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I rarely told him no or turned him down. He was the sweetest old man ever.
At least, when it came to me, he was.
Once the last passengers were in their seats, the driver turned his radio on low and we began to move. Me and Gracelyn watched out the window until we could no longer see any part of the massive Royal Palms Resort.
And that was that.
We’d be on a plane heading home soon. Vacation was officially over. As was my self-righteous act of denial. I was going to miss staying up all night without needing to wake at the ass crack of dawn to pretend I knew what I was doing with my life. I hadn’t the faintest clue what I wanted to be when I grew up—and I was grown. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be who I had been.
I don’t know, sometimes I thought it would be better for someone else to map the whole thing out.
My parents would rejoice if I simply let them do as they wished without argument. Not that arguing would matter much, anyway.
The Serpines had a reputation to uphold, after all. I couldn’t risk tarnishing their immaculate image, even if it was utter bullshit. I knew first-hand what happened to anyone who did. My sister had paid the price for bringing shame to our family.
She’d thoroughly humiliated them, and whomever it was she’d been married off to, when she purposely got knocked up by a distant cousin. I hadn’t seen her since the day our mom all but dragged from the house by her hair. Blood or not, the family wouldn’t tolerate anything they saw as disrespect.
For those not privy to the real story, my parents simply said she’d taken off to some prestigious university. Was it wrong of me to be pissed at her too? She was the reason I became golden child numero dos.
Our big brother was cemented in at number one. The kiss-ass.
That was another key factor of our world: smarmy blue bloods and their selfish, never-ending schemes.
They fooled people into believing they were good while simultaneously doing whatever was necessary to further their personal agendas. Building familial relations was among them.
We didn’t choose who we wound up with, they chose for us. Just as they did everything else.
Following a predestined path came with the elite lineage that swam through our veins. It didn’t matter how we felt about our elders’ decisions. I couldn’t hate or resent them for it, though. I loved my family as much as I could, considering our peculiar dynamic, but that didn’t make me blind to their sordid ethics.
Gracelyn nudged me with her elbow, interrupting my inner monologue. As I met her eyes, she did some weird brow movement that had me quirking one of mine.
“What?”
“Look,” she mouthed with a subtle nod of her head.
I glanced at the group of guys.
None of them were paying us any attention. I looked back at Gracelyn, and she shrugged and waved her hand as if to say, “Never mind.”
As she and Mel began a debate about one of the newer movies coming out, I adjusted how I was sitting once again. The new position gave me a better view of my mystery guy. He was intently focused on the cellphone in his hand.
Relaxed, and without a smile lifting strong-lined features, his expression was uninviting.
I’d go as far as to say intimidating.
I used his distraction as an opportunity to get a better look at him.
His toned arms had sleeves running all the way down to his fingers, each tattoo a well-placed piece of art on his sun-kissed skin. Every single one of them added to how damn fine he was. He looked like someone you’d find within the pages of a more sophisticated edition of Inked Magazine.
The tat on the nape of his neck was a leviathan cross being grasped by claws or something. I wondered if it held any real significance to him, or if he was like every other hipster douchebag that thought they were edgy. I dropped my gaze back down to his right arm, studying all the different pieces that were visible beneath the sleeve of his T.
There was a cluster of roses like the sole tattoo I had on my upper right shoulder.
His petals were pure black while mine were both purple and magenta.
Gracelyn and Melantha had the same one. Grace’s was part of the sleeve she had on her left arm, while Mel’s was on her hip. Their colors were different as well. Each hue held a different meaning to who we were as people.
A devilish depiction of a weeping Virgin Mary was on his inner forearm. Beneath that was another rose, this one by itself with three numbers weaved into its petals.
On his hand was the face of a woman with skull-like features. I felt like I’d seen this before. Beside her was a word I couldn’t fully make out unless I leaned way too close for either of our comfort.
