Rival (The Fall Away Series Book 3)

“Will Jared and Tate be there?” Lucas piped up from the backseat.

“Hey, man. Don’t kick the leather,” I teased, reaching behind me to stop his feet from digging into my seat. “And yes, they’ll be there.”

“Cool.”

We sat there, bobbing our heads to the music, and I couldn’t help but peek at Fallon next to me. What was she thinking? She seemed to get a kick out of Lucas but seemed really surprised to meet him.

Was it so unusual that I would spend time with a kid that didn’t have a dad? Fallon always condemned me for being pretentious, self-absorbed, and whatever other words struck her on a particular day, but now I gathered that she really did believe it.

She sat there, staring out the window and completely weirded out by the situation.

Or maybe it was facing what we’d done last night in the light of day. She used to have a thing about the dark. Being alone in her room, no light, it was as if what we were doing wasn’t real to her.

While she always fully participated, things changed in the daylight. She’d act like nothing happened. She’d go back to not making eye contact. She’d barely even say my name. I caught on to how she worked pretty quickly and rolled with it.

Hey, I was sixteen and had a hell of a sex life. I wasn’t going to complain that she wouldn’t let me touch her any other time. I was simply happy that I got what I got at that age.

But now, touching her, listening to her panting . . . everything we did last night in the rain was even better than I remembered. I used to pace my room, waiting for Addie to close up the house at night so I knew that it was safe to go to Fallon’s room. I was happy and alive when I was with her. I hadn’t felt that for a long time.

When Fallon left, I crumbled. Like Jared when Tate left for France for a year; I didn’t lose control like he did, but I acted out.

Her mom had told me that she and my dad found out what was happening, because Fallon ratted us out. Patricia said that Fallon felt uncomfortable and pressured by me. All the confidence I’d built was ripped apart.

I didn’t handle it well.

She and I might have lived in the same house, but we had never seen each other as stepsiblings. We had never even spent much time together, so I never felt like what we were doing was wrong. I loved all of it and wanted more of it. But over the past two years my hatred toward her grew.

Every girl paled in comparison, and the only time I’d felt right was when I had been with Fallon. And then last night, she tells me that she never lied to the parents. Never told them anything. I was overjoyed and pissed off at the same time. My heart pumped fire again, knowing she wanted me, but I’d spent the whole night thinking about all the time we lost—what they took from us—and I wanted shit to hit the fan.

And it would. Soon.

If I confronted my dad now, he’d come home and Fallon would be out. So if I couldn’t convince her to stay longer, then I only had a few more days with her until she left for Chicago. I’d deal with my dad after that.

•   •   •

We parked in the lot right next to Jared’s car. Grabbing Lucas’s backpack, I handed that and some towels from the trunk to Fallon while I retrieved the cooler and picnic blanket.

“Tate, stop!”

I jerked my head up out of the trunk, hearing Jared’s voice.

“Tate!” He stomped after his pissed-off girlfriend.

Great.

I’d started to think my best friends looked for reasons to fight. Seriously. It always ended in makeup sex, after all.

“Leave me alone. I mean it, Jared!” she yelled over her shoulder, and I stood shocked and pretty damn amused when she took off her black flip-flop and threw it at him.

He threw up his hands, deflecting it from his head and scowling at her, his lips tight.

“I was going to tell you,” he barked. “But you’re overreacting as usual.”

“Ugh.” She halted in the middle of the parking lot, ripped off the other shoe, and whipped it at him, damn near flinging her whole body into the movement.

“What’s going on?” Fallon whispered.

I sighed, running my hand through my hair. “Foreplay.”

I slammed the trunk shut and started walking for the beach, leaving my friends to it.

“Should we help?” Fallon stumbled over some rocks, looking behind her to the lot where we could still hear Jared and Tate’s muffled shouting.

“Not if you want to be in the sandwich. They’ll be making out in ten minutes,” I promised. And that’s exactly what I wanted to be doing with her right now.

I loved Lucas, but I wished I’d known that Fallon was coming back. I’d have preferred to have her alone right now. To fight. To torment. To whatever.

