Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance) (7 page)

"So then Dave pulls down her top and starts yelling, and everybody at the swimming hole turns around to look. These two wads of tissues go floating down…"

"Where's Charity?" I break in.

I'm getting a little annoyed. My world is melting around me and my best friend is missing in action.

The old man waves his hand. "She asked for the night off. First time in three years, I figured I'd give it to her. Her and some boy were going to the party at that little shithead's house. What's his name, Luke or something?"

"Lucas. She's going to Lucas' party. You're sure?"

He nods. "Reasonably so. I was just talking to this young man here about-"

"Whatever, I need to go get her."

"Hey." Apollo says, and sips his coffee.

My knees buckle a little. Good God he's hot. He makes jeans and a t-shirt look good. I mean, model good. The cotton molds to his body with impossible precision, even lining those muscle channel things that dip into his belt. Charity came up with an obscene name for those, but I think the technical term is adonis belt.

Anyway.

"Hi. I've got to run."

"Where are you off to?"

"I need to find my friend. I can't let her go to Lucas' party."

I have no idea why I would divulge that information to this guy.

"Why?"

"Because he's bad news. There will be drinking and drugs."

"Sounds like fun," he smirks.

His smirk makes something flutter in my chest, but I can't let myself be distracted.

"I'm going to go find her."

I turn on my heels and head for the door.

"Alone?"

I stop and turn back, one eyebrow quirked up. "Uh, yeah. Why?"

"If it's dangerous, why don't you let me go with you?"

The old man nods, as if it sounds like a profoundly good idea. Apollo shrugs, that smirk widening a little until it threatens a grin.

"Why?"

"Why not? I wanted to see a bit of the town. I just moved here with my father."

That should ring a bell, but why doesn't it?

It doesn't matter. This is crazy. A complete stranger is offering to go rescue Charity from Lucas' den of scum and villainy, and I'm thinking about taking him up on it. I'm thinking about quite a lot of things. Like his lips. He has very kissable lips. I spend so much time thinking about schoolwork and colleges and My Future I sometimes forget that boys exist. Now I'm looking at a boy and forgetting that Charity exists. Lucas would put one of his jackass friends up to asking her out and lead her into some kind of vile prank to humiliate her or something. Or worse.

I'm wasting time here.

"I'm wasting time here," I announce, and turn on my heels.

Apollo follows me out the door. He downs his coffee with a wince and drops it one of the big wrought iron garbage cans that line the street.

"What are you doing?"

"Following you."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "I like the view."

I stumble a little. "Excuse me?"

"You going to go get your friend, or what?"

"Yeah. In my car. By myself."

He continues to follow me.

"Look, this may seem a little forward of me, but I know the guy you're talking about. From yesterday, right?"

"Yeah," I sigh.

"I'm not just going to let you go confront this person by yourself."

I blink a few times. "Uh, why?"

"Because I'm suave and debonair, and when you're as hot as I am you can be chivalrous without it coming across as creepy."

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to laugh at that.

"Fine. Follow me or something."

"I'm on foot. Can I catch a ride?"

"If you insist."

It feels a little cramped in the Honda with him in the front seat next to me. He has long legs, and puts the seat all the way back.

"You really think she's in some kind of trouble?"

"If she's not, she will be. Charity can't handle her liquor and half the town will be at this stupid party. Lucas knows people at the academy, but he knows people at both of the high schools, too. When the party hit Facebook I'll bet every teenager in town swarmed his place. His parents are at Cape May for the weekend."

He nods, and folds his arms across his chest. Wow, he's got big arms. It makes it look like he's doubled in size. I have to force myself to keep my eyes on the road. I see a hint of some tattoos where his shirt tightens against his skin. I'm almost curious to ask, and chew my lip. He glances over at me and shifts in the seat, visibly uncomfortable from the close quarters.

"How far?"

"Not very. We'll be there in a couple minutes."

Then I hear, as it were, a noise of thunder. It's the subwoofers and Lucas' house. Apollo rolls down his window and the sounds flood in, turning from a vague rumble to music and voices as we draw near.

