Chapter 27

Kendall

The flour bomb left my fingers without meaning to. It sailed through the air, trailing flour from the tears in the tissue, only to hit him smack on the chest. The white flour exploded, leaving a white star on his work shirt, and for a second, I just stared.

“I love you, Kendall Kennedy. I fucking love you.”

My hands slapped down on that same chest, shoving him farther than I should’ve been able to. The guy was freaking massive. The boys at school could never bring him down when tackling him on the footy field, but somehow I was sending him stumbling back? I moved forward, shoving him again and again, that slap of my hands, his movement, the way his eyes went wide each time becoming a drug. I couldn’t help but go back for more.

“Kendall—”

“No.”

“Baby—”

“Don’t call me that.” I moved restlessly, my legs feeling like springs, my arms shaking with the power throbbing through them as my finger stabbed into the air. “Never call me that.”

“Darl—”

“Nope.”

“Sweet—”

“Are you fucking stupid? No, Gage.”

And there it was, that shit-eating grin he sported each time he was about to do something cruel to me, but this prank was the worst of all.

“Love—”

“NO!”

Someone had been so very helpful, setting me up an arsenal in the kitchen, and when his lips started moving, I knew I had to shut him up.

More flour bombs were neatly piled up, so I grabbed a couple of them, pegging them at him, both our eyes going wide when one hit his face. I instinctively flinched back when he raised a hand to brush it off, blinking to get the flour out of his eyes, but rather than grab his own bomb, he just grinned, his teeth almost as white as the flour.

“Hone—”

“Good idea,” I snapped, grabbing the squeezy bottle of honey and then squishing it with everything I had.

That’s when the magnitude of what I was doing hit me like a gut punch. Thick golden liquid came pouring out, slow enough for me to think better of what I was doing. I went to pull back, but he just tilted his head to one side, and his smile widened, the challenge there obvious.

“Gorg—”

Honey matted his hair, soaking into the dark strands and then started to roll down his face. Rather than wipe it away, he let it fall and reached out, so slowly—as if time had grown for me as viscous as the honey. I knocked his hand away easily, slamming my arm into one his wrist, then the other, before rallying. The boys often told me they were doing shitty things to me to teach me a lesson. Well, now was the only time I understood that.

Because when I grabbed a sauce bottle and a mustard one, then squeezed them to send ropes of seasonings over him, I felt a vicious kind of pleasure, rather than being shit scared. I was showing Gage the error of his ways.

My lips twitched as I saw the sauce splattered on his shirt, his pants, the beautiful counter Connor wanted kept spotlessly clean, and then I grinned. The plastic bottles were left to clatter on the floor, mostly empty now.

“Angel—”

Honey dripped from his hair and into the flour on his face, and he left a red and yellow footprint stained with condiments behind as he stepped closer, ready to put his arms around me, but I dodged to one side, snatching the tub of peanut butter and then darting away to unscrew the lid, tossing it behind me before shoving my fingers into the tub. It’d been left out and was warm to the touch, especially when I slapped that handful against his face. He looked like someone had taken a big shit on his face, and that made me feel so much better, right up until his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

Now was the time when the tables were turned, I felt that in my heart, which was now beating rabbit fast. I surveyed the mess I’d made with a growing sense of horror, knowing he’d make me pay twice, three times over. I flinched, jerking against his grip when he grabbed the mayo bottle, as if that could help me right now, but it couldn’t. Despite his hands being slick with sauce, and mustard ,and honey, he held me fast. I watched the mayo bottle come closer, sure that the thick white liquid is going to hit my skin, but instead, he pushed it into my empty hand, and then he brought it closer, only to squirt the contents of it down the front of his shirt. I stared, he stared, and then when he had a bulging pot belly of mayonnaise, he looked up at me and laughed.

And that’s when my heart broke.

I couldn’t terrify him with pranks like he did me. I glanced around the beautiful house and realised I couldn’t wreak havoc in his life, trash it like he had Mum and Dad’s. I couldn’t bring him to his knees, just like I’d fantasised about so many times.

He was letting me do this because he could have a shower afterwards and wash it all away. Someone would buy more condiments, replace the honey and the peanut butter, and it’d be like none of this happened. He was Teflon coated. Everything would just slide off him, whereas I was cast iron. Unseasoned, unprepared, everything stuck to my surface and there it burned.

This Gage, he was a lot more perceptive than the old one, his smile fading when I pulled free. His eyes narrowed as he watched me shake my head while the realisation hit me.

I couldn’t ruin his damn life like he had mine.

“Kendall, love—”

“Don’t.” My tone was flat, almost quiet this time. I couldn’t make him stop calling me all of those dumb words, but I could make clear how I felt about them. “You don’t get to call me…” I sighed. “Anything. Anything at all, Gage.”

“I know we fucked up.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, because he didn’t know. He didn’t. If he did, there was no way he could think that this was a plausible direction for either of our lives, so I knew then I had to correct him.

“Fucked up?” My lips twisted into a smile so bitter my mouth filled with bile. “Fucked up? I don’t think those two words encapsulate what the three of you did. I was going to be a baker, get an apprenticeship at a place that would’ve set me up for life.”

