Page 6 of Love Me, I Dare You

I was sitting on the small chaise pushed up against the window in our living room, looking out toward our backyard. Over a foot of rain water had settled over the green grass, making the yard appear swampy. I looked out toward the right of our nearly two hundred acre property and saw a shadow moving about the red barn.

Palms on the windowsill, I pressed my nose up against the cold glass, my breath fogging up my reflection. I couldn’t quite make out who it was. All I could see was the individual was tall, dark-haired, built similar to my older brothers, and was wearing all black. The closer he came to the main house, I could make out his leather jacket was soaked from the rain pouring down on him.

Though it wasn’t until he reached the end of our white picket fence, which wrapped around the main house, that his face came into view. I gasped, his rugged beauty unlike anything I’d ever bore witness to. Dark eyes, tan skin, the perfect chiseled jaw on someone who looked to be my brother’s age. The way his wet hair fell over one side of his face, a teenager wasn’t supposed to look the way he did.

“Mama,” my little sister Brynn shrieked as she ran up to the window beside me. “There’s a boy in our yard.”

Mama rushed over to us, her hand flying up to her chest in utter disbelief. “Oh darling, hurry, go call your father.”

“No need, mama,” my brother Jase said as he waltzed over to the back door. He was in no hurry to let the guy in, though he also didn’t seem at all worried about him being some stranger we should be wary of.

Opening the door, Jase whistled loudly, gaining the guy's attention. I watched bewildered as he ran up to our back door, and into the house, water dripping from every inch of him and onto our newly waxed hardwood floors.

The four of us stood completely still. The loud pitter patter of the rain pouring outside was the only sound heard for over two minutes.

“Let the damn kid in, Jameson,” my father said, suddenly stepping into the room, a baffled Brynn behind him. “The water’s getting in.”

Immediately, the guy stepped fully inside, and Jase quickly closed the door behind him.

“Sorry Pops, Mama. This is my best friend, Nash Bishop. He lives on the outskirts of town but was helping me with something in the barn when the storm came barreling in. I told him to come in but the bastard’s stubborn and was planning on riding his bike back home.”

My father cleared his throat. “A Bishop,” he said and immediately the familiar eerie silence fell back over the room.

“Yes sir,” Nash, like my brother just announced, said, standing up straighter and meeting my father’s daunting glare.

My father wasn’t typically someone you should be wary of. No, Bismarck King was a family man. As mayor of Crossroads, he was the most down to earth and humble individual who cared for every single resident of his small town. As long as their last name wasn’t Bishop.

Since I could remember, we were taught to turn our heads at the sound of the name Bishop. They weren’t good people. Reckless and menacing individuals who caused nothing but trouble in our town. At the time I wasn’t sure why, nor was I old enough to know the entire story, but it wasn’t only my father and mama who’d warned us to steer clear of the Bishop clan. The whole town kept their distance from Franklin, Delia, and their brood of troublesome boys.

After all, there were four of them before their only daughter, Monroe, who was my age, was born. I wasn’t friends with her, but we weren’t necessarily enemies either. We were different,ran in opposite circles, but it didn’t mean she was a bad person. I just couldn’t see why they were to be hated.

I didn’t know it then, but I’d soon realize I’d been told to stay away from the Bishop’s for good reason.

My father cleared his throat and spoke with the same poise and self-control he carried everywhere he went. “Well then, come in, son. Mags here will get you something dry to wear.” I knew it took all of my dad’s good nature to not react in any other way at the sight of a Bishop in his living room. Though I guess it wasn’t Nash’s fault, his parents were junkies and responsible for the poison that ran through our town.

Mama’s eyes went wide in disbelief before she hurried herself with the task my pops had given her. “Yes, and I’ll get the hot water going to make you some tea.”

After my father and mother both scurried out of the room, neither of them saying anything about the huge elephant in the room, Jase dropped onto the couch. With his legs crossed, he grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels until he found some football game and was watching it like he hadn’t just admitted to being best friends with the enemy, nor that said enemy was standing soaked behind him in our living room.

That had always been Jase. He was the rebel of my two older brothers. Where Camden was the responsible, reliable, and respectable oldest son, Jameson, much like I suppose Nash, was the troublesome, impulsive and reckless middle child.

My little sister Brynn scurried over to sit beside Jase while I stayed put, unable to move or do anything but stare at the unbelievably gorgeous boy in my living room.

Nash was perfect. Every part of him was carefully crafted to be immaculate. I’d never seen such beauty, not even on television or in movies. He was another kind of creature, certainly not from earth. No, human beings were too simple, andhe was extraordinary. His beauty transcended through time, and the longer I watched him, the deeper I fell into an abyss of lust.

In an instant, he became my obsession.

His glacial blue eyes turned to me, and when he caught me staring, the edges of his mouth turned up slightly in a teasing way. “You gonna stand there and gawk, Angel? Or are you going to offer me your seat?”

Brynn gasped, and I might have to, only I couldn’t hear over the rapid pounding in my ears.

Angel.

A soft whimper left my lips, and I dug my fingers into my palm to keep them from shaking.

Jase scoffed, letting out a sharp chuckle while his eyes remained glued to the screen. “Quit it, Nash. Bailey’s not the kind of girl you want to be saying those things to. The girl has her head in the clouds. She’s the happily ever after type. Tell her she’s pretty and she might end up falling in love.”

A burning heat crept up my neck and my cheeks flamed as my embarrassment swept over me and I knew I was bright red in the face.

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