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“No!” I roared, so loud Gravity jolted behind us before falling back to sleep. Shit. What was wrong with me? “I’ll get back to her later.”
She put my phone back down, biting on her lower lip. “Look, I just made up a number. If ten K is too much…”
“It’s not.”
She needed the money more than I needed fifteen designer watches. And then, because for some reason I hated being an asshole to her, I added, “Look, just fulfill your end of the bargain to your best ability. If this thing with Bruce takes off, I’m going to make four hundred million bucks overnight and be on the fast track to becoming a billionaire. He’s the best tech entrepreneur out there. His corporation is the mother company of all the big apps. Angry Turds, Verified Villains, Music Play, Telefind.”
“Is this why you’re letting him play you like a hockey puck?”
“I’m not—” I snapped my mouth shut, working my jaw back and forth angrily. “Sometimes you need to be smart, not right.Finding people who’ll throw money at a good idea is easy. Finding people who can help you take that idea to the next level? Now that’s hard. The promotion Bruce’d do in his own channels alone would garner tens of millions of downloads.”
“How soon do you need this initial sum in your bank account?” She eyed me curiously.
“Yesterday,” I admitted, feeling my ears go pink. “I burned through whatever money I made in the past few years, but I can sell some shit and stay afloat for a bit.”
My phone came to life again. This time, it was my dad’s name on-screen. What kind of fuckery had my good-for-nothing parents gotten themselves into now? A pyramid scheme? Insurance fraud? Had they gotten arrested for indecent exposure? I wasn’t going to bail them out again—not after the last time they were caught bumping uglies on a public beach.
Dylan shot me an unsure glance. “Could be an emergency.”
“That’s what 911 is for.” I ran a hand over my hair.
She stared at me, stunned. As far as she knew, my parents were great. My dad made a decent living. Mom was a homemaker. Truthfully, she made jack shit outside her outrageous demands. Still, my parents were prominent Staindrop citizens. They showed up to every event, participated in the Fourth of July pie contest. They were that lovey-dovey couple you knew would still hold hands well into their eighties.
Too bad they never bothered holding my hand.
Or, you know, showing up to my graduation. Which one, are you asking? Well, all of them.
“Okay. We’re going to need to unpack this like it’s an overflowing suitcase after a Thailand trip where you got to buy all the knockoffs.” She circled a finger around my face.
“Blasphemy,” I protested. “My fake fiancée wouldn’t be caught dead with a knockoff bag.”
“Yes, because she’ll be living happily ever after with her full bank account and her fifty-buck Louis Vuitton bag. Now, tell me, what’s wrong with your parents?”
“The better question would be what’s not?” I huffed. “But it’s none of your concern.”
“Everything is my concern,” she countered. “The more we know about each other, the better we can pretend we’re a couple in Texas.”
She wasn’t wrong. Come to think of it, she was rarely wrong. I wasn’t happy with her being both hot and whip-smart. Dangerous combo.
“In a nutshell, they were too busy screwing and courting each other to take care of me. I’m talking full-blown weekends away together by the time I was nine or ten. I’d Home Alone it like a pro, pretending there were other people inside the house, because I was shit-scared of imaginary burglars coming in. Date nights without proper care before I was fully potty-trained. When I was fourteen, my dad decided to teach me his trade—not because he took any kind of interest in me but because he wanted me to do his job while he and my mom took days off together. I was their little servant.” My lips curled into a sneer at the memory. Glass half-full? Taking a trip down memory lane wilted my dick to a manageable half-mast. Plus, it reminded me why I could never, ever hit on Row’s baby sister. Or anyone else, for that matter. Why love was not only a distraction but a self-detonating device used to forget yourself and people around you.
My parents’ so-called love was my demise.
Dylan stared at me in shock. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.” I clutched the steering wheel harder. “Your mom used to send me home with sandwiches because she got tired of seeing my poking ribs.”
My cheeks flushed as I remembered the day Zeta saw me playing shirtless with Row in their backyard, my ribs poking out,and decided to take it upon herself to feed me. “The first home-cooked meal I ever had that I didn’t have to make myself was at your place. My last one too, come to think of it.” I grabbed the green stick from my Starbucks coffee, rolling it across my mouth like a toothpick.
“Wow. I had no idea, Rhy.”
“About my shitty childhood? Yeah, I didn’t exactly advertise that shit.”
“Mine wasn’t the best either.” She scratched an old scab on her knee distractedly. “My dad was a raging alcoholic who took his anger out on Mama and Row.”
“Figured as much,” I said quietly. Row and I never talked about it. I didn’t want to embarrass him by bringing it up, and he’d never felt the need to discuss it, but I’d seen the welts. The bruises. “Still. Better a drunk dad and a great mom than two assholes who don’t give a shit about your existence,” I pointed out.
“I mean, if we’re going to make it a competition…” She screwed her mouth sideways adorably. “My dad called me Dylan to spite my mom.”