life and she had nothing—precisely because of that decision. So, I let her have them both. Dean’s body and Vicious’s heart.
“If you don’t let me go,” my teeth chattered, and not just for impact, “I will get a lung infection. Dean.” His name was a warning, and this time he let me push him with my palms, swimming away from me and watching me climb to the edge of the pool, my heavy, soaked clothes pulling me down.
I didn’t turn around to look at him. Was too afraid he’d see my eyes, doped on euphoria, tainted by lust. And my face, rosy in contrast to the rest of my quivering, blue self.
I saw him in my periphery swimming to the edge, bracing his forearms on the wet tiles, his chin propped on his balled hands.
“This shit is toxic. We need to stop it before it goes any further,” he muttered, more to himself than to me.
“Any further than what?” I stripped out of my hoodie and tossed the heavy fabric onto a nearby sun lounger. “Than kissing and dry-humping my sister to oblivion and back while hitting on me?” My voice was trembling.
“Rosie,” he said. A high-pitched laugh escaped me. Rosie, my ass. He was with my sister. True, I pushed him to be with her, but it didn’t make me any less bitter. “Don’t twist this against me. You told me to be with her. You fucking told me to touch her, too. What do you want me to do? Ignore her ass?”
I hated that he had a point, and I hated that something so logical made me feel so illogical.
“This,” I pointed between us from where I was standing on the edge of the pool, “is not going to happen. You’re dating Emilia, Dean. We can’t ever be together.”
“Says who?” he challenged.
“Says me. And society. And logic. And culture. And damn, every love film and romance book I’ve ever consumed.”
“Mmm.” A playful grin found his luscious lips again. “That can’t be right.”
“It is,” I fired. “Juliet didn’t have an older sister named Julie that Romeo sampled before he decided she was the one.”
“Juliet never went head-to-head with her fucking feelings,” he yelled, banging his fist on the tiles. “Since when are you such a pussy?” Dean jumped out of the pool so fast, it looked like an optical illusion. He got in my face, snarling. “Since when do you give a damn about what people think? I pegged you all wrong. If you walk away from this, I’m going to give this thing with Millie a shot.”
It sounded like a threat.
“What have you been doing all along?” I snorted. It wasn’t his fault. By the time he noticed me, she wanted to date him, and he couldn’t back down. Besides, he made her life so much better. Gone were the days where her locker was stuffed with garbage and people muttered ‘white trash’ when she passed in the hallway.
“Waiting on you,” he answered, and we both let out a sigh as rain started knocking lightly on our standing figures.
“Well.” I smiled sweetly, and it took every ounce of energy in me to show him my teeth and dimples. “You have the green light to fall in love with my sister. As I said, nothing will ever happen between us.”
Five seconds later, Millie appeared at the pool, wheeling her bike along. We told her that I fell into the pool and that he jumped in to save me. My cheeks were flushed and the pool wasn’t that deep and I was a great swimmer. But Millie’s eyes were elsewhere—so was her heart—and I had a feeling that even if she caught us with our pants down it wouldn’t matter.
I never made it to my doctor’s appointment that day.
But I did catch pneumonia that granted me a trip to the ER and a four-day hospital stay. I’d missed two important exams and had to spend hours in a percussion vest.