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Authors: Komal Kant

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BOOK: Twisted Minds
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I made a puking motion with my fingers, which made her face turn red. Then I flipped her off. Evil bitch.

Finn didn’t seem to notice. He was nodding. Like a fucking twat. “Yeah, sure. Just for a sec.” He briefly looked over at me, his eyes glazed. “Kira will stay with you until I’m back. I’ll be right back.”

I doubted it, but it was the fact that he had left Kira with orders to stay with me that kind of eased the irritation I was feeling about him wandering off with Cass.

As for Kira, now she was the one who looked like she’d rather poke herself in the eye with a dozen cacti than hang out with me.

Seven

The Douche on the Rock

 

Stupid fuck.

Finn was my best friend and I loved him, but boy, was he a stupid fuck.

I couldn’t believe he’d let the alcohol take over and allowed that whore Cass to lead him away to do fuck knew what. It had been a good fifteen minutes since they’d disappeared and there was still no sign of him.

Kira and I were sitting at the other end of the beach close to the water. My thoughts were a little off-balance, but not enough to not notice how perfect her legs looked stretched out in front of her.

Shaking my thoughts away, I tried to focus on things other than her legs.

Try to be the good guy. Try to
act
like the good guy.

The rock ledge hung a few feet to our left, cloaked in shadows. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, swirling away from the bonfire a group of guys had lit. The sun had set, casting a blanket of darkness across the beach, but the air was still warm. A few people were splashing around in the water, but mainly everyone was scattered around the bonfire, their bodies drinking up the heat.

A sense of calm descended upon me as I leaned back on the dirt, balancing myself on my elbows as I stared up into the sky. Bright orbs winked at me from an ebony canvas, reminding me of the twinkling lights of the city.

But these were different—these were stars. Wise and ancient as time; they’d been watching everyone’s stories unfold as the years went by, and now they were watching mine.

My story—it didn’t seem noble enough to be guided or watched over by stars. My story was filled with a broken home, materialistic parents, bad examples. I hadn’t been able to take control of my story; I’d become a product of it.

For a moment, my eyes burned. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was because I’d let myself reflect, or maybe it was the fucking messages from my mother I’d failed to answer. Maybe it was all of the above. Whatever it was, I couldn’t let the goddamn stars trigger this feeling of hollowness.

This was why I didn’t reflect. This was why I couldn’t be in a town this quiet, left alone with my thoughts. The city kept me busy and distracted, and maybe that wasn’t the best way to live, but at least I was functioning.

“What are you thinking about?” Kira asked from beside me, her voice soft.

Pushing myself off my elbows, I glanced around at her. She had her knees pulled up to her chest now, and was studying me as though I was a mystery.

“The stars.”

I reached for a red cup out of the cooler and poured myself a good-sized shot of tequila. The severe smell infiltrated my nostrils, but I ignored it and took the shot, barely reacting to the terrible aftertaste.

“Really?” she asked, lowering her legs and bending them towards me. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who gets lost in the stars.”

That’s because I wasn’t that guy, and for good reason. Stargazing only led me to deeper thoughts about my life and the person I’d become.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” My fingers reached for the bottle of tequila and I poured myself another shot.

“How can you drink that?” she asked, eying me like I was an alcoholic mutant.

“Easily,” I said, reaching into the cooler for another red cup and pouring a good portion of tequila into it. “Think of the biggest issue weighing on your mind and drink up.”

When I handed her the cup, she looked at me expectantly with her large eyes. “No chaser?”

Said every lightweight ever.

“Listen, Kira, one thing you should learn pretty quickly,” I began, rotating the cup slowly in my hand. “If you’re gonna drink with me then you’re gonna drink my way.”

“Then I’ll pass.” She scrunched up her nose, placing her glass down on the pebbly dirt. “You’re pretty used to having things done your way, aren’t you?”

