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I thought about backing out. I really did. Bailey wouldn’t care. She knows I hate it here, but I also don’t want to be the shit brother who never shows. I didn’t come for Christmas, even though she begged me to. I owe it to her to at least make an appearance tonight.
Pulling up at the gate, there’s a line of cars waiting to enter. Mom is throwing the party for Bailey and her best friend Andi, so I knew there would be people, but damn. Even I didn’t think they were this popular.
“Jesus Christ,” I murmur when I spot a guard waving a metal detector over the gift bags someone a couple cars ahead of me brought. Like they’d bring a bomb to a graduation party.
Then again . . . Parker is into some bad shit, so I guess it’s warranted to be a little paranoid.
Too bad he’s got his security searching out threats to him like bloodhounds.
I wait in line for twenty minutes before finally, the car in front of me begins their federal prison-style search and seizure. It’s a group of kids. I wonder if Bailey and Andi even know them, but knowing Mom, she didn’t invite their actual friends. Just the people she could claim she knows.
The problem with my mother, like a lot of people in LA, is they’re too worked up over who’s doing what, when, and with who. Mom loves anything to do with a high-class partyand Bailey’s graduation was the perfect opportunity for her to show off the wealth that oozes out of every brick in the Parker Mansion.
I remember when things were different. When us kids came first and she loved Dad. When she would make pancakes every Saturday morning, even though they were awful, and when she and Dad ran Carpenter’s Auto together.
Now . . . I don’t even recognize her.
The brake lights in front of me flash and I realize it’s about to be my turn, the whole time, my stomach filling with dread at the prospect of having to let Mom try to force another one of Bailey and Savannah’s expensive friends at me.
The women Mom tries to throw at me . . . they’re beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but they aren’t for me. I’m too rough for a soft girl. Too big a dick for someone who expects elegance and grace. Who was raised on money and fine dining, instead of hamburgers and Kool-Aid.
I move to pull up, but before I can, a young girl storms through the gates, so close to the front of my truck, I have to slam on the brakes to keep from adding a new addition to the cobblestone drive.
The guard yells something at her, but she just wipes dark black tears from her face and keeps marching down the sidewalk, wrapping her arms around herself.
Don’t.
It’s a busy road.
It’s Malibu. She’ll be fine.
I think we all know just because there’s money, it doesn’t mean there isn’t also danger.
I war with myself, toying with the idea of going after her. I shouldn’t. I don’t know who she is. I’m here to see my sister. Not play Superman for the crying girl shuffling down the street.
A car horn honks loudly behind me and I stick my middle finger up at them out the window.
Dickhead.
“Fuck me,” I grumble, whipping the truck into the grass beside the gate while two of the guards yell at me. “Tell Daddy dearest I say hello.”
They glare at me, but neither says a word when I pull back out onto the street and make my way off toward the city where the girl went.
She didn’t make it far. Probably because she doesn’t have shoes on and she’s soaking wet, for some reason, but I pull up beside the curb in front of her and roll the window down, anyway.
“You alright? I almost ran you over.”
She pauses on the sidewalk, turning toward me with black-tinted tears streaming down her face.
I think she’s going to start crying again when her lip wobbles. I’ve dealt with my fair share of upset women. Three sisters and all. Instead, she sucks it in and lifts her chin, glaring at me.
Yep. That’s fucking Malibu for you.
“I’m fine.”
I shrug.
“Suit yourself.”
