Page 40 of The One

A dude who had rubbed me the wrong way since our freshman year. I didn’t like his cockiness. His fucking attitude. And I didn’t like how he thought he was invincible. Rumor was, he’d wrecked his car over the summer, and his dad paid someone the right amount of money so Anthony wouldn’t get charged, and the DUI had disappeared.

“Rhett.” He nodded toward me.

“Anthony.” I shifted my gaze to Penelope.

Her body was still moving like she was at a club. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t right.

“You should listen to him and eat something.”

“You can daddy my sister, not me.” She smiled and playfully kicked my leg. “Go. She’s waiting for you.”

“I know you’re not telling my girl what to do,” Anthony said as he walked over to the couch, sitting next to Penelope. He put his arm around her shoulders and pressed his mouth against her cheek. “You need to go,” he said toward her, but it was directed at me.

I didn’t give a fuck what he said. “Pen?” When I gained her focus, I added, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Never been better,” she replied.

She faced him, and they started to make out.

I’d seen enough.

Whatever these two were into, it was nothing but fucking trouble.

“Holler if you need me—or if you need anything,” I said.

I headed for the stairs, taking two at a time until I reached the landing. At the end of the hallway, I knocked on the last door.

“It’s me.” I opened it without waiting for a response.

“Where have you been?” Lainey was reclining across her bed and sat up, getting on her knees so, as I got closer, it was easier to wrap her arms around my neck. “It feels like it took you forever to get here.”

I kissed her, holding her face steady, and while the softness of her cheeks rubbed against my palms, my nose filled with her rose scent. It reminded me of my mother’s rose garden, but Lainey’s perfume was richer and so much sexier.

And her taste—fuck, it was good. Like she’d been eating some type of gummy candy before I came over, my tongue watering as I pulled back and hugged her against my body.

“I had to drop Ridge off at a friend’s house, and I was in your living room for a few minutes, talking to your sister.”

Her back stiffened; her breathing stopped. “Is Anthony still here? They were hanging out earlier, and … I had to come upstairs.”

“Yeah, he’s still here.”

She leaned back to look at me. “I don’t like him, Rhett.”

“He’s not my favorite dude either.”

“And I don’t like them together. The way he was acting bothered me so much that I couldn’t be around him.” With her mouth closed, she rubbed her tongue over her top teeth. “And Pen wasn’t herself. She’s so different around him.”

I had an idea what thatdifferentcould be. I just wasn’t going to out her sister, not until I had solid proof that the two of them had been doing more than drinking. Plus, Lainey was stressed enough, and I wasn’t going to add to it.

“What could she possibly see in him?” Her arms dropped from my shoulders, and she slumped onto the bed.

I climbed in next to her, wrapping her up against me. “A good time. That’s what I’m thinking.”

“I was sure things were going to work out with the linebacker, and then, like she’d promised, she was suddenly working her way through the lacrosse team. You’d told us they weren’t good guys, and you weren’t kidding.”

At the start of the school year, I’d warned the sisters that the guys on the lacrosse team weren’t people you wanted to mess around with. They weren’t like my teammates. They were a group of guys who took partying to a whole new level, and instead of trouble accidentally finding them, they hunted for it, and they fucking craved it.

“Good thing is, you know it’s not going to last.” I brushed some hair out of her face. “Not when she’s going to NYU next year. I doubt Anthony is going there—he doesn’t have the brains to get in.”