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“Yep.” Van doesn’t try to deny it.
“He said I was gorgeous.”
“And? The sky is fucking blue too.”
“Language,” the teacher snips. I think back to my schedule to try to remember what her name is. Ms. Cotton, I believe.
“Sorry, Ms. Cotton,” I say for both of us.
She gives me a soft smile. “You’re new.”
“Yes,” I tell her. Van drops down into a seat. “I’m Sadie, and this is my brother Van.”
“Welcome.” She hands us both a piece of paper with her class syllabus.
“Thanks.” I take the seat next to Van.
“Sadie.” Ms. Cotton taps my desk. “Dunc can be a bit of a…” She trails off, trying to find a word.
“Dick?” Van supplies.
“Language,” Ms. Cotton tells him again but doesn’t deny what my brother said. He seemed nice to me. Maybe I’m silly, but it wasn’t only that he called me gorgeous. I swear he looked at me like I was too.
“See?” Van mutters under his breath to me as more students start to flood into the classroom.
I watch as girls fill up all the available seats around my brother. I shake my head because he doesn’t notice. He’s pulled out his notebook and is drawing. Some things never change.
I sink farther into my seat, hating math. Okay, I don’t hate it. It’s just easy, which makes it boring at times. My mind drifts to Dunc. I’m not sure what it is about him but he had my attention in a way no other ever has.
CHAPTER3
DUNCAN
I check my watch.Dad should be done with Ms. Cotton by now unless she, by some miracle, convinced him that his era of celibacy should come to an end. Maybe he’s so hard up they started screwing each other on the desk, which is as good a reason as any to be late for dinner. My stomach growls, reminding me I haven’t eaten since lunch four hours ago.
I pace in front of the pickup and then force my feet to still. I’m usually not this…agitated. I blame it on the girl and her boyfriend. Dad has had this thing for one woman all his life, and I never understood it. The one true love theory just never made sense to me, but now… Fuck me. It can’t be true because she’s got a man. I’m not the type of guy to poach on someone else’s property. Not that she’s anyone’s property, but the same sentiment applies.
I saw her, and I wanted her. Like something visceral grabbed me by the throat, and if it weren’t for the guy behind her, I would’ve thrown Sadie over my shoulder and taken her to the nearest closet and screwed her blind.
I need to see her again. Maybe what I felt was due to lack of food or having to listen to Ms. Cotton drone about numbers. Maybe it was lightheadedness from Rose Benton’s perfume. I just need to see Sadie again and without the guy. The guy…I feel like I know him from somewhere. Like we’ve met before, which is fucking odd because I’ve lived in this town my whole life and all my friends are guys I’ve known since elementary school.
A piercing whistle jostles my thoughts free. The football team is practicing across the field. I was never into the game. Dad and I spent time at the baseball fields in the summer, but being an athlete never interested me. It took time away from my dad, who had built his construction company from nothing into a mini empire. Largest construction company in a three-state area. Revenues of over a billion last year. My body is just as stacked as any football player, but I didn’t build it in the gym but by helping carry steel beams, sheetrock, and hundred-pound bags of concrete mix. I don’t need college, and I hope that Ms. Cotton doesn’t convince Dad otherwise.
I owe it to him to take over the business. He was barely a kid himself when my parents died in that wreck. I remember people telling him that he should give me up for adoption. That he wasn’t equipped to raise a kid, but he refused. I’m not paying him back by running away from everything he built to protect me.
I should go and rescue him.
I reach Ms. Cotton’s room, but the doorway is already full. The hair on the back of my neck rises as the guy in front of me shifts, and I see Sadie’s small form right behind him. I hear her gasp and him curse and then the two run away. Sadie’s words run through my mind. “He looks like you.” She wasn’t talking about me. She didn’t even see me. She was talking about her boyfriend. Or the dude.
Dad walks out looking sheet white.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” I say, wanting to know what he knows.
He merely dips his head toward the exit. “Hungry?”
Not really. My appetite has suddenly disappeared, but I know if I say no, it will give rise to way too many questions.
“Yeah.”
