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“So, you’re the new Montgomery,” Kaity said, and then she bit into her sandwich, eyes on me. “Did Erin tell you she’s in love with Gareth yet? Because she is.” She said that last part with her mouth full.
“Hey,” Erin hissed out, looking all around, her freckled face reddening with embarrassment. “Not so loud.”
As if anyone around us heard or cared. The cafeteria was loud, and from the look of it, every table around us was deep in their own conversations. Gareth, the current topic of our conversation, was nowhere to be found. Maybe he had lunch during a different period. So far, I hadn’t seen him in my classes; I hoped to keep it that way.
“Yeah, she told me she only wants to be friends with me so I’d invite her over so she could steal more glances at him,” I deadpanned, making the other girls laugh—except for Cherith, who was so engrossed in whatever smutty fanfic she was currently reading she didn’t even blink.
“That was a joke,” Erin quickly said. “Seriously, though.” She turned to me, her voice dropping an octave. “What’s the Prince of Eastcreek High like at home?”
“The Prince of Eastcreek?” I echoed faintly. Gareth did not deserve any title like that.
“It’s no secret Montgomery money keeps this town running,” Kaity told me. “My dad is the manager at the Super-Mart. It was gonna close down before that family came, but Mrs. Montgomery donated a bunch of money to the store to renovate it and keep it running.”
I bet stories like that were a dime a dozen here. A small town, on the verge of bankruptcy, and a hero with a whole bunch of money comes to save the day. All it cost was the deed to their house or their business or whatever. One by one until the Montgomery family owned it all, literally or figuratively.
“Mrs. Montgomery?” I asked.
“Yeah, Gareth’s mom. What was her name?” Kaity looked at Erin, who apparently knew all about it.
“Hilda,” Erin said. “It was so sad when she died. The schools let out early that day so everyone who wanted to go to the funeral could. It was like a town-wide holiday. I think it’s been six years now? Gareth’s never been the same.” She let out a sigh at that, as if it hurt her to know Gareth’s been hurting since his mom’s death.
Losing a parent was traumatic. Though my dad didn’t die, he might as well have. It wasn’t like he tried to remain in my life once Mom and I left. He took the easy way out. I’d long since stopped wondering if he was still dating that young, pretty woman, if he’d settled down with her and started a new family to replace what he’d let go, or if he was with someone else.
Whatever he was doing right now, I hoped he wasn’t happy.
But was Gareth less… you know, less of an asshole when his mom was still alive? At the time, he’d been twelve, so you couldn’t really compare. He might’ve been just as moody and grumpy back then, but maybe everyone attributed it to simply being a kid.
“So, really, what’s he like? I bet it’s hard, having him as a stepbrother. No, wait. Scratch that. Tell me about his daddy.” Kaity shivered. “Now that’s a man I’d love to call daddy.”
I’d put money on the fact that she’d meant that sexually, but I tried to ignore it as I said, “I haven’t really spent much time with him, or with Gareth. It’s just a big change. For so long, it’s always just been my mom and me, so having a family again is… different.”
Could I be more vague? Ugh. But I didn’t want to get into the details about how Gareth was an ass and, yes, my stepdad was an attractive guy. If I started to crush on either of them, the entire world had my permission to beat me senseless.
The girls, Erin included, didn’t get the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it, because the rest of lunch, they kept asking me question after question.
Let’s just say it was a long period, and when the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, I couldn’t jump up fast enough.
Chapter Eight – Gareth
By whatever luck I had left, Brianna wasn’t in any of my classes, which meant I only had to see her in the morning and the afternoon, when I drove us to and from school. It was good she wasn’t in my classes. It was good.
Maybe if I kept repeating that to myself, I’d start to believe it.
The truth was—and this was something I’d never admit out loud—I’d kind of hoped she’d be in one or two of my classes. Eastcreek High wasn’t that big, after all, so what were the odds that we shared nothing? Higher than I’d thought.
I wanted to watch her, see what she was like surrounded by other people. Everyone was talking about her, about the new Montgomery girl with the crazy hair. Even the guys who didn’t like unnatural hair said they’d love a go at her.
To fuck her.They’d love tofuckher.
It shouldn’t matter to me whether everyone else considered her fuckable, but it did, so I spent the majority of the day seething. I had a few people come up to me and ask me about her—their mistake, of course, and I let them know it by telling them to fuck off. I wouldn’t entertain any of them, especially when all they wanted to know about was how to get in with my new stepsister.
It was all I could think about, driving us home. When I saw her get in my car and buckle up, not saying a word to me, my thoughts raced, though I did my best to give her nothing more than a frown.
What was her type? She didn’t act impressed by me, so maybe she liked the hicks or the freaks. Just because she was a loner didn’t mean she didn’t have a type. I tried to imagine her with a few of the guys that had expressed interest in her, but the thoughts just wouldn’t come. I couldn’t picture her with any of them.
I couldn’t do it, because she wasn’t theirs. Brianna was mine. Mine to do whatever I wished to.
As I drove us home, I tossed her a side glance, taking in the way she sat, how her head was turned away from me, to the window to her right. Her bag sat on the floor between her feet, and she breathed with a steadiness that told me she was calm. It was a struggle not to watch that chest rise and fall the entire way home.
