Ruckus (Sinners of Saint #2)(58)

There were other things I wanted, but it wasn't the appropriate time to go after them. So I settled for being there for her, one fucked-up soul for another. 

I wasn't particularly mad at my ex-girlfriend for ditching my ass. As far as I knew, she left me for someone else. That should've made me go ballistic, but for the life of me, I couldn't find that fucking frenzy Vicious was simmering with.

Rosie said I should stop coming to check in on her, but that was like telling me I couldn't touch my dick. Entirely fucking impossible.

I came for her every day.

We would sit outside by the pool in complete silence.

I wanted to talk to her about the stars, but I didn't.

I wanted to talk to her about our futures, but I didn't.

I wanted to talk to her about us, but there was no us, and her creep-o-meter was probably dinging like mad with me coming for her every afternoon.

One day, I saw Vicious walking past his manicured lawn while I made my way across the stone path to the servants' house. He stopped and stared at me, blinking like he'd just seen a ghost.

Approaching me in slow steps, he tucked his hands in his pockets, assessing me through cold, vigilant eyes, preparing for battle. I puffed my chest, fixing my fake smile on. He wanted war? He was going to get one.

"You really think you stand a chance with the mouthy one after what happened with Millie?" he gritted, unable to let the word fuck, a word he used so fucking much, leave his mouth. Because he knew. Vicious knew that I took Millie's virginity-she asked me to. I had a feeling that it was more about getting rid of her V-card than it was about me-and this was the one thing he could never erase from the pages of history. Not even Baron Spencer could tamper with reality.

I scrubbed my chin. "I know my chances with Baby LeBlanc are about as fat as your chances with Millie. I'm here to make sure she's okay. It's a foreign concept to you, but sometimes people just want to be nice to other people. What crawled up your ass, anyway? You look … guilty." I furrowed my brows. Everything about my stance was ready to pounce and rip him to shreds.

"Guilty?" He laughed, but it wasn't his usual laughter. The looming, self-assured one. So the bastard did know something. Fuck if I had a clue what it was. "Now why would I feel guilty? You were the one who went after my girl."

"Your girl," I repeated, letting an incredulous chuckle escape. It felt oddly liberating to address the elephant in the room. The same elephant that had managed to crush and ruin every single fucking thing in our lives during senior year. "Hey, asshat, newsflash: Emilia LeBlanc was everyone's favorite moving target until I slapped my name on her ass. I had a suspicion that you liked her, yeah. I had a feeling it was even something more, but from the outside?" I took a step toward him, and we were dangerously close to fucking up each other's faces and rolling on the grass until one of us was bleeding to death. "You ruined her life. All you said was that she was a white-trash hillbilly. All you did was make her feel unwelcome. Did I want to tap it? Yeah." I shrugged. "I'm a teenager with a working dick. But, more than anything, I wanted to make sure she wouldn't hang herself on your account."

"How noble of you." His chest bumped against mine, and we were going to war, now I knew. "Poor fucking Ruckus." Vicious brought his fists to his eyes and pretended to wipe invisible tears. "Had a bad time with Emilia all those months?"

"Nah," I said, pushing him away. He pushed me back. I grinned. "She was great, but then, you'd never know, right?" He swallowed hard.

"Maybe she ran off because you're shit in bed," he said. Real mature.

"Or maybe she ran off because she was tired of you," I retorted. His face twisted in pain, and he was guilty. Of what, I didn't know, but he was not innocent. That much was for sure. I decided to poke the subject. Get his angle on things.



       
         
       
        

"How does it feel, Vicious? To be the loser who would never know what the girl of his dream tastes like?"

"You would know, Cole. We're in the same boat, and this ship is sinking." Now it was his turn to get in my face and-again-I didn't even blink. I wasn't afraid of Vicious. I saw through his layers and knew exactly who he was.

A guy like me.

Who was hiding behind walls of muscle, good looks, fancy cars, perfect clothes, rich parents, and dark mystery. You can never be afraid of what you are. That was why I was the only one out of my friends to defy him repeatedly.

"You fucked up everything," I whispered into his face, and I saw it in his ink-blue eyes that he knew I was right, because there was something whirling in them. Something that threatened to drown whoever dared to come close. "You fucked up, and now we're all fucked." I pushed him, turning around and stalking to Rosie's door.