Considering how wasted I was getting, I was doing a pretty damn good job of not overtly hitting on her. It was all about the subtleties. When I stared out across the beach, I was shooting a sly glance at her boobs. When I stared down at the ground, I was really just looking at her legs.

But her face—that was the hardest one to be subtle about. Every time I looked at her, her beauty captured my eyes in a net that I couldn’t escape. It was much easier not looking right at her—at her perfect, full lips or losing myself in the depths of her ocean eyes.

My toes dug into the cool dirt as I took the shot I’d poured myself. I placed the cup on the ground in front of me. “Everyone’s got their own way—mine’s just better.”

She hadn’t been expecting that response. A peal of laughter burst from her mouth, warm and sweet like honey. Her unexpected reaction made my chest explode with light. I hadn’t succeeded in making her smile, but the genuine laughter felt like a bigger victory.

“You are so full of it,” she said as her laughter subsided.

Okay, so she was laughing at how ridiculous I was, but I was going to take it. At least she was relaxing around me. The beer in her hand could’ve been the reason why, but maybe she was slowly warming to me and letting her guard down.

“At least I’m not in denial about it,” I stated, staring along the beach to see if Finn was anywhere in sight.

He was fucking gone.

“You’re worried about my brother?” Kira asked, following my gaze.

At this point, my head was starting to spin. My body was buzzing. I loved this feeling—losing myself in the swirl of intoxication where words flowed freely and laughs came easily.

I honestly didn’t want to waste the rest of my night worrying about Finn. He was a grown man with a Business degree. He could negotiate his own damn problems.

“I’m just gonna let it go.” My response was to pour myself another shot of tequila.

Kira opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get the words out, someone’s voice rang out from across the beach.

“Kira, hey!”

We both simultaneously turned our heads towards the source of the voice.

It was that blond-haired guy she’d been talking to earlier on in the night. He was waving her over from a spot by the bonfire, clearly wanting her to join him.

“Ugh,” she groaned, quickly turning back to me and reaching for the shot I’d poured her minutes earlier. “I think I need that drink now.”

Without any hesitation, she slammed the shot as though it was nothing. We stared each other down. Then she seceded, making a face like she was going to puke.

“That stuff is strong,” she admitted, taking a sip of her beer to mask the taste. “I can already feel it hitting me. Beer and tequila is not a good mix.”

“Probably not.”

My gaze turned back to the guy who’d waved her over. He was now scowling in our direction, like a child who hadn’t gotten to play with his favorite toy. I resisted the temptation to flip him off.

“So what’s the deal with Ken doll over there that makes you turn into an alcoholic?” I asked as Kira reached for the bottle of tequila.

She sighed, pouring both of us shots. “Drink if you’ve ever kissed someone you weren’t really that into, who decided to follow you around like a stalker after the kiss.”

We both drank.

“So he’s a weird stalker?”

Kira leaned back, stretching her body out. I tried not to stare. My dick tried not to care. It didn’t work. Her body was sprawled out right next to me, making my eyes wander over it.

The strappy, cut-out swimsuit was one of the raunchiest things I’d seen in a while, yet she managed to pull it off without looking like she belonged on a street corner. It was hard not to think about all the things I wanted to do to her.

First of all, she had the strangest mix in a person I’d ever seen. On one hand, she was fiery, passionate, morally sound, but on the other hand she paraded around in a swimsuit that a celebrity would wear to the Bahamas.

Secondly, she was so fucking hot that I actually thought about reaching out right now to touch her. The alcohol was making me want to take a risk, and I would’ve done it if she hadn’t glanced over at me at that exact moment.

“I guess you could call it that.” She sat up again, pushing her hair off her face. “We’ve had a back and forth thing for years, but it’s never turned into anything. I think now that high school’s over and we’re all leaving for college-”

“He’s trying to bang the shit out of you before you go your different ways,” I finished in a matter of fact tone.

Kira’s mouth fell open, and she kicked a bunch of dirt at me. “This is why you and I will never get along.”

