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“What do you want?” I bark, turning away from him and lighting up once again.
“I was coming to see how you were settling in, but I see you’ve already made yourself at home.”
“What the fuck?” I seethe when the cigarette is plucked from my lips, seconds before it’s flicked out the window.
He pulls up the front of his perfectly pressed pants before sitting down on the edge of my bed. If he’s trying to look authoritative, then he needs to try fucking harder.
“A few house rules are in order, I think.”
I scoff but allow him to continue so he can list his challenges, because you can bet your sweet ass I’m going to breaking each and every one just to piss him off.
“No smoking in the house. You want to kill yourself with those death sticks, then you do so outside. You will not bring any drugs or drink into this house. If you want friends here, you can use the pool house. I’ve set it up as a den of sorts for the three of you. That’s your domain.”
“So we can smoke, drink, and do drugs in there?”
“No. There will be no parties, no girls, nothing that will cause any trouble of any kind.”
“If you’re not looking for trouble, then you invited the wrong guys to come and live with you.”
“You are no longer in Sterling Heights.” He frowns. “Things are different around here. I think it might be important for you to remember that.”
“Whatever.”
“School starts in two weeks. Your uniforms are already in your closets. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the place before the hard work starts, because there is no way you’re not graduating this year,” he jibes, knowing full well that I fucked up what should have been my senior year last year. Not my fault that someone had to earn some goddamn money to support my brothers.
I look to the other side of the room as if his mere presence is boring me.
“Dinner will be served in an hour. I expect you all to be cleaned and dressed appropriately.” I see his gaze from out of the corner of my eye drop to my ripped jeans and oil-stained shirt. “My girlfriend and her daughter are coming to welcome you to town, and I shouldn't need to tell you that you will be nice to both of them.”
Well, doesn’t that sound like a fucking fun way to spend our first night in Sterling Bay? A nice, cozy family meal with the man who only wanted us when we had no parents left in this world.
He makes out like he wasn’t aware of what our lives were like.
He’s a fucking liar.
“An hour. I’ve already warned your brothers. We’ll be waiting.”
I do shower and change—not because he told me to, but because I fucking stink, and to be honest, I can’t deny that the rainfall shower in my en suite wasn’t appealing. It was a shit load better than the open pipe we had in the trailer.
Wearing a different pair of ripped jeans and a slightly cleaner shirt, I step out into the hall at exactly the same time both Cole and Conner do. They’re dressed similarly to me; it seems they took Uncle’s warning about as seriously as I did.
The sounds of voices direct the three of us toward the dining room. My curiosity as to what hides behind each door we pass is high, but I don’t look. I don’t want to seem like I care, because I really fucking don’t, I’m just intrigued as to why a man who’s always lived alone needs so many fucking rooms.
As we join them, all conversation stops and three heads turn our way. I know our uncle is here but don’t pay him any mind. The brunette, however, captures my imagination quite nicely.
He might have warned me about no girls already, but he didn’t mention one who clearly already spends time here.
He walks over and wraps his arm around both the brunette and her mother. “Ace, Cole, Conner...” He grins like the cat who got the cream, and I fucking hate it. “This is Sarah, my girlfriend, and Remi, her daughter.”
