Twisted Minds (10 page)

“Where is he?” I repeated, trying to keep my voice steady.

The need to protect her was grew strong, calling me to action. I definitely wasn’t a nice guy like Finn. I knew there were a plethora of things wrong with me, especially my commitment issues and my desire to sleep around, but getting aggressive with a woman for turning me down wasn’t my style. That was a true asshole’s style.

She was blinking, eyes wide, as I pulled away from her. “Nate, you don’t have to do-”

I ignored her, taking a few steps in the direction of the bar. “Is he inside?”

“I-I think so,” she choked out. “But-”

Fucking asshole. I didn’t care that I barely knew the guy. Kira was Finn’s little sister, and in his absence, I wasn’t going to let some lowlife jerk manhandle her.

Without a word, I let my feet carry me towards the bar, the music growing louder as I approached. The security guy nodded at me, remembering me from earlier. I pushed open the door and stepped inside, searching the sea of people for one blond douchebag.

Greg was tall and towered above everyone else, and I found him easily. He and his friends were standing in a corner, drinking beer, chatting up some girls. Surprisingly, a drunk Amy was plastered to his side, giggling up at him as he planted a hand on her ass. The heat of anger burned through me when I saw him throw his head back and let out a roar of laughter.

“Nate, stop!” Kira was behind me, grabbing my arm, trying to pull me back.

Extricating myself from her, I approached Greg with deliberate steps, a growl in my chest.  “Hey, douchebag!”

Greg turned in response, which would’ve been amusing in another situation, but not right now.

“Are you talking to me?” He took a menacing step towards me when he realized I was the source of the comment.

Amy pulled away from Greg when she realized I was standing beside her. There was a glazed look on her face, and a line of sweat along her forehead had matted her dark hair, turning it frizzy.

“Obviously.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him. “I don’t see any other douchebags here.”

His friends—I counted four—all put their drinks down on the high-top table that had been pushed against the wall. If I got one good hit in before they all moved in, I’d be satisfied.

“You better watch what you say, city boy.” Greg seemed to grow even bigger as he glared at me.

This eighteen-year-old child, with his lackeys, didn’t intimidate me. I had been the dark-haired version of him a few years ago, and a better version at that. Or worse, depending on your perspective.

“And you better watch it next time you decide to put your hands on Kira.” Before he could react, I pulled my arm back and swung my fist at his pretty boy face with as much force as I could muster.

There was a crunch as my fist made contact with his nose. I was pleased to notice he staggered a little. Blood spurted from his nose. Whoa. I think I’d broken it.

His friends let out cries of outrage and descended on me. Everything was a blur. Someone shoved me. Someone grabbed me. People were yelling. A girl was screaming my name.

And then I was rather forcefully pulled back. Greg was covering his nose with a hand. Buddy, Jackson, and Finn were now in front of me, blocking me from the assault of Greg’s friends.

Finn was getting in Greg’s face, who was now recoiling. “Did you hurt my sister?” He shoved him hard. “I will fucking kill you, you piece of shit!”

I noticed Amy had removed herself from Greg’s side and was now standing beside me. When I looked around, I finally saw Kira standing a few steps behind her friend. She wasn’t watching her brother at all; her eyes were on me.

There was a tug in my chest, wanting me to be closer to her, but I stayed where I was, turning my eyes back to Finn.

“Look, man, I don’t want any trouble.” Greg was holding a hand up in surrender, the other hand still covering his nose. “I’m sorry, okay?” He glanced at Kira, who pointedly glanced the other way.

“Next time, you won’t be standing,” Finn warned, shooting him a final deathly look before turning and pushing through the crowd of people that had gathered to watch the chaos.

As Finn walked by me, he gave me a look of gratitude and patted my shoulder. He continued on to Kira and said something to her in a low voice as she nodded reassuringly. Then Cass appeared and swooped in, taking him back to the bar.

As the crowd dispersed, I knew Finn would want me to join him, but I wasn’t in the mood anymore. My eyes fell back on Kira, who was still standing there watching me, as though she was seeing me for the first time.

Then she broke eye contact and walked away, leaving me to wonder what had been running through her mind, and what had made me jump to her defense.

Twelve

Walk of Shame

That whack bitch, Cass, had taken Finn home with her last night.

After all the shit had gone down last night, I’d found Finn at the bar downing shots of vodka. He’d also started openly making out with Cass, and I’d openly wanted to knock him over the head with one of the grimy bar stools and drag his ass back to my car.

When I’d tried to convince him to leave with me, he’d uncoordinatedly waved his arms around and told me he was fine and that Cass would take him home. She’d shot me a smug look and continued to make out with him.

If that idiot had had sex with Cass last night I was about to lose my shit. If she’d managed to get him fucked up enough to fuck her, I was about to tell her exactly what to suck on.

Three encounters with Cass, and Finn had managed to get unnecessarily drunk twice and fall for her crap. It wasn’t that I had a problem with getting drunk; obviously I did it on a regular basis. If you could afford it, then it was a habit not a problem.

