Hellion, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (24 page)

“What the hell?” my father roars as he joins my mother.
 
Then he’s stomping the floor, his elbows flying up to his sides like he’s doing some kind of crazy chicken dance.
 
“Goddammit, Jersey, you can’t set the damn hospital on fire like that!
 
There are sick people in here!
 
You want to burn the place down?
 
Jesus Christ!”

Mick’s mouth is open, but he doesn’t seem worried.
 
In fact, he looks more amused than anything. He hasn’t moved anything but his head.

Jersey’s struggling to get away from our mom.
 
“I’m just playing a game, Dad!”
 
He thrashes around some more, doing the sandbag move he perfected as a toddler, where he makes his legs go completely limp and his body twice as heavy. Trying to hold him up when he does that is impossible.
 
Down to the floor he goes with a thump.

“No, sir,” says my mom, grabbing his leg as he hits the ground.
 
“No, sir, no sir, no sir.
 
You are staying
right
here with me.”

“I wanna be with Mickey Mouse!” Jersey yells.
 
“I wanna be with Mickey Mouse!
 
Let me go!
 
Let me go, asshole!”

Everyone freezes.
 
You could hear a pin drop in the room.
 
But since there are no pins, we listen to Jersey’s ragged breathing instead.

My mom straightens up and glares at me, abandoning her efforts with Jersey.

“What?!” I say, probably too loudly.
 
“What’d I do?”

She points at me.
 
“You’re the one who taught him that filthy language.”

“Bullshit.
 
Dad did.”

My father’s eyes bulge out of his head and his hands fly up in surrender when my mom twists around to give him the dagger-eyes. “Hey … he didn’t learn anything from any of us he hasn’t already seen on TV.
 
You know that, Viv.
 
Just relax.”

She throws her hands up to rest on her hips.

I roll my eyes, knowing the poodle is about to hit the fan.
 
Cardinal Rule #1 with my mom:
 
Never EVER tell her to relax.

“Don’t you
dare
, George.
 
You know very well that Quinlan runs around the house all day with asshole-this and asshole-that and fuck-a-box-of-fuck-this and fuck-a-box-of-fuck-that.
 
Her mouth is pure gutter talk.”

I’m laughing silently with my mouth completely open.
 
My mom never cusses like that.
 
It would be awesome if it weren’t so awful.
 
Mick has slid a pillow out from under his head and put it over his face.
 
It’s shaking with his laughter.
 
My embarrassment is back, full force.

“Mom, holy shit, would you chillax?” I say. “We have someone else in the room with us right now and about a thousand more right outside that door.”

My mom slowly turns in my direction, her voice going dangerously low.
 
“Did you just tell me to chillax?”

I cringe, pulling my head as far down into my shoulders as I can.
 
Stretching the sheet up to my nose, I finally answer.
 
“Maybe?”

She breathes in once.
 
Twice.
 
And then a third time, before she answers me.
 
“Okay, fine.
 
You all want me to chillax?
 
To relax?” She twists her head around, making it look a little like some kind of alien is inside her trying to get out.
 
It’s very creepy.
 
I’m on pins and needles waiting for her next move.
 
“Fine.
 
I’m relaxed.
 
And. I’m.
Leaving
.”

She pushes my father out of the way and exits the room.

We all remain silent for the longest time.
 
Nobody moves for what seems like forever.

Then Jersey stands and smiles at Mick. “Mommy’s gone. Time to party.”

My dad snorts, coughs to hide it, and turns away.
 
We both know where he learned this line.
 
I’m embarrassed that I’ve been so careless about what I’ve said around my little and very impressionable brother.

“Jersey, come here,” I say, holding out my hand.

He comes over and takes it, his expression softening.

“You know you’re not supposed to say stuff that makes Mom mad like that.”

“She got mad at me.”

“Yeah, but you were lighting the hospital on fire. That’s not cool.
 
Only assholes light hospitals on fire.”

“I don’t want to be an asshole.”

“Well … then … don’t call Mom names and don’t play with fire.
 
I’m pretty sure I already said this to you a couple times.”

“But fire is fun.”

I yank on his hand gently to make sure I have his attention.
 
“No.
 
Fire is dangerous.
 
Fire hurts people.
 
It can burn you and melt your skin right off like butter.
 
Do you understand?”

He nods, but I see a flare of defiance in there.
 
It makes me sigh.
 
This will not be his last fire.
 
Not by a long shot.

“If you want to play with fire, you have to wait and only do it with me or Dad, okay?
 
Promise me.”

“I don’t wanna.”
 
Jersey looks over his shoulder at Mick who’s come out from his pillow hiding spot.
 
Thankfully he’s not laughing anymore.

Mick gives Jersey frown.
 
“She’s right, J-Man.
 
Fires are really dangerous sometimes.
 
It’s not a game.”

Jersey sighs out heavily.
 
“Fine.
 
I’ll wait for you or Dad.
 
Or Micky Mouse.
 
I’ll wait for him.”

My father walks over and puts his arm over Jersey’s shoulders.
 
“What do you say we go find Mom and apologize?”

“I don’t want to.
 
I want to stay with Sister.”
 
Jersey takes my hand and squeezes it.

I pat him on the fingers and fake a huge yawn.
 
“Oh, man, I am soooo tired.
 
I think I’m going to take a nap so I can get better and come home tonight.
 
I hope someone bought me some pizza or something.”

Jersey yanks on my hand, making jabs of pain shoot out from my chest.
 
