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A few times, he’d even fallen asleep, and I let him stay, curling onto my side to stare at him like a pervert while he slept.
But I only allowed myself that special treat when our parents were gone for the evening.
Devlin and Jacqueline rarely visited the penthouse’s upstairs, but if Mom found us lying down together like that, no matter how innocent, she would lose her shit and scream like a banshee.
But yeah. Those nights with Drake in my bed? Best. Ever.
I always woke with a warm body wrapped around mine, hot breath on my hair. How often I’d slipped from his hold to scamper to the bathroom before he woke I couldn’t say, but I made enough racket to ensure he was awake and gone from my room before I returned.
“Will you come to my graduation?” Drake asked Nancy.
Her smile doubled in size. “I would love to, but that can’t happen. The last thing I want is for my ex to throw a tantrum and embarrass you and your father, never mind my son.”
“Jacqueline wouldn’t dare,” I said, spinning my sweating bottle of beer between my fingers. “She would be pissed as hell for sure but would hold everything inside until we got home. You know how she is about not making a spectacle of herself out in public.”
“True,” Nancy agreed, “but I wouldn’t wish her wrath on your family behind closed doors either. I’ll be there in spirit, Drake. I promise.”
“So what’s new?” I asked Nancy, pressing my knee a little more firmly against Drake’s. Any excuse to be closer to him even if he only saw it as the comfort I wished to give him.
“Well.” Pink flushed her face.
“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Drake said with a chuckle.
“I met a lovely man.” Nancy sounded breathless.
Joy welled up inside me at the happiness on her face. Same as always whenever I got emotional, my throat swelled. “That’s great,” I whispered, smiling. “Tell us all about him.”
She did—and from what she said and the light in her eyes, I expected that Nancy wouldn’t be struggling to pay rent on her own for much longer.
Nancy might be broke, living quite a few hundred steps down from where she’d lounged in luxury as Jacqueline’s husband for over a decade, but she was content. Right where she was meant to be.
I hoped that when the day came for me to stand on my own two feet that I would find the same courage to seek out true happiness as she had.
Chapter 5
Drake
Those three years dragged by slow as fuck, and yet they suddenly ended.
Both of our parents were out on a dinner date, Dad still surprisingly as madly in love with Jacqueline as the first time I’d seen them hug and kiss. I didn’t get it, but whatever. Preston and I declined the invite to join them as we always did.
Staying home alone with Preston had been my favorite pastime while living in New York. I sat and listened to him play a sentimental song by Beethoven on the piano.
His long, slender fingers glided over the keys with grace, his head bowed and floppy red hair hiding his eyes. But I knew what they looked like. Had memorized every varying shade of green and the golden rings around his pupils. How tears caused his irises to glimmer like freshly shined emeralds and pain dulled them. Happiness made them sparkle. The memory of sunlight glinting off their brilliance etched in my mind and visited me in my dreams.
They were the most beautiful windows I’d ever seen, open-looking glasses into the soul of the guy I desperately needed space from even though I longed for the exact opposite.
He never shied away from my affection, the little touches I couldn’t help from lavishing on him since his mom couldn’t be bothered to give him what he craved from her. I didn’t get that either, but I’d never been without a parent’s love and wasn’t sure how I would react in his shoes.
He’d grown taller, an even more perfect fit against my chest whenever I hugged him close. But in our three years as stepsiblings, I’d eventually had to keep my lower body from him as things had slowly changed for me.
The instinct to protect him had grown into a barely tamed beast. Something more dangerous to him than it was to me. It was for the best I would leave the following evening. My bags were packed except for the track pants and T-shirt I would wear beneath my graduation gown the next day.
Most of the snobs in my senior class would be in slacks and a tie, but fuck that. I would be me as always. Comfortable and without two fucks to give. Jacqueline had insisted on dressing me in some designer suit that cost a few grand, but once I left the penthouse the following afternoon for the graduation ceremony, I would never return.
So fuck the suit.
And fuck Jacqueline and her hold on my dad. At least he and I were still pretty close considering who we lived with. Had Jacqueline taken him completely away from me like I’d originally feared that first day we’d stepped into her glass tower, I’d have gone feral on her ass. Soon, she would grow bored with her blue-collar husband, ditch him, and he would once more be all mine back in Boston.