A smirk filled my mouth. “Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

“Because you’re so…” She crossed her arms across her chest, searching for the right words to use. “So crude.”

Crude? I wasn’t going to say no one had ever called me that before, but it sounded different coming from her.

“Crude? Really?” I straightened up, adjusting my V-neck shirt. “I’m wearing a two hundred dollar shirt right now. I would say I was polished, refined, not crude.”

“And obnoxious.” She raised a brow. “And, seriously, who comes to the beach wearing a two hundred dollar shirt?”

“I do, obviously.” I glared at her, then reached for the tequila bottle to pour us more drinks. “Drink if you’re judgmental.”

She frowned at me for a second, and I really thought she was mad, but she rolled her eyes at me and downed the shot. “If I’m judgmental then what does that make you?” Her voice was swaying just like she was.

I loved that she no longer cared about a stupid chaser; that she hadn’t gone over to sit with that other guy; that she was here with me because she wanted to be.

“Drink if you’re too fucking sexy for your own good.”

Before I could even wrap my fingers around the Patron, her slender hand pulled it out of my grasp. She tilted her head back and drank directly from the bottle.

Damn girl.

It was a lie if I said I’d been expecting that. Because I hadn’t—not in the slightest.

A laugh bubbled in my throat. “So you’re not as naïve about the way you look as I thought you were.”

She lowered the bottle, her eyes gliding over my face as though a profound thought was on the edge of her mind. Then she glanced away, her eyes following the line of the shore. “I know what I look like, but that shouldn’t be the most important thing about me. There has to be more to us than whatever is on the outside. All of that will fade one day. We have to be made up of more than what the eye can see.”

I sat there, my toes curled up in the dirt sand, staring at her soundlessly as she spoke. Her words seemed so beyond her years that a part of me felt like I had just learned an immense life lesson.

Under the blanket of wise stars, this girl—this woman—had bestowed a kernel of wisdom on me. Which was better than the wisdom either one of my parents had taught me.

Dad’s motto was: If it’s broke, buy a new one.

Which he had proven to do with all aspects of his life—car, house, family, wife.

As for my mother, well, aside from jumping through wealthy men like she was flicking through TV channels, sleeping around was the only other thing I’d learned from her. And my dad—he enjoyed a good sleeping around from time to time.

My education on life had been pretty linear—sleep around, throw money at people, and keep your relationships temporary.

We have to be made up of more than what the eye can see.

Sourly, I reached for the bottle and pulled from it longer than I normally would. It tasted like bitterness and regret. An eighteen-year-old was sitting here getting deep and meaningful with me, and I hadn’t even managed to get my life together.

“Whoa, slow down there,” Kira said with a laugh. “Has no one ever taught you that beauty is only skin deep?”

A darkness seeped into me, and I placed the bottle down a little too firmly on top of the cooler, letting some vodka spill out. “You could call it that,” I spat darkly. The alcohol was circulating around my body, through my head, muddling everything. “What else is there besides being rich and good looking? I have everything I could possibly want.”

“I knew there wasn’t much to you when I first met you.” Kira’s eyes narrowed as she leaned closer to me, disappointment and anger flitting across her face.

I tried to laugh it off, but her words settled in around my chest like a vice-grip. It looked like she wanted to say more, but she was cut off.

“Kira!”

What in the absolute fuck?

Kira and I both shifted around on the ground, raising our heads in unison to the rock that hung over the lake. A bunch of guys were standing right on the edge, and one of them—the blond-haired guy—was balancing precariously on the ledge.

“Greg?” Kira rose to her feet, taking a few uncertain steps closer toward the rock ledge.

I followed suit, wondering if the dickhead was actually going to jump.

This Greg guy raised his arms in the air like he was some sort of champion. He looked like a complete twat from where I was standing, but maybe the view was different from where he was.

“This is for you, babe!” he yelled down to Kira.

BOOK: Twisted Minds
2.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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