"That's pretty loud."

"Yeah."

The closer we get, the stronger the smell grows. Tobacco and the sickly sweet tang of weed waft in the air, rising to near contact high levels as I park on the street, half a block down from Lucas' house. This is one of the new subdivisions and everything is fresh and clean, so much so that it's kind of disconcerting. It's odd for this area of the state not to have any freaking trees, and yet there are none in evidence. They were all cut down when the houses were built, and now the only replacements are saplings and a lot of grass and shrubs. I'm not really big on shrubs.

As I walk down the street, I feel like I should be putting on a helmet.
 

Apollo takes long strides to catch up with me and walks along with his hands in his pockets.

"How do you know this guy?"

"Classmate. Also he's a dick. We've gone to school together since elementary school, all private schools. His parents are rich and let him do whatever he wants. You get the picture."

"Yeah, I get the picture."

There should be a velvet rope or something, but there's not. It's just a house, except for all the noise and lights coming from the back. I made the mistake of being talked into attending one of these once, so I know the drill. I walk up the lawn and around the back of the house, where there must be two hundred people crowded around the in-ground swimming pool. I don't know ninety percent of the people here. Lucas himself probably only knows them as acquaintances. So that's why somebody turns around and offers me a beer.

"Hey, want a beer?"

I wave off and thread through the crowd. Everybody is dancing, which amounts to drinking and getting high and bouncing up and down on wet concrete around a swimming pool, which is pretty high up there on the list of fantastic ideas. Finally, I spot somebody I know. Todd. He's been a mainstay in the audio-visual club, which meant he got a free period, basically, since the teacher who runs that doesn't give a shit. I grab his arm and give a tug.

"Oh hey, Dee Dee."

"Dee Dee?" Apollo asks. Shouts, more like it. The deafening noise turns every conversation into a screaming match. I think Lucas actually hired a DJ, but one of his friends might have the equipment to do it all themselves. Half his friends think they're going to be rich and/or famous, and a lot of them will be right. Lucas himself already has a football scholarship lined up.

"Who's that?" Todd shouts, swinging the base of his beer at Apollo.

"No time to explain," I yell back. "Where's Charity? Is she here?"

"Yeah, she came with Leo. I think she's inside."

Inside. The smell of smoke is heavy. I find myself rooted to the spot, my feet like chunks of lead. Apollo edges closer, and somehow his voice, barely more than a whisper, carries to my ear.

"I've got your back."

I glance back at him. I really have no reason to trust this complete stranger, and yet I let him ride here with me and he's following me inside. He knows how to handle himself, though. That's a plus. I steel myself and forge ahead, like walking into a strong wind, until I pass through the open french doors. There's as many people inside as outside, it seems. The music is loudest in the living room, a huge expanse with a vaulted ceiling and leather couches currently decorated in the early underage drinking style, and if I take a deep breath, under the stink of pizza, chicken wings, and marijuana, I can smell a healthy eau de vomit. It's so enticing, I can't imagine why I stayed away. I glance back to make sure I haven't lost Apollo and head inside.

I could just scream 'Hey, anybody seen Charity' but one, no one would hear me, and two, nobody would know who Charity is anyway, and three, Lucas would be all over me. He can probably
feel
that I'm here.

"Any idea where she'd be?"

"Nope. I guess we look for Leo."

"I don't know any of these people."

The noise is unbearable, between the music and the chorus of CHUG, CHUG, CHUG from the middle of the living room. I haven't spotted Charity yet. I scan the crowd, work my way into the kitchen past a couple making out against the refrigerator. Apollo looks at them with a kind of curious disdain. Nobody seems to notice us.

"She might be upstairs," I shout back at him.

He nods.

I trudge up the stairs and hear it. Charity's distinctive giggle. I rush towards the sound, almost forgetting Apollo behind me. I push through the door and find Charity sitting on the floor, wearing only a bra from the waist up, laughing her ass off and clutching a bottle of blackberry schnapps in one hand. A boy I don't know reaches over and urges her to tip back a healthy swig. She coughs some up over her chin, strains to breath and breaks out laughing. I know from experience she's a giggly drunk.