Hell, I’d pick a damn fight if it meant getting her naked again.

At least until I got her out of my system.

But I couldn’t change the plans for the day at this point, so I set the cooler down and laid out a blanket on the small beach. Kicking off my shoes, I followed Lucas with my eyes as he ran into the water.

“Wait, aren’t you going to make him wear a life jacket?” Fallon asked as she stopped to pull off her shirt.

I smiled, knowing exactly where she was coming from. There was always a pang of fear, watching him go and do things that could hurt him. Lakes were dangerous, and I had tried making him wear a life jacket the first time we came out here last summer. Yep, I tried the first time, and I never tried again. He fought me on it, and I soon found out that he knew what he was doing.

I pulled off my shirt. “His father was in the Coast Guard when they lived in Washington, and he made sure that Lucas knew how to swim. After he died, his mother brought them both back here to be near family, but he doesn’t really have a lot of men in his life or chances to keep practicing. He loves it. I try to bring him as much as possible during the warmer months.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she looked lost in thought as she stared out at the water.

“Come on,” I nudged, walking past her.

Trudging through the chilly water, I walked forward as it covered my feet, then my calves and my thighs, and then my stomach. Kicking my feet up, I shot up and dove back down headfirst into the cool depths.

I fucking hated the lake. It’s dirty and muddy. And cold! You’re swimming around not being able to see what’s happening underneath you.

Freaks. Me. Out.

But it’s one of the only things to do in this boring-as-hell town, and I’ve been here too many times with too many drinks and too many girls around. There was a time when that was fun. Hanging out, getting drunk—when you had nothing better to do.

But now I was only here for Lucas, and for some reason I had wanted Fallon along today. We were probably going to get in a fight in front of the poor kid. And with Jared and Tate doing their thing by—surprise, surprise—fighting again, there would be no buffer zone if Fallon brought out her claws.

I should’ve left her at home, I guess.

I popped my head up out of the water and looked to the beach, seeing her in her bathing suit.

Or maybe not.

Holy hell. Son of a bitch.

My dick jerked and instantly hardened—seriously?—even in the cold water.

Her white bikini was just that. A bikini. In every possible definition of the word, it was evil and temptation in its worst form.

The bottom piece covered all the important parts, but the top part had strings that tied in the front instead of the back. All you had to do was pull. Not reach around. Not fumble as you try to find the correct string blindly. Nope. You just had to pull and everything would come spilling out.

She let her hair down out of her ponytail, and all of a sudden my hands felt too empty.

A splash of water hit me in the back, and I winced.

“You little . . . ” But I caught myself and just splashed Lucas in return.

“You looked like you could use some cooling off.” He laughed, throwing his arm back and swimming away.

Cooling off? Did he even know what he was talking about? TV. That’s where kids got this shit.

Fallon still stood on the beach, hands on her hips and pacing the water’s edge, dipping her toes in every once in a while. She looked half ready to either throw herself into the water or turn around and run for the parking lot.

I jerked my chin up, shouting, “Stop giving the kid a lesson in female anatomy and get in the water already.”

Her gaze flashed to mine for a second, but I could feel the heat of her anger even in the chilly water. After teetering for another minute—just to piss me off—she stepped into the lake and waded out until she could dive in.

About an hour passed as we played and swam in the water. Lucas had fun, even if it took Fallon time to get over herself. At first she stayed back, floating on a raft, treading water, and keeping her distance. But when I got the raft and Lucas tipped her off of it, she’d finally loosened up.

They raced each other. She didn’t let him win.

He and I dunked each other. She started smiling more.

Jared and Tate came back with two smiles they sucked at hiding.

And Fallon stayed as far away from me as she could get.

Which was fine. There was nothing I wanted from her right now anyway.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was ready to bang my head against a buoy for bringing Lucas out here when all I kept thinking about was ripping those fragile white strings loose.

“Lucas!” I growled. “Go sit on the blanket with Jared and Tate. Hydrate and eat your snack.”

“Oh, man,” he whined.

