Page 9 of Treacherous

Teagan had fucked me over bigtime and it bothered me that I wasn’t angry with her. I mean, because of her little tantrum with the paint I was thirty-five hundred in debt to George's mechanic who was holding my car until he received full payment. The worst thing was depending on other people to take me where I needed to be. I hated being in debt to anyone. I had enough of other people's debts to last me a lifetime…

Dammit, thinking about the consequences I knew Iwouldsuffer because of her hissy fit should have been enough to make me hate her guts. I wanted to, but there was just something about Teagan Connolly that made hating her impossible.

Maybe it was the meaning inside that song…the one I heard her play the first time I saw her – or maybe it was because she challenged me…

"…going to the quarry later?"

Ellie's voice trickled through my mind and I reluctantly turned my attention to her. "What?" I asked in a flat tone.

Ellie's green eyes narrowed as she placed her hands on her hips and glared up at me. "I asked you if you were going to the quarry later."

Shaking my head, I turned back towards the house. "Like I have a choice," I muttered before walking away.

****

Chapter 2

Noah

"You were lucky last night," my stepfather wheezed as he leaned over my shoulder.

I was sitting at the kitchen table attempting to eat some breakfast before I joined the ranks of Jefferson High for my final year of high school. Ellie had already left with her friends and I'd be done and out the door a lot fucking quicker if her father backed the hell off and let me eat in peace.

"I won, didn’t I?" I shot back before scooping another spoon of cereal up and popping it into my mouth. The oats tasted like cardboard against my tongue, but I knew I needed the nutrition.

"You were distracted," he corrected, pressing his hand down on my shoulder so hard I had to force myself not to flinch. "You can't afford to be distracted, Noah – not when you're up against the likes of…"

"I wasn’t distracted," I managed to grind out through clenched teeth, shaking his hand off.

Shoving my chair back, I stood up and brought my bowl over to the sink. "I was fighting above my weight and I won." I dumped my bowl into the sink and turned to face him. "End of discussion."

George was a short, stocky man in his late-sixties, but his receding gray hair and paunchy stomach didn’t fool me. I knew exactly who I was dealing with, and it sure as hell wasn’t your average senior citizen.

"Ellie told me you had another confrontation with the brat next-door," he grumbled and every muscle in my body locked up. "Keep her out of our business, Noah," he rasped before dropping a wrinkled brown envelope on the table. "Don’t give me a reason to get involved."

"I won't."

I waited for him to leave the kitchen before pocketing the envelope.

****

Teagan

I woke up late for school with the headache from hell, a ponging taste in my mouth – you know the one you get when you've swallowed a spider in your sleep – and a serious case of the where-the-hell-am-I's.

I felt grimy from the unnaturally warm weather. My stomach was up in a heap and my freaking mind wouldn't slow down. I hoped these were first-day-of-school symptoms and not a personality trait I was developing because I was so not enjoying this anxious version of me.

"Help me…I've broken all my insides…I wanna feel you from the inside…penetrate you…"

Ugh. The sound of uncle's cringe-worthy singing voice boomed through my ears, causing me to shudder in shame.

At fifty-six, my American-blooded uncle Maximus Jones–aka Max – had two great loves in life. His work and his niece – me.

We'd been together since I was fourteen and my parents were involved in an accident on the way home from a night out in the city.

Uncle Max immediately resigned from his job in the states and made the move to the emerald isle to look after me when mom died and dad was charged with drunk-driving causing a fatality.

I'd only visited my father a handful of times since mom's funeral. The last time I'd visited Dad was back in May, the day before we left. He was still a broken mess, three years later, and that was about it.

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