"Charity," I shout.

She looks up. "Hey, Dee Dee," she slurs. "I lost my date."

"Yeah. Come on, time to go sleep it off."

I move towards her and the guy that just dumped cheap booze down her throat gets up and gets in my face. Or rather, gets his chest in my face. He's got about eight inches on me.

"Fuck off."

"I'm taking her home. She's drunk."

"It's a party. She's supposed to be drunk."

"Then why aren't you?"

He puts his hands on me. Before I can even think to defend myself, Apollo's hand moves over my shoulder so fast it's like the guy has been struck by a snake. Apollo's fingertips slam into his throat and he stumbles back and goes down, gagging and choking and squeezing his own neck, dragging for air. Apollo lightly brushes me aside, grabs the guy and rolls him on his side, then on his back. He pulls his hands back from his throat.

"Breathe. Slowly. It'll stop."

"Um," I say.

"Not much time. Get her and let's go."

I get the booze bottle out of Charity's hand and she just stares at me, half smiling. Getting her shirt on turns into an exercise in futility so I just button it around her, arms and all. Then I have the problem of getting her up. Trying to move her only seems to make her sleepy as a dreamy smile spreads on her face and her eyes flutter closed. Apollo snaps his fingers in front of her eyes.

"She's pretty bad off. We need to go. I'll get her."

With surprising grace, he pulls her over his shoulder and stands up, bearing her weight like it's nothing. He offers me a hand and pulls me to my feet, and I let him go first down the stairs, deftly balancing the dead weight of Charity on his shoulder as we round the turn from the bottom of the steps and back out through the kitchen, the way we came in. I tuck in close to Apollo's back, hoping nobody raises a fuss about us just carrying Charity out of the house. We've made it this far, just a bit further to go.

Then, of course, Lucas appears.

He's spotted us. I see him pushing through the crowd.

"What are you doing here?"

"Picking up Charity," I shout back at him. "Her mom was worried."

A convenient lie, but whatever.

"Not you. Him."

Apollo, who still has
 
Charity over his shoulder, glances back at me. "She asked me along."

I don't contradict him.

"We'll be going now."

Except we won't, apparently. Lucas isn't alone, he has backup in the form of another six hundred pounds of goon spread between two of his friends.
 

Gulp.

Lucas lowers Charity to her feet. She's come around enough to stand up, or at least she's aware enough to hold on to me so she doesn't fall off the planet.

"We're leaving," Apollo announces, calmly. "Excuse us."

Lucas and his three friends don't move.

"Um," I say.

"Come on," he says to me, over his shoulder, and we start forward.

Lucas claps him on the shoulder, hard enough to stop him in his tracks. His buddies have their hands balled into fists, their bodies rigid with tension. It's about to start. I try to get Charity around them but one of Lucas' buddies cuts us off, taking our path.

"Take your hand off me," Apollo says, calmly.

"No."

"Best not," he says.

I expect them to fight, but a fight implies mutual participation. Apollo moves so fast he almost blurs, dipping in a weird way that kind of pulls Lucas in to him, and when Lucas makes a grab, Apollo twists out of the way with a stunning flexibility and does something with his arm that sends Lucas flying, right into one of his friends. The pair of them bowl over in the grass, and the third one comes at me.

I haul off and kick him right in the balls, drive my foot between his legs. I go down, hard, but so does he. Apollo grabs his ankle and drags him right off of me and Charity, and pulls us to our feet as our attacker curls up in a ball, clutching the family jewels. I don't think I could have pulled that off he wasn't drunk.

Apollo grabs my arm, pulls me, and then lifts Charity back onto his shoulder, fireman style. From there it's a rush down to the sidewalk, trying not to slip in the grass. I pop open the back hatch so Apollo can lower Charity into the back seat, and hurriedly get in next to him.

"Are we taking her home?"

I throw the car in gear and pull out.

"No. Her mom probably isn't even there. We'll take her back to my place."

I blink when I realize I'm talking about showing this guy where I live. Hell, I can't get Charity in the house alone.