-Jacey-
Caleb used his own cell phone to call Will.
“Yeah,” Caleb said gruffly. “Hank kicked us out. He found out about us.”
Will was loud enough that I could hear his side of the conversation. “Dude, I never thought you’d call me again.”
“Yeah, well, we’re working for your dad now. You probably know that already. I thought maybe we might as well just go back and live with you, with what he’s demanding. He’s a demanding kind of guy.” I knew Caleb didn’t have to fake the anger in his tone.
“He wants to watch you fuck Jacey,” Will said without doubt.
“Good guess,” Caleb snorted.
-Caleb-I knew we had to ditch the Prius. There was no way Mr. Masterson wasn’t tracking it.“We’ll drive to Wisconsin and then stop at a rental car agency,” I invented wildly while we sped down the road. “Then we’ll ditch the Prius and just keep driving until we get to Washington D.C. or something. I don’t know. Some FBI office.”“Okay,” Jacey agreed, clutching her seatbelt and the oh-shit bar. “Okay.”I nodded. I didn’t know if my plan would work. Hell, I didn’t know if we were just out having a little ride that Mr. Masterson was going to end any second with the press of a button, then laugh at us while his goons dragged us back to the mansion. But we had to hold on to some kind of hope
-Jacey-“Oh my dear! Are you all right?!” Petra asked, scurrying over to me. “Roy, get something to clean this up!”I stared at Leon, who grinned at me. I didn’t like the look of his grin.Caleb put his arm around me, a fake smile plastered on his face. I knew it was a fake smile because I knew all his smiles. I also knew he’d heard what Leon said and come to the same conclusion.I decided I needed to up my game, too. My smile shook, but I managed to put one on my face. “I’m sorry, Petra. It slipped right out of my hand.”“Condensation,” Caleb added.“Of course, my dear,” Petra said sympathetically. &ldq
-Caleb-Jacey’s nails dug into my thigh all the way back to the Mastersons’ mansion. I think she was trying to keep me quiet. I didn’t want her to have to face all this alone, so I stayed quiet. As much as I hated Masterson, I knew he wasn’t lying. I was inconsequential at this point. They were keeping me around just to keep Jacey happy.I imagined the same could be said for my mother, her father, and baby Timothy. Everyone was woven into a carefully crafted web to ensnare Jacey into doing whatever Masterson wanted.Hopefully, Masterson wasn’t going to revisit fucking Jacey himself.The mansion was just the same as we had left it. The decor was still inviting. It still had a happy, alive feeling.
-Jacey-Caleb’s shoulder bumped against mine, sending a zing of attraction shooting straight to my core. The Suburban had hit another deep pothole on the disused logging road we were taking to my father’s favorite fishing lake in the wilds of Canada.I loved it there. I did not love the fact that my stepbrother was coming with us this year.The twenty-two-year-old in question flicked a glare my way before returning to whatever he was doing on his cell phone. He’d ignored me the entire twelve-hour drive.If he wasn’t so stupidly handsome, I would have written him off as an asshole a long time ago. Right about the time of my fifteenth birthday, in fact, when I told him I had a crush on him, and he crushed me in front of everyone at my party.I’d been celebrating my birthdays fishing and enjoying the untouched wilds of Canada every year since then. Caleb had been mercifully absent.Until now.“You only turn eighteen once!” my stepmother, Jeanie, said cheerfully from the front seat. It mu
-Caleb-Eating disorder?“What, like you’re anorexic?” I asked, horrified.My stepsister curled tightly into her door. She wouldn’t even look at me, and not for the usual reasons.I raked my eyes over Jacey, trying to see what would ever have given her the idea she needed to be anorexic.“Bulimic. And let’s just drop the subject now,” my mother said sharply.Yeah, the subject should never have been opened in the first place, but Hank Collins had all the sensitivity of a post. Everything was funny. Nothing was off limits.Mom found it charming, but it usually pissed me off. Especially when he stuck Jocelyn into uncomfortable situations, like he was doing now.I was completely aware my stepsister had a crush on me. When she was fifteen and pouring out her heart to me, I’d be the first to admit I didn’t handle it well. I was shocked.Ever since then, though, the very thought of those mischievous green eyes and thick black hair, not to mention a body that could have been a World War II pi
-Jacey-I tried not to laugh at Caleb when he went thigh deep into the water. I really tried.But when he also managed to trip over a large rock and land right on his ass, I couldn’t stop a hearty guffaw from escaping me. It wasn’t ladylike in the slightest. But it was honest.Luckily, Jeanie and my father were also laughing.“Gonna be a cold trip to camp for you,” my father chuckled, holding out a hand to Caleb to haul him back to his feet.“I’ll go change,” Caleb muttered and dug his tennis shoes into the loose sand beneath him, coming out of the water with a sucking sound at his feet.“Don’t forget your boots this time!” my father called.It was September in Ontario, and we were several hours north of Thunder Bay. Today, it was about seventy degrees, but that wouldn’t mean a thing once we were out on the open water. Caleb would be freezing in wind-whipped, wet clothes.Caleb had a few choice words for my father that he said under his breath as he passed me, but I certainly wasn’t g
-Caleb-“Fuck!” I said as I tried to right our course. But the canoe just kept snaking back and forth against the water, out of my control.I could hear Hank shouting off in the distance, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the roar of the water and the sputtering of the motor.We were headed sideways, no matter what I did, straight for a rock.Then Jocelyn knelt up at the front of the canoe and pushed off the rock with her paddle, hard.She righted the canoe just enough for me to get things back under control. I powered the rest of the way through the rapids with Jocelyn on alert at the front for more rocks.My pulse slowly stuttered back to normal. By the time we pulled up next to Hank and Mom, I was ready to murder the man.“I told you to back out and try again,” Hank said, exasperated. “Jeez, couldn’t you hear me? You could have flipped the canoe!”A dark spew of words, most of them colorful, bubbled up inside me to tell the bastard off once and for all, but I felt Jocelyn
-Jacey-My father started a fire, and soon we were roasting weenies on sticks. Jeanie and my father took one of the makeshift stump-and-board benches near the fire, so Caleb and I were forced side-by-side on the other.Caleb was roasting his own weenie, and so was I, but my father had stuck two weenies on one stick and had his arms around Jeanie, teaching her to roast as though he were teaching her to golf. Jeanie giggled the whole time.“Enjoying your birthday trip so far?” Caleb asked in a low tone as he slowly turned his weenie over the fire. They’d come cold, nearly frozen, from the cook tent cooler, so waiting for them to sizzle and split was a bit of a chore.I set my jaw and didn’t answer him. I didn’t have to. Caleb knew that this was my worst birthday since I’d turned fifteen and foolishly confessed I had a crush on him.Caleb gently bumped my shoulder with his. “I am sorry about before, Jocelyn.”“Hmph,” I answered noncommittally.He leaned closer to my ear. “And I’m sorry a