Chapter 1- Jackie
“Mom? Vance? Are you home?” I asked as I kicked open the front door to the house I had lived in for the last eight years, with my trusty black biker boots that had lasted almost as long.
It was rundown, falling apart in most places, but I didn’t care, so was I.
I trudged through the kitchen, dumping my tattered bag on top of the dining table, sending empty cans sprawling, the bags of coke and weed getting messed up.
The moldy, ripped curtains were closed, but I couldn’t remember the last time they had been opened. It created the homey scent of stale sex, drugs, and alcohol.
I peered into the lounge where the scuffed wooden floorboards were littered with passed-out men in leather vests with their chosen groupie for the night. Each vest had my stepfather’s shitty motorcycle gang crest on it.
Two dice showing the ones with a snake wrapping around them.
Silent Snakes Motorcycle Club.
Cool logo, shitty club.
They thought they were so cool, but they were just a bunch of lazy fucks, selling drugs and riding motorcycles while they fucked their way through every whore in our town. And there were a lot of them.
I kicked an arm out of the way and picked up a joint off the coffee table, bringing it to my lips for a hit. I pulled my trusty skull Zippo out of my leather jacket and lit up before heading through to the hall, which had a single bedroom with the door wide open.
Vance had my mother on her knees, shoving his cock into her dirty, tear-streaked face.
She had her long press on nails digging into his hairy thighs, and I took another hit of the joint, a gag fighting its way up my throat.
“Gross. Close the fucking door.”
“Shut that mouth of yours or I’ll ram this cock down your throat next,” he warned, and since he was a pig, I wasn’t about to call his bluff.
Mom gagged on him, trying to pull away, but he gripped her dirty blonde hair tighter and thrusted, a smirk on his thin lips, before I shook my head and walked away.
They were always fucking, I should’ve been used to it by now, but it still had the nausea hitting me.
I went down the tiny hall to the back door. I kicked it open and left the house, heading out to the small sleepout that housed my life.
It was a rundown shack of a thing attached to the garage where ‘club business’ was conducted.
I was used to the ‘club business’ of nightly parties, the drugs, the alcohol, even the constant sex that was a private matter in every other house except for mine, but what I wasn’t used to? Sharing my space with my stepbrother. Austin Hartley.
We were close, had been best friends since our parents had hooked up eight years ago. We’d shared a room ever since then, but his scent still hit me just as hard every time I walked into our room.
A sheet hung over the entrance behind our door to keep the light out and keep some privacy since there were glass panels in the door.
I pushed through the door and the sheet, pulling another lungful of weed in. The calmness settled in my bones and my head, giving me just enough fucks to get through another afternoon and night of bullshit club meetings that were just an excuse to get fucked up.
The few fucks I had disappeared as soon as I got inside my room. “Yes, yes! Austin! Harder, yes, please! Oh my god!” A high-pitched voice screamed, and I rolled my eyes at the noise.
Austin had his girlfriend over. Yay. Not.
It was the worst part about sharing a room. Having to deal with Austin and his libido. Then again, I knew he said the same thing about me.
I finished the joint, moving into the room, glancing over at the bed where Austin was ramming inside his new girl.
Slutty Sally had her legs around his waist, her nails dug into his impressive biceps.
Damn, it made me jealous, but I had no right to be.
At fifteen, when hormones had been destroying both of us, we had made out.
It had been the only time, and we had agreed to stop, so it didn’t fuck with the friendship since we couldn’t just leave if it went wrong.
Since then, he had gone through girls like underwear, and I had fucked my way through high school because what else was there to do when the teachers had it out for you and taught you nothing?
“Honey, I’m home,” I taunted, heading to the bench to put coffee on.
The room was big enough to have a little kitchenette with a sink. It had a tiny bathroom attached with a toilet and a shower. Our bed took up most of the room despite only being a double.
It was the only bed, and we usually took turns having our conquests over, but they weren’t allowed to stay the night.
There was a flat screen on empty beer crates that faced the bed, with a couple of beanbags in front of it, hiding the stained, torn carpet.
A single window lightened the space, but we mostly kept the curtains closed, or the place never warmed up in time for nighttime.
“Shit. Jackie,” Austin cursed, pumping into Sally as she squawked like a fucking seagull before he came.
I kept making my coffee, letting them sort their post orgasm selves out before daring to look over my shoulder.
“Want some coffee?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Austin breathed, running a hand through his damp, dark hair, the strands falling back in front of his face.
His green eyes met mine as he climbed off the bed, tugging his jeans on-leaving them undone as he dealt with his condom.
He came back to where I was. Sally lay on the bed with a dreamy look on her face, her eyes hooded, her fair skin flushed.
“Baby, come back and snuggle.”
“No. Coffee?” he asked her, barely sparing her a glance. You’d think she'd take the hint, but Slutty Sally wasn’t known for her IQ.
Sally huffed, “Can’t.” She got up, pulling on a tiny slip of a dress and pulling up her thong.
“Jackie.” She nodded, her lips pursed.
There was no love lost between us. She had been trying to pin Austin down for years, and I antagonised the fuck out of her for it.
She hated that we shared a bed, that he spent most of his time with me. What I had with Austin was platonic, but I let her think otherwise because it was fun to mess with her, especially when she was the reason none of the teachers thought I was worth teaching.