“We can get pizza, right, Dad?!”
 
He looks up at our father with shining eyes.

“Yes. Pizza night sounds like an excellent idea.”
 
My dad leans over and kisses me on the head.
 
“I’ll come back for you later. Doc says you should be able to leave around six tonight.”

“Don’t forget my clothes,” I say at his back as he’s leaving, my brother in hand.

“Flannel.
 
Gotcha.”

I look over at Mick.
 
“Better make it jeans and a t-shirt.”
 
I don’t want him to have to keep seeing me at my worst.
 
“And a brush!
 
Don’t forget a brush and a toothbrush too.”

My dad waves absently over his shoulder as he gets a tight grip on Jersey.
 
“See ya later, alligator.”

“After a while, crocodile,” I say quietly as the door shuts behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE SILENCE STRETCHES OUT LIKE a rubber band between Mick and me.
 
The pressure is mounting to the point of being unbearable, but he seems untouched by it.
 
The only sounds in the room are the beeps from the heart monitor over Mick’s bed, and it’s back to counting out a normal rhythm.

I lie there staring at the ceiling, my mind rushing from memory to thought to memory and back again, a thousand miles an hour.
 
Everything is a jumble and I have no idea where to go from here.
 
Do I talk about our date?
 
The weather?
 
Colin?
 
Teagan and Rebel?
 
The court case?
 
The price of tea in China?
 
The eternal question of what exactly it is that the fox says?
 
Because I’m pretty sure it’s not ‘a-hee a-hee a-HEE’.

Mick saves me from trying to figure it out by talking first.
 
“Your family is awesome.”

I look over to see if he’s joking, but he has an easy smile on his face.

“Are you serious?
 
They’re insane.”

“They’re fun.”

“Mick.
 
My brother just tried to light your
bed
on fire.”

“Nah, he was just playing.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” I say, smiling.
 
Talk about a good sport.
 
Man, anyone else I know would have called the cops on that little shit.

“I never had a family like that.” His voice is small.
 
Sad.
 
Maybe wistful.

I frown, not sure why he feels that way.
 
I’ve seen him with his brothers.
 
“Colin’s family.
 
Rebel’s family.
 
Teagan told me you had a mother … a foster mother.
 
Right?”

He sighs before answering.
 
I wait what seems like a long time for his reply.

“Colin is my older brother, but we spent a lot of years apart.
 
He was put into the system first and then my mom had me later.
 
I was with her for a couple years before they took me too.”

My heart squeezes uncomfortably in my chest for him.
 
I’ve never had to worry about things like this in my life.
 
I might have a brother who lights shit on fire and licks cat turds when our backs are turned, but I’ve never had to doubt the security of my home or my bed or my parents’ dedication to my health and upbringing. Even now with my mom seriously pissed at me, I know she’d lay down her life for me, no questions asked.
 
I never stopped to think about people like Mick who don’t have that.
 
Maybe in passing, but not seriously.
 
It never struck me how sheltered my life has been until now, right here in this hospital bed.
 
I feel small and stupid.

“Why did they take you away?” I ask.

“Drugs.
 
She was an addict.
 
She tried to get clean, but she always hooked up with the wrong guys and then she’d start using again.
 
She was a mess.”

“You say
was
.
 
She’s better now? Or … not alive?”

“I assume she’s dead.
 
I haven’t seen her since I was little kid.”

My emotions are all over the place. Sadness. Horror. Anger at the injustice of it all.
 
“That’s awful,” I say, because it is.
 
I could not imagine my parents doing that to us.
 
I hope I haven’t insulted him by saying that about his mom.

“Yeah, it was.
 
But Emily raised me up right and I had Rebel looking out for me and sometimes Colin too, so it wasn’t all bad.”
 
He looks over at me.
 
“I’m a real catch, huh?”

The vulnerability I see behind the cocky smile is devastating to my heart.
 
It falls into a million little pieces and I rush to put it together.
 
For both of us.

“You
are
a catch.
 
Where you come from doesn’t matter.
 
Well, it matters, but not like that.
 
Not like you’re saying.”

“I don’t get it,” he says.

“I know.
 
I’m all messed up in the head.”
 
I close my eyes and open them again, trying to get it all straight in my brain. Gesturing with my hand seems to help, so I wave it around over the bed as I speak. “I’m saying that who your parents are, how they treated you, that doesn’t say anything about who you are.
 
Not to me, anyway.
 
It’s what you do with yourself later that matters.
 
And I see you working hard, being a good person.
 
You helped Teagan get her job there at Rebel Wheels and you’ve been very supportive.”
 
My arm drops to my side once more.

“Teagan got her own job there.
 
That was all on her.”

“She told me you were helpful and I believe her.
 
And you’ve been nothing but nice to me.”

He looks at the ceiling again.
 
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”

Misgivings climb into my brain and start poking me, prodding me, making me doubt everything I thought I knew about his good intentions. “What do you mean?”
 
The mood in the room goes dark.

“Never mind.”
 
He turns his head away from me.
 
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m pretty tired.
 
I think these drugs are hitting me pretty hard.
 
Would you mind shutting the curtain for a little while?”

The hurt goes deep.
 
Ugh.
 
Rejection.
 
Fuck that shit.
 
I’m angry all over again, just like that.
 
“How about if I just arrange for a room switch?
 
Or I could go wait for my parents out in the waiting room, give you a private room all to yourself.”

He looks at me again, pissed.
 
“Don’t be like that.”