Page 46 of Those Heartless Boys

He shrugs. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Turns out it was more fun watching Tits get revenge.”

“That name really doesn’t bother you?” Lucas asks.

I shrug. “I’ve heard worse.”

He frowns, but Wyatt interrupts. “Have you ever had a calzone? It’s like pizza but not.”

“If it’s not, then what is it?”

They explain to me the ins and outs of calzones, and it sounds like heaven.

Wyatt orders enough food for an army and then hangs up the phone.

“They really deliver out here?”

He winks. “We give them an extra incentive. It helps that the card is under Jacobs.” He walks past me. “I don’t think I need to explain to you the almost celebrity-like fervor that goes through the air at that name.”

My jaw sets. He sure as hell doesn’t.

With Wyatt and Stone gone, Lucas leads me to the couch in the living room. I wasn’t sure anyone ever sat on this furniture. Like it’s one of those pieces for show that I’ve seen on television before. That’s obviously not the case when Lucas pulls me next to him, draping my legs over his lap. He works his fingers through my hair again, and I sigh.

With his other hand, he rubs at his face like he could sleep for days. “I know there are more important things to talk about, but…do you want to talk about what happened in Mythology earlier?”

He’s right. There are definitely more imminent topics to discuss, but maybe not one that’s as much fun. “If you want,” I say casually like it’s no big deal, but I doubt I’m hiding anything from him. While kissing him, I felt more exposed than I ever have.

His fingers trail over the line of my jaw and then back into my hair. “I just want to say that I’d like that to happen again. Maybe not that exact scenario, but now that my hands have been on you, I don’t want to take them away.”

My breath hitches. His brown-eyed stare takes me down roads I wasn’t sure I’d get to. My only chance was getting out of Clary, and I wasn’t sure that was in the cards for me. At my worst moments, I pictured myself as an old lady in my father’s house, living in the walls he built up with no one.

I snap myself out of it. Lucas isn’t offering a forever here. He’s just offering more fun. “I’d like that, too.”

Stone strides out into the living room with different clothes on. “If you’re done making heart eyes at each other, we have more important things to discuss than you getting your dick wet.”

I glare at him, and he matches me stare for stare as he takes a seat on the couch across from us. “Save it, Jacobs,” Lucas purrs.

Something’s gotten wedged up Stone’s ass though. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, “Your house was a pigsty.”

My stomach rolls. “Oh, sorry it offended you, your highness. Not all of us can afford a goddamn maid. All we had was your mother, and she was shit at it.”

Stone charges to his feet. “Leave her out of this.” He clenches his fists, his nostrils flaring. In the next moment, he regains control of himself like the outburst never happened. The man has more self-control than anyone I’ve ever met. He straightens his shoulders. “It’s bad enough she was living in that filth.”

Lucas sighs next to me.

“Maybe you should take that as a lesson learned. There’s more to being a man than just having money. Your dad has all of it that he’ll ever need, and your mom still left him for my dad.”

Stone laughs. It’s maniacal, nothing like the cultured laughs I’ve heard spill from his mouth before. “You’re still under the mistaken impression that she wanted to be there.” His blue-gray eyes twinkle with delight. “It was all a ruse, Dakota. She hated being there,” he growls out. “And most of all, she hated your father.”

I suck in a breath as air gets sucked from my lungs. The truth of what he’s just said is in his cold, heartless eyes. Marilyn marrying my father was some sort of ploy? A sham?

My insides twist with second-hand pain for my father. He was always so happy when he looked at her. To think someone could’ve played him so badly makes me want to vomit. I stand on shaky legs. “You’re despicable, Stone Jacobs. Stay away from me.”

21

Istride from the room. My body thrums with hatred for him and everything he stands for.

So, that’s what his problem was at my dad’s house. The reason he couldn’t stand to be in there. Marilyn.

Behind me, Lucas sighs. “You know we’re never going to be able to get shit done unless you two can learn to be in the same fucking room as each other without acting like children,” he growls at Stone.

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