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Chapter1
Reggy
“Ireally wish you would quit putting your frilly shit in my laundry, it looks like we own a pink llama for crying out loud,” I sarcastically said to my best friend, Maryanne, eyeing the countless pink fuzz balls all over my clothes as she stuck out her tongue and tossed yet another pair of my mismatched socks at me to put away.
“Do you even know how to operate our washer?” She folded the culprit that had been found amongst my sea of black clothing, a delicate fluorescent pink sweater, and carefully set it to the side.
“Of course, it’s just easier to wait you out. You always give in first and run the load,” I shot back, narrowing my eyes, and tipping the basket over, causing our apartment floor to look like a clothing drive free-for-all.
“One day, I won’t give in so easily, and you won’t have panties to wear out.” She shook her head and picked up the next piece to fold.
“So, I’ll go commando. Easy fix.”
She squinted at me, both of us fully aware I hated going without underwear, but I wasn’t saying it out loud. I was winning this argument, regardless of whether it was under false pretenses or not.
“We’ll see about that when I don’t wash your clothes, and you forget we had this conversation.” She giggled with a shrug.
I was your normal twenty-one-year-old female—in all conventional senses, that was. Although, I thought my brain was missing the part that made a person want to be a homemaker. With a name like Regina Gene Wright, I didn’t know how it was possible, though. My mother was the head cheerleader in her high school and thought Regina Gene would be the next to follow in her footsteps. Her legacy. Much to her dismay, I wore chucks, a fedora, and a tux to prom. Also, at the ripe age of five, I demanded that everyone call me “Reggy” and wouldn’t answer to anything else. Working on a bike or shooting pool was more my style, not spending time baking cookies and ogling guys. Give me a fishing pole and a bottle, and I was good to go.
Maryanne, on the other hand, reeked of everything that was considered femininity by most of the world. Her closet was overtaken by lace, pastels, and glitter. Every day she looked like she’d just hopped off the runway, and truthfully, if it had been anyone else, I might have made fun of her. With her yellow-brown eyes and long golden locks, she was a knock-out. She worked at Tress Yourself doing hair, nails, and she even waxed other people’s “bikini areas,” as she put it—every time she whispered bikini, it made my day. She would sayshit, but another word for swimsuit embarrassed her.
Our appearances couldn’t be any more different. The only thing we had in common was our naturally blonde hair color. As a result of Maryanne trying her hand at highlighting, I had purple and pink streaks through my hair at the moment. I had chosen a vibrant purple color and a deep red when she brought home the color palate. However, some asshole had replaced my beloved crimson color with a tube of the brightest pink I’d ever seen. It was funny how similar the two colors appeared before you washed the chemicals out of your hair. I loved Maryanne so much that when I saw the disappointment on her face due to the mix-up, I told her I adored what she had done—even if I wanted to bleach my hair at once afterward. While I wouldn’t call myself a proud supporter of the color, now or ever, I had actually grown used to my dye job and even liked the mixed-up result with pink.
Despite being complete polar opposites, we worked. We’d been best friends since the first day of college when she rescued me from a guy with a hard-on he couldn’t hide. For that, I’d always be grateful. He had been about two seconds away from getting the worse verbal beat down he’d ever seen from a girl. So, maybe she actually saved him instead of me, but anyway you looked at it, I was glad I had her. She was my person. The fact that she had been trying to recruit me to become a sorority sister was something I overlooked, mainly because she was doing all of that to try and appease her uptight mom. As it turned out, she really had awesome taste in music. Her favorite bands were Offspring and basically anything else punk or grunge.
Our mothers were so much alike that it was freaky. After we introduced them, they basically became inseparable. Monthly, they insisted we have BFF dates, so Maryanne and I drove to the heart of Stonebridge and met them for small portions of expensive food.
Having mothers who liked the best of things had its advantages, our home being one. They’d found this place for fairly cheap, considering the area, and bought it, even though I was certain Mom paying what most regarded as a small amount of money had almost broken her. She never quite got used to “barely getting by” after Dad left us. That was what Derrick, Adam, Craig, and Greg, my brothers, told me anyway. Craig and Greg were twins, the gruesome twosome, as I liked to call them, and so did everyone else from back home. Greg was the older of the two by six minutes, but if you asked Craig, he was. Craig had a hairbrained theory that Mom confused the twins after their birth, and his supporting evidence was that he simply felt older. Craig was as close to a conspiracy theorist as one could be without living with crippling paranoia.
