Page 36 of Riot Rules
The boys know my father’s a cunt. They’ve met him in person, and it’s pretty easy to deduce that little detail in the flesh. Actually, it’s impossible to ignore. They know he emails me constantly about my grades, or a million other things that he’s pissed off about, and they know that I get worked up over his bullshit. They don’t know anything about my dead aunt, or the fact that both my mother and my father not-so-secretly hate each other. Hate me. Hate everything about the world, now that Penny’s not in it.
I overheard my old man telling my mother that he likes to daydream sometimes that it was her who died, and he was still married to Penny. He’d followed that doozy up with the revelation that it was easy to make believe that I was Penny’s son because I had her eyes, and her face-shape, and the same nose, but that I always ruined the illusion when I opened my mouth to speak because my personality was weak, like hers.
The boys don’t know any of that.
I’m furious that Carina knows now, but when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t force it closed again.
After successfully avoiding Pax and Wren all night, I get so high, I pass out face-down on the sofa in my room and wake up hours later with a ballpoint pen digging into my cheek. I cranked the thermostat right down when I came in earlier and now my bedroom’s as cold as the grave. I’m in my boxers, shivering uncontrollably, still fucking high as shit, it’s one in the morning and I’m so disoriented that I don’t know who or where I am.
It comes back in pieces.
I’m Dash Lovett.
I’m at the house.
Riot House.
My friends are in their rooms, sleepi—wait, no. Strains of driving hardcore metal reaches me over the staticshushing out of the TV mounted on my bedroom wall, which means that Pax is still awake.
I’m in New Hampshire.
There’s a girl that I like sleeping in her room on top of the mountain.
I—whoa. Man, life hits weird sometimes. I’m the heir to a fucking estate in England. How weird isthat?
My mouth feels like someone dumped half the Sahara Desert into it while I was sleeping, and my dick is so hard that it actually fuckinghurts. This always happens when I get high—a bizarre physiological response that’s more of a hinderance than it is entertaining. It’s not as if I have problems getting my dick hard when I’m not high but fuck me if I’m not immediately sporting wood the very second the smallest amount of THC hits my blood stream. Sitting up, I squeeze myself to see if that will dull the throbbing between my legs, but it only makes it worse. I’ve been hard for hours. I can tell because my balls are aching like they’re punching bags and Connor McGregor just went to fucking town on them.
I’ll have to make myself come. I’ll die if I don’t get some water in me first, though. I’m in the hallway, still clutching my erect cock, when Pax’s bedroom door bangs open and he appears on the landing with a pair of clippers in his hand. He eyes me, arching an eyebrow when he observes my hand on my dick, then huffs. “Mary Jane up to her old tricks?”
My strange reaction to weed is common knowledge within the walls of Riot House. I shrug, letting go of myself as I shuffle past him into the bathroom. “She’s a relentless taskmaster.”
Pax stands in the doorframe, watching me take a glass from the sink and fill it up with water. He says nothing while I chug, sweet relief flooding me as the water revives me. When I’ve drained the glass and I come back up for air, he says, “Ask me where Wren is.”
I look at him. Pax always wears a guarded, stony expression, but tonight it’s even stonier. He looks seriously fucking unhappy. Heknows.I slowly place the glass back down on the stand by the sink. “Not with Mara Bancroft, I’m guessing?”
He slowly shakes his head.
“Then…he’s at the gazebo.”With our English teacher.Doing something stupid. With a guy neither of us like.It’s all implied, and all confirmed when Pax nods.
“Come with me,” he says, pushing away from the doorframe. “I need help with the back.”
“The back of what?”
He holds up the clippers, flicking the switch so that they buzz. “My ball sack.What d’you think, man, the back of my fucking head.”
He’s never asked for help before. I follow him back into his room, marveling at that state of the place. Barely a square inch of floor is visible beneath the mess. There are no dirty dishes or cups growing mold anywhere, thank god, but the sheer amount of clothes and books andstuffeverywhere is overwhelming.
The loud, grinding metal music churns on as he sits down heavily in a swivel chair and holds out the clippers to me. “No need to get fancy. Just make sure it’s all the same length. And I swear to fuckinggod,” he growls over his shoulder, “if you poke me in the back with your fucking hard-on, I will snap your dick off and feed it to the crows.”
“Don’t worry. My dick has retracted all the way into my body,” I say sarcastically. “Being around you has a very sobering effect on a guy.” The noise of the clippers takes over then. The angry buzz even drowns out the thrashing music. I make quick work of the back of Pax’s head, running the clippers over his skull until his hair’s cropped close, neat and tidy.
Pax shakes himself like a dog, swatting the short shards of hair from his bare shoulders when I’m done. “So, what are we gonna do about it?” he says.
No point in pretending I don’t know what he’s referring to. I’m actually glad he knows. At least now I don’t have to feel like I’m harboring this motherfucker of a secret and I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. “Does anythingneedto be done?”
Pax picks up an Xbox controller, throwing himself down on what I thought was a mountain of clothes but turns out to be a sofaunderneatha mountain of clothes. I react instinctively when he tosses another controller at me, catching it out of the air. A second later, he shoves a stack of folded t-shirts off the sofa onto the floor and I’m sitting beside him, playingCall of Duty.
His eyes are locked onto the game, his jaw working, his thumbs bashing ferociously at the controller’s buttons, but it’s all an act; I have his undivided attention. “Maybe.” He lifts one shoulder. “He’s being a fucking idiot but could be he has it under control. What do you think?”