Detention had been my homeroom for the past year, and I had her to thank for it, so I took my opportunities when I had them to get back at her.
She only wanted him because she couldn’t have him, or it was the impressively stacked body that he wore.
Even I drooled over that most of the time.
He worked out every morning on the bar bolted into the roof, and I watched every time.
His arms were impressively veined with a slight bulkiness that looked like Photoshop gold. His full lips, the golden skin- it was my wet dream-Slut Sally’s too.
“Bye, Sally,” I smirked at her as she narrowed her eyes, and Austin walked her out.
He kissed her, and I couldn’t believe she still wanted to leave. If Austin had kissed me like that, I would have instantly forgotten everything else existed.
Sally wasn’t me, though, and she left, heading across the cluttered back yard full of junk. She went out the side gate towards the school that was across the field back there.
Austin came back inside and blew out a breath. “I gotta cut her loose.” He shook his head, and I laughed, pouring us a cup of black coffee each before sitting at the tiny round table with two chairs at the end of the bed.
It was old and wooden and a little wobbly. It had mismatched chairs, but we had given up on having nice things when they just got fucked up by the inevitable fights that broke out every night.
“For the sake of this conversation, I’m going to act like I don’t know she’s a whiny bitch who is trying to lock you down and ask why?” I teased.
He rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee. “She wants me to meet her parents.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t realise you guys were that serious,” I murmured over my cup, ignoring the ache in my chest and what it meant.
“We’re not. I’m fucking her because I can. She thinks because I stick my cock in her that we’re exclusive and together or something.”
“And you’re not?” I checked, telling myself it was just curiosity.
“Fuck no. I don’t date, you know that,” he said before draining his cup in a few gulps and heading into the bathroom, sliding the curtain across.
I heard the shower turn on and sipped my coffee, trying not to imagine him naked in there.
It wasn’t working, so I went to the cupboard and grabbed out my old tobacco tin. I rolled another joint from the weed inside and took a hit, trying to find the calmness again.
I leaned my head back, facing the roof, my eyes closed as I slowed my mind. I had homework to do, and laundry too. I had to get in a run before it got dark. So many things I had to do, and I didn’t want to do any of them.
I did want to go in that tiny shower cubicle with my stepbrother, get to my knees, and show him what a girl like Slut Sally could never do.
I smirked at the thought of blowing his mind that way. I licked my lips and took another hit.
I was still daydreaming moments later when the joint was plucked from my fingers.
My eyes flung open, and I looked up. It was Austin.
He put the joint between his lips, inhaling deeply. I watched, licking my lips, trying not to think about the fact that his lips were pressed where mine had been moments ago.
Austin stood at the back of my chair, then leaned over me, blowing the smoke out the side of his mouth as I parted my lips. He put the joint there between them. I reached up and grabbed it from him.
I stared at him, putting my lips back where his had been. He watched the movement, and my heart raced. The tension between us was so thick sometimes, I couldn’t breathe. This was one of those times.
“Thanks,” he murmured before stepping away, breaking the connection. It was a good thing. One of us had to be strong. I left that part for him because when it came to him, I was weak.
I sat up normally in the chair and watched Austin. He went to the fridge and pulled out a water bottle, taking a sip, wearing only his sweatpants.
I had no idea why that was so attractive, but it was. Especially because he was ripped with tattoos all over his body. Damn, I couldn’t think straight when he wore no shirt. I was half certain that was why he did it.
“So,” he turned to me, closing the fridge, still holding his water, “How was detention?”
I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t go.”
Austin smirked, but it was a dark smirk, one that rarely made an appearance, “And are the rumors true about why you were sent there?”
I scowled. Of course, he had heard the rumors. He hadn’t been to school since he turned eighteen six months ago; he belonged to the Snakes now, and yet he still knew everything that went on there. Especially if I was involved.
I held my hand out for the water he had. He handed it over to me but refused to release it, even when I tugged.
“Are they true, Jackie? Did you kick Mr. Mac in the balls and say ’Fuck off, you perv?’”
I met Austin’s eyes, shrinking back a little at the darkness in them. He didn’t usually have it aimed at me.
I yanked the water free and took a sip, “Yes. Why?”
Austin’s jaw ticked, and he turned away from me. His fists clenched and unclenched before he came back to lean his palms on the table, facing me, “Everyone thought it was a funny joke, but it wasn’t. Was it?”
“He cried, so I’d say it was pretty funny,” I shrugged, ignoring what Austin was trying to get at, which was the truth. But it was a truth that was a part of life where we lived.
“Did he touch you?”
I shrugged and put the water on the table, “Doesn’t matter. He won’t do it again.”
“Again? How many times has he done it?” Austin asked, his voice lowered as he leaned further over the table, looking down at me.
I blew out the last puff of my joint, then met Austin’s demanding glare, “One too many.”
“Where?”
I frowned “Where?”
“Where did that fucker touch you?” Austin snarled, coming around the table. He yanked my chair back and leaned over me.
I smirked and opened my legs wide, brushing my thigh against his on purpose. Only in my torn denim shorts, I ran my hand up the bare skin of my thigh and licked my lips, “Here.”
Austin followed my hand with his eyes, and right before I could go higher with my hand, he grabbed and squeezed it, “We’re not playing those dangerous games tonight, Jackie,” he whispered.
I smiled, taunting him, “I’m just answering your question, Austin.”
