SCANDALOUS

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE MAKING me do this,” I moaned, knocking Bane’s shoulder with mine. Dark sunglasses covered the better part of my face, shielding my pumpkin-sized puffy eyes. I wore one of his surfing tank tops and short shorts, because I hadn’t had time to grab anything from my parents’ mansion before my father changed the locks and essentially kicked me out without giving me the chance to grab my stuff.

Bane and I stood on his mother’s wide porch. The rustic material and elaborate, colorful garden were oddly reassuring. Someone who lived in such a warm, inviting place couldn’t be the type to hurt me, right?

“It’s been a long time coming. Especially now when Rexroth is busy playing house with his ex.” Bane pushed his blond hair up into a bun, rapping the door loudly. I thought it was weird that he didn’t walk in, but Bane was a master when it came to strange relationships. Considering he’d moved out of the house at eighteen and not gone to college, I figured he liked his space, and maybe his mother did, too.

“She’s not his ex, and I have no evidence they’re playing house together.” I sniffed, rubbing my tired eyes beneath the shades. Seeing Val there had hurt like a thousand violent deaths, but I tried to tell myself that this was what was best for Luna. And Trent…if he wanted to get back with her, I couldn’t blame him. I knew nothing about relationships, nothing about being a parent, and next-to-zero about how to keep a family united.

The door swung open, and the person on the other end knocked my breath out of my lungs.

Bane stepped in, oblivious to the fact the rug, once again, had been pulled out from under my feet.

“Gidget, this is my mom, Sonya. Sonya, this is Gidget, also known as Edie Van Der Zee.”

Sonya.

The redheaded woman Trent had been having sex with when I’d walked into his office. To get back at me for allegedly having sex with Bane. Her son. I didn’t know whether I should feel horrified or a

“Oh,” she said, the word escaping from her mouth barely audible. I believed Trent when he’d said he was no longer seeing her, but it didn’t make it any less awkward. I wondered if she knew about him and me. If she resented me for it. If she’d even want to help me.

“What are you waiting for, Gidget? The fucking Pope? Come on in,” Bane grunted, making his way through the tiled hallway to the kitchen at the end of it and throwing the fridge open. He took out two cans of beer, like we weren’t eighteen and underage, and sauntered over to the open-plan living room. I stayed on the threshold, unable to do so much as take my shades off.

“Edie,” Sonya whispered urgently, opening the door wider. “It’s okay. You can trust me. I’ve worked as a child psychologist for fifteen years now. Forget what you saw that day. This will not affect you or your brother.”

My brother. That’s right. She was the reason why I’d seen him that Sunday.

Gingerly, I took a step in. Bane was already in the living room, cracking the beers open, The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” blasting from the speakers. Sonya and I walked like two stiff figures toward the couch, and I tried to cough away the ball of shame and jealousy building in my throat.

“Wash it with a beer.” Bane flung his long legs over an ottoman, dropping to a shabby, something-from-Friends, purple couch. I glanced at Sonya, who gave me a polite smile.

“You’ve had a long week, I hear.”

I downed the can in a couple long gulps and threw my head onto one of the pillows, closing my eyes for a moment. Thank you.

Sonya laced her fingers in front of me, her legs crossed, giving me her undivided attention. She was dressed to kill, and my feelings toward her were at war. I wanted to dislike her, but how could I when she was hell-bent on helping me, and being so goddamn nice?

“Enjoyed that beer?” She gri

“Did you know that in Europe it is legal to drink from the age of eighteen? I always preferred the Russian way better.” Her smile was so big it almost felt like a wink.

Roman ‘Bane’ Protsenko had an interesting mother. She’d run away from Russia with him, giving him freedom, and he, in exchange, lived his life the fullest.

And she was happy for him. Content.

How odd.

“Now, tell me all about your brother and your father’s threats regarding him. I want you to start from the begi

And I did.

I poured my heart out, telling her about how Theo was never loved, not really, by either of our parents. How Jordan had bribed his way out of being a parent, always taking the shortcut, always placing Theodore in institutions and hopping from city to city every holiday so we wouldn’t have to visit Theo.

I didn’t know what was more horrific—reciting the years in which Theo was neglected, saying it out loud and realizing how bad it sounded, or seeing their faces as I confided in them. Sonya looked like she was about to cry, and even Bane turned down the music at some point and stared at me like his world had turned a shade darker.

When I was done, Sonya cleared her throat, looking down at her thighs. “Roman, please step out of the room.”

If Bane was shocked, he didn’t show it, taking his beer and sauntering over toward the door. “I’ll be on the porch, smoking my ass off after that depressing story.”

When the door closed behind him, Sonya met my eyes. “Trent didn’t offer to help you?”

“I…” I tapped my lips, thinking about it for a moment. How much did she know? How much did I want her to know? Screw it. It wasn’t about my summer affair with an older man. This was about Theo. “We got involved for a while and he helped me with paying for Theo’s facility, but nothing more than that. And I doubt he’d wa

Sonya uncrossed her legs, took another sip of her vodka, and pressed it to her cheek. Her eyes were glazed over, and for a moment, they held the same look as they had when Trent had entered her. Drunk. I shuddered into Bane’s shirt.

“Why?” she asked softly.

I blinked. “Why what?”

“Why did you end it?”

“Why do you assume I’m the one who ended it?” I wanted to get up and do something, anything, but the need to find out if she knew something I didn’t ignited and burst into flames in me.

Sonya put the glass on the table, looking up at me with a sad smile. “Because he never would.”

“How do you know?” I hated myself for asking. It shouldn’t have mattered to me. He needed to focus on his family.

Sonya looked up at me. “Because, Edie, he is in love with you.”