And I smiled, seeing him swim off as I headed over to Fallon. She sat in the purple recliner raft with her arms resting on the inflated sides. One of her feet dangled off the edge, dipping into the smooth surface of the water.

“So.” I squinted up at her, resting my hand on the raft for support. “Why are you home, Fallon?”

The corner of her mouth curled, looking like there was a secret trying to escape. “This isn’t my home.”

I’d been so dumbstruck by the fact that she was home that I hadn’t really thought about why until last night. Her mother was abroad. Italy or Spain or something. Spending my father’s money on Gucci and gigolos. And Fallon had no friends here that she kept in touch with that I knew of. She barely had a relationship with my father, who wasn’t at home, either, so the question begged to be asked. “Then why are you at the home of your estranged mother’s husband where you don’t want to be?”

Her tease of a smile curled more. “And where I’m not wanted?”

I leaned my head back into the water, closing my eyes as images of last night raced through my brain. “Oh, you’re wanted,” I taunted.

She snickered. “That’s not how you made it sound when you came into my room the other night.”

I snapped my mouth closed.

Yeah, that shut me up. I was kind of a dick the other night.

Okay, a huge dick.

I slicked back my hair and bounded up onto the end of the raft, peering over at her as she steadied herself from the jolt.

“Well, in all fairness, I did think you had lied about me. I had a right to be pissed, Fallon. You never called or came home again. What was I supposed to think?”

She didn’t answer. Just sat there, hiding behind her sunglasses. Her eyes had always looked dark and lost to me, like she was searching for something but wouldn’t know it if she found it.

I repeated my question. “So why are you home?”

She inhaled a heavy breath and finally looked at me straight. “Closure,” she said. “I left without really saying good-bye to this place. I needed that before I started my new life in Chicago.”

Closure. Is that what I needed, too?

“They found you in the theater room, didn’t they?” I asked her.

She gave a half-hearted smile. “Wearing your T-shirt, and you’d left your jeans on the floor,” she finished, raising her eyes at me expectantly.

“You were asleep,” I explained. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Her eyes were still waiting for more.

“I covered you up?” I offered, drowning like a rat.

I’d figured out that much. After our first time together, we’d found ourselves going at it every couple of days and then very quickly it became every single night for about a week. Fallon never wanted to leave her room when we were together. On her turf, in the dark, and we didn’t talk about it outside of those boundaries. Those were the nonverbal rules I’d ascertained after our first couple times together.

But I had my ways. I was finally able to coerce her out of her bedroom and downstairs to the theater room. We’d watched a movie but ended up all over each other like I knew we would. She’d put on my T-shirt and then fallen asleep.

Looking back now, we were stupid to think we wouldn’t get caught. If they hadn’t found her, then Addie or someone would’ve noticed sooner or later that we were always tired. Since we were spending half our nights together, we got very little sleep.

Fallon’s low voice seemed almost sad and too forgiving. “It’s over. In the past, Madoc.”

Eyes hooded, I looked over at her. “It’s not over, and you know it.”

“Last night was a fluke. We were angry.”

Darting out my hand before she could move, I grabbed her ankle and pulled her down into the water with me.

“Madoc!” she yelped before submerging completely in the water. She flailed her arms and shot back up through the water’s surface, sputtering. “Such an asshole,” she coughed.

I pulled the raft in front of us, shielding us from view of the beach.

“A fluke, huh?” I leaned into her, whispering.

She held onto the raft, and flecks of gold danced on her face and in her hair from the sun on the water. I waited for her to look at me. Or move away. Or just breathe.

But she didn’t. She stared at my chest, waiting. For what, I didn’t know.

Reaching out, I ran the back of my hand across her stomach and then grabbed her waist, pulling her in closer to me.

But she pushed away, sucking in a sudden breath.

“Your . . . little brother is over there.”

“And if he weren’t?” I cocked my head to the side and breathed into her.

She finally looked up, her eyes turning to steel. I leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Lock your door tonight, Fallon.”

And I swam off toward the shore, diving deep into the chilly water not warmed by the sun.

No reason to give a seven-year-old a lesson on the male anatomy, either.