REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (2 page)

That’s what my uber arrogant step-mother says, anyway, although I’m not so sure she hasn’t put that rule to the side from time to time with the pool boy.
 
Seriously … I’m not kidding.
 
The pool boy.

“What are you thinking about right now?” Quin asks me.
 
“I.O.U. for your thoughts.”

“I’m thinking how much I hate The Heinous One for being such a bag of dicks.”

Quin smiles.
 
“I’m really looking forward to meeting your step-mother at graduation, you know that?
 
I’m totally going to call her that to her face.”

I smile back.
 
“Me too.
 
Some day.”
 
When I find a way to support myself and don’t have to worry about my father cutting me off.

CHAPTER TWO

I’M PACKING UP THE LAST of my crap from my dorm room when I get the call.
 
I moved in here for my last semester and a half to make life easier.
 
Six months ago my lease was up on my apartment, and the douchebags who run the place didn’t want to extend it; apparently, my parties annoyed the old farts who also lived there.
 
I tried to tell my dad at the time he moved me in there that the condo wasn’t a good place for a college student’s living arrangements, but he didn’t listen.
 
He liked the gated security and the living-breathing guard in the lobby; and besides, he never listens to anyone under the age of twenty-five.
 
I’m still three years away from having anything of value to say in his world.

The Call.
 
The one that changes my life forever.
 
It comes as I’m sitting on my suitcase, trying to get it to zip up.
 
Stupid cell phones.
 
They sit there on the desk or in your pocket or purse, tiny and black, taking up so little space, but sometimes they carry messages that show how incredibly powerful they really are.
 
Bastard fucking cell phone.

They say you shouldn’t kill the messenger, but that doesn’t stop me hearing words straight from my worst nightmare and responding by whipping my phone across the room into the wall, shattering it into about ten different pieces.

“What the hell?” asks a girl walking by in the hallway.
 
She stops in my doorway.
 
Lindey.
 
We know each other, but not well.
 
She’s mostly lame and I’m only halfway lame, so we move in different circles.

I sit down on my bed, ignoring Lindey as visions race through my mind.
 
This cannot possibly be real.
 
Maybe The Heinous One is pulling some kind of seriously sick joke on me.
 
Am I being punked?
 
Would she do something like that?
 
I don’t put much past her, but this … this cannot be a cruel joke.
 
It has to be real.
 
Not even she would be this evil.

“Should I call Quin for you?” Lindey asks.

I don’t answer.
 
I can’t.
 
The words aren’t really making sense to me right now.
 
All I can picture is my father’s face the last time I saw it.
 
Serious.
 
Annoyed.
 
Stressed.
 
I can’t remember the last words we said to one another.
 
Were they kind?
 
Loving?
 
Dismissive?
 
Cold?
 
I vote for the latter choices; those would be more in keeping with our relationship of late.
 
Ever since the Heinous One entered it two years ago.

CHAPTER THREE

“TEAG.
 
TEAG.
 
CAN YOU HEAR me?”
 
Quin is sitting next to me on my bare, stripped-of-sheets bed, waving her hand in front of my face.

I slap her away as I stand.
 
“Quit.”

“Well, thank Hootie and the Blowfish you’re still in there.”
 
She stands and huffs out a breath.
 
“I about had a heart attack thinking you’d fallen into some catatonic state.
 
You owe me dinner tonight.
 
The last hurrah.
 
The two amigas ride again for the last time.” She waves in my general direction.
 
“I don’t have time fo’ dat coma shit.”
 
She leans towards me, giving me a maniacal grin.
 
Normally this would help whatever mood I’m in, but this time, it just scares me.
 
This is not real life.
 
That phone call I just got?
 
That’s
real life.

Her happy mood deflates.
 
“What happened, Teagan?
 
Seriously.
 
Enough of the silent game.
 
I freak out over the silent game, you know that.
 
I’ll talk until my teeth fall out and my tongue cramps.
 
We’ll both hate me.”

I look at her but say nothing.
 
The words won’t come.
 
I try, but only air is there.

“Please?”
 
She looks so pitiful, I can’t ignore her anymore.

My throat is sore for some reason.
 
“Quin, I just … I can’t play right now.”

“What happened?” she whispers.
 
“Did you finally come to terms with the fact that Dolph Lundgren is
not
going to lose thirty years off his life and marry you?”

I shake my head.
 
Now is not the time to bring my lifelong crush on The Dolph into the picture.

She continues, trying to break through the cold barrier that’s gone up around my heart.
 
“Did you hear the news that Justin and Selena are back together again? Is that what this is all about? Because that makes me sad too.
 
And a little mad.
 
She should be smarter than that.
 
He’s nothin’ but a monkey abandoner.”

“Quin.
 
My dad’s dead.”

She’s in the middle of making another asinine guess about what my problem is when her mouth slaps shut.
 
She backs her head up and frowns.
 
“Say … what now?”

I don’t respond.

Her face goes a little pale.
 
“You’re fucking with me.
 
That’s not cool, Teag.
 
Seriously. Not. Cool.”

I shake my head, battling tears.
 
My dad was a bastard, but he was my dad after all.
 
I’m sad.
 
I’m scared.
 
And I’m so fucking lost.

Quin grabs me in a tight embrace, trapping my arms at my sides.
 
“Oh, fuck me senseless, I had no idea you weren’t kidding around.”
 
She looks up at me from her five foot height.
 