Anyway, my issue with Finn letting his guard down around Cass was that I knew she was just using alcohol as a way to worm her miserable self back into his life. Just like me, she knew that alcohol was her best wingman. I actually believed the girl was crazy enough to do anything to keep Finn in her life—like get knocked up.

Releasing a sigh, I continued to pen my thoughts about Kira into the journal, grateful to have an outlet for my mixed emotions.

Kissing Kira opened up a ton of feeling didn’t know I could feel. Kissing her was like finding myself for the first time.

Maybe that’s what made me want to protect her. Something had grown in my chest, a feeling of rage at the thought that that douchebag had laid hands on her.

I blinked at the words I’d written, a strange mix of anxiety and nerves settling into my stomach. There had never been a point in my life when I’d thought I’d feel this way about a woman, let alone Kira. She had been the perfect target to pursue. I was here for a couple weeks, tops. Seduce her, fuck her, and then leave.

But now these other feelings were mingling in with my original intent. She wasn’t an easy conquest; she was one of the harder ones. I honestly wasn’t sure if she even felt close to what I was feeling. She was definitely feeling something, but I wasn’t quite sure if it was on the same level as what I was feeling.

“Nathaniel?” Joe’s voice roused me from my thoughts.

Lifting my head, I found him standing at the entrance of the living room with two beers in his hands. “Got a minute for a drink?” he asked, talking heavy steps towards me.

In one fluid motion, I shut my journal, attaching the pen to the back cover, and slid it firmly under my leg.

“Thanks, Joe,” I said, taking it from him and studying the unfamiliar label.

Hoegaarden.

“It’s brewed in Belgium,” he explained, sinking into the other end of the plush couch. “Cass was the one who introduced it to me. It’s one of her favorites.”

Hoegaarden.

How fitting.

“Hmm.” Taking a decent pull from the bottle, I let the flavors overtake my mouth; thick, full-bodied, wheat. It was pretty fucking good. “This isn’t the shit Finn usually drinks.”

Joe laughed at that, tilting his head back to drink. The one motion reminded me so much of Finn. The same smile, same teeth, same crinkle of the eyes. Finn strongly resembled his father, with nothing obviously similar to his mother.

As for me, I was unfortunate enough to inherit both my parents’ looks equally so there was no mistaking me as someone else’s kid. Unfortunately. The last thing I wanted was to be associated with my parents in any way.

“My son has simpler tastes,” Joe said, a hint of pride in his voice. “He’s smart, but not calculated. He wants a better life, but not in excess. So he appreciates the smaller things, like his grandfather’s favorite beer.”

Realization swept through me. “That’s why he drinks that crap.”

I said it without thinking and regretted it almost immediately. Finn drank cheap Budweiser because it reminded him of his grandfather. I drank expensive liquor because it made me forget about my parents.

Luckily, Joe didn’t seem offended by my comment. “He does indulge from time to time, but certainly not the way I do. Or in the way you do.” Something in his tone signaled that he knew something more about me than he had initially let on.

It was whatever Kira had heard, obviously.

Gritting my teeth, I looked him squarely in the eye. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me-”

“Whoa, there, ol’ boy.” Joe held up a hand, stopping me. “I ain’t heard a lot about you, except what Finn’s told me. And Finn tells me you’re a pretty good guy with expensive tastes.”

His words made me pause. Finn’s loyalty to me was something I had never experienced before. Considering all my downfalls, he still spoke the best about me. My own sense of loyalty for him took over. I couldn’t believe I was about to tell Joe this next part, but for some reason I wanted him to know the kind of person he’d raised.

“Has Finn ever told you how we became friends?”

Joe was just bringing his beer to his mouth as I asked this. He lowered it, scratching his head thoughtfully. “At a frat party in freshman year, from what I can recall.”

“Right.” I nodded. “But has he told you the whole story?”

I knew Finn hadn’t, otherwise Joe would’ve remembered the details. It wasn’t a story someone forgot easily.

“I don’t think so.”

Of course he hadn’t. Finn didn’t want his parents to get the wrong idea about me. He wanted them to like me, not to think of me as anything but the guy who had helped Finn out with his housing problem.

“You’re right about the frat party.” I paused, taking a swig of my beer. “But what Finn probably didn’t tell you was that the first time we met, he punched me in the face.”

Joe’s eyes grew, and he sat up a little straighter. “No, that part I hadn’t heard.”

“Actually, I’d just left the frat party, drunk off my face, and was trying to proposition a girl I’d rejected a few days ago.” I reclined on the couch, completely at ease as I dove into the story. “She was playing hard to get and decided to get back at me by acting as though she wasn’t interested.”

Of course she had been interested; she’d just wanted me to feel the stinging rejection she’d been feeling.

“Finn had happened to be walking by just then with some friends. The girl tried to make a scene, even though I hadn’t touched her, and Finn ended up defending her and knocking me out.”

“Ha!” Joe leaned forward in his seat, taking a big drink, completely enraptured by my story. “My son, defender of women everywhere.”

“Instead of leaving me there like any normal person would, Finn took me back to his apartment so I could sleep it off.” I recalled the next morning, wondering where the fuck I was, and my disappointment at discovering I wasn’t in a random girl’s bed. “He’d felt bad for hitting me, but told me I should treat women with more respect.”

