Page 3 of Cruel Start

My brother had a one-track mind. The bitch still wasn’t there yet. But Shane’s words gave me an idea. “I’m gonna make that call to Mom.”

“Better you than me.” Shane shot me a sinister grin.

I left the room and headed toward the stairs, pushing aside the call I said I would make to Mom. I needed to intercept Tracey.

A little white lie just might be the thing to extract her teeth from my brother.

CHAPTER TWO

ASPEN

“This shit is ridiculous.” Regan buried her face in the futon’s cushion and let out a muffled scream.

“Right?”

Like always, she summed it up so eloquently. We exchanged weary glances. My year-younger sister rubbed her temples, no doubt trying to stave off the headache from listening to Mom and Dad scream at each other.

“They’re arguing like they have a million dollars’ worth of shit to fight over instead of a couple of cars and us.”

Regan sat up and snorted. “And you don’t even count anymore. You leave for college soon.”

“Like you count?”

Regan hadn’t been home more than a few days a week since school had ended. I knew she was couch surfing, and I felt terrible to be abandoning her that fall. She had a great group of friends and a boyfriend who would walk across fire for her, but I still felt like I should be there to deflect the worst of our parents.

“Will you be okay?”

“Please, sis.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to be a pawn in their game. I’ll barely be home, since I’m going to stay at Dane’s once school starts. Thank God the ’rents agreed to that.”

I was surprised they had. Regan and Dane had been together for two years. Since we moved a few months ago, at the end of the year, she would have had to change schools, but his parents had offered her a room for her senior year. She was so much better off with them anyway.

“Before you know it, I’ll be graduating and heading to New York with Dane.”

“Well”—I pushed out a guilt-heavy breath—“the dorms at Thane are outrageously expensive. But I’ll have an apartment next year, so you’ll have somewhere to live if you need a place to go.”

Regan flipped her long blond hair over her shoulder before lifting herself onto the kitchen counter. We’d been holed up there for the past couple of hours, as we had nowhere else to go in the tiny two-bedroom, government-subsidized rental. It was the only thing our parents could afford after losing our house when Dad lost his job and discovered Mom had substantial credit card debt, which, when added to his, was insurmountable. That disaster had resulted in our parents’ farce of a divorce that still found them fucking then turning around to fight over who’d started it.

“Seriously, Aspen. Dane will make buttloads of cash when he graduates and joins his dad’s architectural firm.”

I fought against the eye roll that needed to punctuate her statement. She was so young. “What if things don’t work out between you guys? Or if his parents think you’re mooching off him?”

Dane’s family was wealthy, and they had a condo in New York, where Dane and Regan planned to live while they went to college. Regan would go for fashion design and merchandizing not far from Dane’s school, which she had a full ride for, thanks to the Future of Fashion contest she’d won. Intelligence was the only thing our parents gave us that I was grateful for. Despite their fucked-up lives, they were brilliant, but they were stupid regarding love and impulsive money decisions. It had taught me more than my starry-eyed sister. I didn’t believe in love. And I was very good with money.

“Stop questioning me.” Regan pulled me from my thoughts. “You leave in a few weeks for Thane, and our parents have no money to help. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Please.” I played it off. “I’ve got that waitressing gig, and”—I pretended to buff my nails on my shirt then looked at them as if each finger held a shiny new diamond—“I’ve got scholarships that’ll cover everything.” Except for books and rent, but I kept that to myself.

Regan hopped off the counter, flinching as the shouting went up another couple of decibels. The sound of shattering glass followed. “I’m out of here. Going to Dane’s to save my sanity and eardrums.”

I grabbed the bag I’d stashed on the screened-in back porch for times like that. “Me too.”

We didn’t bother leaving a note. They wouldn’t even know we were gone. Regan and I had beater cars, the only things our parents had done to save us from their colossal fights. When they’d bought new vehicles, they’d kept their old ones and gifted them to us. We had to pay for gas, repairs, and insurance, but it meant freedom, an escape.

I turned the key in my ignition and almost sagged with relief as the engine turned over with a grumble. My sister cackled before starting her powder-blue Toyota.

I pointed at her, giving her the stink eye. “You did the same thing.”

“Better believe it. I’m on a first-name basis with the car gods.”

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