“You’re not messing with me, right?
 
Because that would be unforgivable.
 
Too far.”

My chin quivers as I try to hold it all in.

Quin puts her head on my shoulder and squeezes me harder.
 
“Don’t worry, chiquita, we’ll figure this out.
 
We’ll figure this out…”

She’s still patting my back five minutes later when the tears finally erupt from my head.
 
It’s her last attempt at making me feel better that breaks the dam holding back my sorrow.

“Don’t worry, Teagan,” she says, “you’re not alone.”

CHAPTER FOUR

I AM TOTALLY AND UTTERLY alone.
 
My father has done a great job over the last couple decades of alienating every single person who may have been someone who could take me in.
 
Unless his money comes as part of the deal, I am persona non grata to my extended family, and since the money is now fully in the hands of The Heinous One,
 
the same assmunch who had my father cremated without a funeral or even a memorial service, I guess I can’t blame them for saying —
um, no.
 
Not in this lifetime
.

Seeing as how they’ve never met me, I can’t expect them to welcome me into their homes with open arms.
 
I made zero effort my entire life to know them, and I’m an adult now.
 
I should, in theory, be perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet.
 
Instead, five days after receiving the worst news of my life, I’m in the asscar driver Perry’s apartment with Quin sitting next to me, trying to talk me off the ledge I’m standing on in my mind.

I have nothing and nowhere to go.
 
My bank account has exactly three hundred and eight dollars in it, my father’s lawyer says I won’t get another penny from the estate until I’m thirty, and everything my father ever held dear is now in the hands of a bimbo he met on a cruise and married a week later.
 
I am completely adrift on this nightmare sea of darkness.

“It’s not the end of the world, okay?” Quin says.
 
“You have options.
 
You can stay here with…,” she lowers her voice, “
the asscar driver …
” Clearing her throat, she continues.
 
“… For at least a few days, maybe more.”
 
She looks over at Perry as he passes through the living room, but he shakes his head.

“I’m leaving,” he says, “moving out.
 
You have the couch for two days, that’s it.”
 
He disappears into his bedroom.

I swallow the fear down and let it marinate in my stomach.
 
It joins the thrashing, seizuring butterflies that have been living in there for the past forty-eight hours.
 
Ever since that first phone call, my life has gone very quickly down the tubes and into a hell of a sewer system.
 
And let me tell you, it fucking stinks down here.
 
The only good news I’ve had is that I had insurance on my demolished cell phone and Quin picked up the replacement for me today.

“Okay, so you have to move in with me.
 
That’s it, done deal.”
 
Quin folds her arms across her chest.
 
She looks about twelve years old and I wish I could laugh at it, but I’m too depressed and scared about my future.

I sigh. “You know your mom already said no, and you have no room anyway.”
 
Quin has lots of brothers and sisters and they’re up each other’s asses twenty-four-seven.
 
No way could I survive in that place.
 
I need some private space or I go batty.

That’s why Quin and I never roomed together.
 
We spend way too much time being best friends as it is.
 
When considering her many requests to room together, I always pictured waking up to find her spooning me or something.
 
It’s not that she’s in love with me or anything, but she is somewhat overly touchy-feely, and I know for a fact she strangles about three pillows every night sleeping all tangled up with them. That’s why my answer was always hell-to-the-no-thank-you-no-offense-meant when she asked me to be her roomie.

My mom died when I was just a baby, and my dad is … or was … about as cold as they get.
 
I guess he’s really cold now, being dead and all.
 
I wish I could feel bad about that, about thinking these things about him, but we were never close.
 
The only cuddles I’ve ever gotten have been from other guys or Quin, and all of those made me just a little bit uncomfortable.

“Well, what are you going to do, then?” she asks in a small voice.
 
“I can’t just leave you here to sleep on the street.”

I shrug.
 
“Maybe I’ll find a job.
 
And an apartment.”

“Babe …,” she says, stroking my arm, “… I don’t mean to be a total killjoy, but you don’t even have a resumé.
 
And apartment places don’t take people without jobs and without references or anything.
 
You don’t even have deposit or rent money, which I totally don’t get since just two days ago you were flingin’ bling like it was going out of style, but whatever.”

I shrug her off.
 
“Yeah.
 
Thanks for the recap of my shit life.
 
That was helpful.” I stand up, needing space, needing air, needing something that’s not in this apartment.

“Where are you going?” she asks, standing too.

I grab my keys off the ring by the door.
 
“I have to go job hunting.
 
I’ll see you later.”

“But I want to come with you!” she whines, grabbing her purse off the couch.

“Maybe next time,” I say, shutting the door behind me.
 
I run to the car, crying as I go.
 
I make sure to pull out of the parking lot and get down the street a little before I stop again and rest my head on the steering wheel.

If Quin sees me losing it like this she’ll have a stroke and force me to live in her garage or something.
 
I might be poor as shit all of a sudden, after almost a lifetime of being the daughter of a wealthy Silicon Valley CEO, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still have some pride left.
 
And I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sponge off my best friend whose own family doesn’t have two pennies to rub together.

I cry for a while and then lean back in my seat, my fingers stroking the large, shiny steering wheel in front of me.
 
Getting a vintage, beater ’68 Beetle had seemed so cool and kitschy at the time I bought it four years ago.
 
Now it just feels stupid.
 
If I had taken the Lexus my father had tried to push on me, at least I could have sold it and had some dough.