Joe laughed at that. “That sounds like my son.”

“I ran into him a few days later trying to find a roommate because his roommate had bailed and he couldn’t afford his apartment on his own, so I told him to move in with me.” I hesitated, remembering that some magnanimous part of me had felt like I owed him for not leaving my drunk ass behind in the middle of campus. “I’m not sure how he deals with me, but we’ve been friends ever since.”

The rest was history. Finn’s goodness had been appealing enough for me to want to be around him, and somehow he managed to overlook all my vices and see the best in me. Over the past four years, he’d seen me through my worst and was just about the most stable thing in my life.

“You can’t be half as bad as you think you are,” Joe said with warmth in his eyes as he studied me. “If it wasn’t for you, Finn wouldn’t have had a free place to stay. Or a great new job at
Maxwell Development Company
.” He said it as though it was some grand place to work, like Buckingham Palace.

“Hey,
MDC
was hiring.” I held up a hand in protest. “Finn got the job on his own merits. I simply referred him to my father.”

“Call it what you want, but without your help Finn would’ve struggled to make ends meet.”

In those final words, I sensed the gratitude in Joe’s voice as he rose from the couch. Finn’s parents weren’t poor, but they weren’t rich either. At the time, they hadn’t had the money to support Finn living in a New York City apartment by himself, as well as pay their mortgage and own expenses.

I remained silent, watching Joe down his beer. His hazel eyes twinkled thoughtfully as he watched me.

“Ya know, Nathaniel, if you let yourself believe you’re a bad person, that’s all you’ll ever be.”

With a nod, he headed out of the living room, leaving me to analyze his words alone. Joe made perfect sense, and his words held an element of truth, but I was such an asshole that it took a lot for me to see myself in any other way.

After I finished the beer, I set the bottle aside and pulled my journal out from the edge of the couch where I’d tucked it in. I’d never really used the journal to record my thoughts; only my conquests, but lately I’d been making an exception.

It had started with Kira and my need to document as much about her as I could. This time, I quickly scribbled Joe’s last words to me before he’d left the room.

If you let yourself believe you’re a bad person, that’s all you’ll ever be.

Something in those words had resonated with me. I’d been coddled my entire life, made to believe that my actions were perfectly fine. But now I was starting to realize they weren’t. In the world of the Walshs’—kind-hearted, hardworking people—my attitude was uncalled for.

“You don’t seem like the type to keep a journal.”

Kira’s voice jolted me from my reverie, and I scrambled around, trying to hide my journal as she came into view.

As usual, she was stunning, somehow managing to make a simple floral dress look incredible. Most women didn’t look good when their makeup came off, but Kira was the exception once again. I noticed she held a book in one hand, but couldn’t make out the title.

“Why is that?” I asked, regaining my confidence once I was sure there was no way she could have seen the contents of the journal.

“Because it doesn’t seem like you reflect on much of anything,” she said, brushing a curl out of her face.

“Really?” I folded my hands together on top of my lap. “Well, you’re wrong. I reflected a lot on the way you kissed me last night.”

Her cheeks flamed. “I did not kiss you!”

I shrugged a shoulder. “I know I didn’t kiss myself.”

“You started it!” Her hand curled into a fist.

“You didn’t stop me.”

She fell silent, and I could see she was trying to get her emotions under control. Finally, she took a deep breath and fixed me with a firm look.

“The reason I’m here is because I wanted to…” She faltered here as though she was searching for a suitable word, “…say thank you for what you did last night.”

Thank you.

The words made me sit up straighter.

A slow smile stretched across my face. “Go on.”

“You didn’t have come to defend me like that.” She bent one leg awkwardly behind the other.

“Uh huh.”

She glowered at me. “Do you have to look so smug while I do this?”

“Sorry, go on,” I said, trying to hide my smile.

Kira placed a hand on her hip. “You’re not very good at accepting gratitude.”

“You’re not very good at expressing it.” I rose to my feet, the smile spreading to every part of my body.

There was something on my mind, too. Something I’d said to her that I was regretting.

“What I said about you sucking off Greg was rude,” I began carefully. “I don’t know why I said what I said.”

Actually, I did know, but I wasn’t going to admit to her that petty jealousy had been the cause.

“You
were
rude,” was her response, but I could see there was a willingness on her face to forgive me. “But I was stupid for letting it go that far in the first place.”

“You’re not stupid,” I said immediately.

If she was stupid, she would’ve given in to me by now. It wasn’t her fault Greg was an asshole.

Kira smiled, and there was a swooping in my chest as her dimple appeared. For me. She was smiling for me.

Something warm, comforting, familiar descended upon us as we studied each other. Kira’s faux annoyance faltered, and she hugged the book to her chest.

365 Tao.

Just as I was about to ask her about it, the front door opened and Finn walked in.

“Oh, hey,” he said, catching sight of us.

There was a sheepish expression on his face. His hair was disheveled. His shirt was missing. He had on a white wife beater. I was pretty sure he’d been wearing a belt when we’d left home last night.

Finn wouldn’t meet my eyes as he stood there awkwardly, fumbling with his keys.