There was a time in my life when I tried to wear sparkly jewels, pearls, and the whole shebang, but I was three. Yet when you have four older siblings, all boys, your necklaces ended up broken, and when you found your favorite hair bows had been turned into makeshift nooses for an action figure, keeping them around to wear didn’t happen.
The other thing about growing up as the only girl, every guy in our town was afraid to date me. I was off-limits. If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “You’re the Wright brothers’ little sister,” as a reason to not date me, I would be rich. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my brothers dearly and the strength behind my haymaker could surprise even the burliest of men, but I blamed them solely for still being a virgin. If they had let even one boy near me, I might have grown up to be just like Maryanne—the epitome of femininity.
After she finished with the laundry, Maryanne was off to work, leaving me alone in our house. My stomach growled, reminding me that I’d left it empty for far too long. I whipped up a quick batch of pancakes and polished them off, then I was out the door for class.
Chapter2
Reggy
As I drove around campus looking for a “double space,” I cursed my truck for being hard to parallel park. Being late this morning wasn’t an option. Technically speaking, I wasn’t late yet. It was ten til nine, but by the time I got my truck parked and walked into the college, I probably would be. I hated being later than fifteen minutes early and yet somehow, I was late more often than not. It was finals week, which meant the teacher locked the door promptly at 9:00 A.M., and if you weren’t there on time, you got a zero for your final test grade. If I averaged that into my already not-so-stellar grades, I would fail the class.
“Fuck,” I said as the stoplight switched to red. My professor already hated me, and it seemed as though she didn’t find my recent essay title amusing. However, I thought it was clever. Who else called a paperMonotony at Its Best? When you had students researching the difference in prices of soap, it should be expected there would be at least one smartass in the crowd. It was me. I was always the smartass in the crowd.
The light changed, and a spot perfect for me to park in caught my eye like a shining beacon for a sailor lost at sea. It was on the opposite side of the road, so I would have to make a U-turn and snake it before some other slacker took the space. Just as I got the truck a few feet away from the lighthouse of parking spots, some asshole cut me off and swung his beat-up Camaro in my way. He smiled and waved at me after getting out of his car like he didn’t just make me later than I already was. I was not sure what alternate universe he thought we lived in, but the one where I was fuming when you cut someone off and stole their parking spot usually pissed people off. A second asshat hopped out of the passenger side but didn’t acknowledge me at all.
Mentally, I argued with myself, trying to figure out if I should beat his ass or flip him off. I went with the latter—he was a good two times bigger than me—and pressed my middle finger against the glass of my driver’s window.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I yelled out of the barely cracked window, steam rolling behind my words as they mixed into the crisp winter air.
His head fell back with laughter, and once he quit shaking, he blew a kiss in my direction. “Sticks and Stone, Baby,” he shouted and then walked toward the college’s entrance. How original. He could have at least come up with something elementary kids didn’t use. Hell, I think he would have held more credibility in my book if he’d simply not answered at all.
A horn sounded from the car behind me, reminding me that I was holding up traffic while fighting with that jackass. When I finally got my truck in gear, I sped off to the next open place I found, leaving the tail end of my vehicle partially in the road—if I got a ticket, I was hunting down the asshole responsible for it. He could pay it. I wasn’t.
“Nice of you to join us, Regina,” Mrs. Collins said as she handed me a test packet just as the clock struck nine, and I searched for a seat. This place was packed full. Some people were even sitting in the back, where the roof was leaking. Just as luck would have it, I found one, but I didn’t understand why one of the rain dwellers hadn’t already taken it. The seat beside it was currently occupied by the guy who had mumbled something about sticks and had stolen my parking spot mere moments ago.Great!That was probably why no one was sitting there. They were already aware that he was a dick. He must be a huge thorn in society’s side because his buddy wasn’t even sitting beside him. In fact, he was nowhere in sight.
I stopped midstride when he looked up from his test, and his eyes leisurely roamed up my body. His jawline tightened and released as they reached my face. Whether he remembered me from earlier or not wasn’t clear, but I sure as shit remembered him.
My teeth tugged at the corner of my lip to keep the words from spilling out of me in a hurried jumbled string of cuss words. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cuss or sigh. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to strike a match and drop it where he sat. I wouldn’t because damn . . . it would be a crime to burn those worn jeans hugging his muscular legs so well. The leather vest clung to his fit torso as if it was custom made for his thick biceps that were covered with ink.