He blinked then, but not in shame or anger but confusion.

“I know. Connor had to beg his dad to set that up. He promised to give away his apprenticeship and go and do engineering at university like his father wanted.”

“Why?” I’d wanted to ask that at the time, but I’d known how useless that would be. The three of them would’ve just laughed in my face then stared at the mess I’d created, cakes splattering Mum’s cupboards, thinking this was the best joke ever. “Why would he go to all of that trouble?”

“We—”

It wasn’t his time to speak. I’d needed to get this shit out of me, something I’d known for some time, but never felt ready to unleash it. No, it was the knowledge of how it would go over if I did that stopped me.

But I didn’t care what Gage thought right now. He wanted to tell me he loved me? Then he could explain this.

“Someone switched the salt for the sugar,” I told him, expecting to see self-congratulation, something smug or even glee in his expression. Instead, the confusion just deepened, and that made me wonder. Was this his biggest prank? Was their offer to let me stay here just one big game to them? They liked to try to break me, and I’d just walked back into their lair like a stupid little bunny, not realising the axe was about to fall.

“I checked the sugar religiously because Finn had switched it out more than once, but I was in such a damn flap about getting everything perfect before the owner of the bakery came around. I didn’t taste the batters, just trusting that my recipe would taste as good as it always had before.”

My teeth clenched together, remembering that moment before I forced myself to relax my jaw.

“How fucking wrong I was. I made everything right, spent the whole damn day decorating cakes sweetened with salt, not sugar, and when they came…” My chest felt too tight and my smeared fingers raked down my sternum. “When they came…”

“That’s what fucking happened?” I’d imagined this moment so many damn times, but never like this. Gage smeared with half the pantry’s contents, dripping onto the granite floor as he took a step closer. “That’s why you left? Jesus, Kendall…”

His hands slapped down on my arms, digging in now, holding me right where I was. Being helpless again, of jerking against his hold and not being able to get free, had me snarling like an animal. My heart beat like a rabbit’s, but now I was like one caught in a snare, jerking, while the snare bit tighter.

“We didn’t fuck with your cooking ever.” His gaze burned me like a brand, his words like slaps to the face. “Remember? We liked eating what you made too fucking much to screw with that, but also… Your mum made clear that if we screwed with her pantry and your cooking, we were no longer welcome in the house.”

His fingers were sticky, repellent as they stroked down the side of my face, but I couldn’t stop him from touching me.

“But maybe this will convince you. We had a plan.” I stared balefully up at him, remembering their ‘plans.’ “Not like that. Connor fought hard to get you that apprenticeship because… We’d all be at technical college together, doing our apprenticeships and… Then we could make clear how we felt about you. This house.” He glanced around, and I was relieved and disappointed to no longer be the focus of his attention. “The business, everything, it was supposed to be for…”

His shuddering breath, that was what broke through the hard shell I’d encased myself within. He was a prick, but a great actor he was not. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard.

“It was supposed to be for you, Kendall. All of it, everything we dreamed of for the future was for you. That was why we didn’t mess with your apprenticeship interview or anything. We wanted you to get that job just as much as you did.”

He stepped back then, and I wavered on my feet, unable to support myself properly. My hand slapped down on the counter, clinging to the edge, my brain racing as one of the key pillars of my life was shattered beneath me. But as I stared at the hectic swirl of the marble pattern, I saw it.

If they hadn’t messed with the sugar, who had?

The answer was an easy one, Finn’s frantic expression that day taking on a whole new cast. He’d looked as guilty as hell, but he’d led me to believe it was because he was ashamed of what his friends had done rather than…

Admit his own fucking guilt.

I knew my brother. Going so far as to hurt my chances of getting an apprenticeship I wanted with every breath in my body was beyond the scope of his shittiness. He was like a small kid pulling the wings off flies. He didn’t know it was fucking agony being the fly, because he was too caught up in his own fun. Finn would’ve swapped out the sugar some time before. I hadn’t baked anything for a while before the big interview, too preoccupied with school concluding to have the time, so he… I jerked away from Gage, storming back down the hallway to find my phone.

I pulled up my brother’s contact and put a call through, hearing the ring buzz in my ear until I got his message bank.

“You need to fucking call me,” I growled down the line, then threw my phone down on the bed.

Only to find Gage looming in the doorway.

I wondered if they felt a rush of guilt after they pulled a prank on me as I took his state in. It’d made so much sense a moment before, to slather him in condiments, but now… My breath was coming in too fast, my chest feeling tight as regret hit me hard.

What if he wasn’t the enemy?

What if he wasn’t the one to hurt me so damn badly?

What if instead he…?

Gage deserved a face full of flour, a head dripping with honey, my mind rationalised, but… I saw the way he was blinking, the whites of his eyes red and irritated by whatever I’d thrown at him.

There was something I wanted so damn much after the dust settled with my brother and his friends, something that would have made it all better, allowed me to laugh right along with them. I watched my hand rise, my head shaking as I offered it to him despite myself.

“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”