Chapter 5

Kendall

“Yeah, no thanks…”

I’d caught my breath, gotten over the shock of running into my brother’s best friends, and had a few sips of coffee. There was nothing more to do now than slide out the front door and see if any other new rental listings had popped up on the website. Ones that didn’t include portable toilets or idiots from my past. But right as I went to collect my stuff and leave, Barbie grabbed my arm.

“Just give us a second,” she told them, not me, and when I went to splutter out a response, she shot me a warning look. The girl was tiny, doll-like even, but she was freakishly strong. She hauled me down the hall towards the front door, my escape route now in sight, but before I could make a break for it, she stood in front of the exit, hands on her hips. “Don’t be a dickhead.”

“You don’t be a dickhead,” I snapped back, poking her in the shoulder. “Pools and margaritas are not enough of an incentive to make me spend time willingly with these guys.”

“What about revenge?”

I had a temper—that was well documented—but right as I was sucking in a breath to shoot back a response, my brain stuttered.

“Revenge?”

Oh… I liked the sound of that. Revenge conjured images of being the one to short sheet their bed, or greasing their doorknobs with petroleum jelly.

“Revenge,” Barbie confirmed. She peered over my shoulder and down the hall. “I dunno what they did to you when you were a kid, but right now… They seem awfully keen to try and make up for it.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Pretty sure that’s a perfect opportunity for you to even the score a little bit. You’ll be just down the hall.” Her eyes took in each one of the bedroom doors. “They’ll be asleep, with their guards down…”

“This is just you trying to prevent me from crashing on your couch, isn’t it?” I said, arms crossing.

“Sort of.” She shot me an unrepentant grin. “Alan might seem like a mild mannered finance bro.” He didn’t. I could tell by the twinkle in his eye he was just as bad as my bestie. “But he’s a freak in the sheets. I like it loud, I like it hard, I like it in every room of our meagre little apartment, enough to have Mrs Franklin down the hall making noise complaints.” Her smile turned feline as a hectic light danced in her eyes. “She called the cops thinking Alan was killing me, but instead he was just wrecking my vagina.”

“Oh my god, ew…” I said.

“Like dead, but from multiple orgasms, y’know?”

No, I didn’t. It’d been a long time since I’d had a real boyfriend and my ex wasn’t exactly proficient in the O department. I’d be lucky if I had one every third or fourth time we had sex, and when I said something, he’d made clear that I should be grateful he even bothered, pretty much killing that relationship.

“Please don’t start telling me about your orgasms again,” I said quickly.

“But there are so many of them,” she replied, clasping her hands under her chin. “And each one is different, depending on what we’re doing. Like when we role play as teacher and student—”

“Gag.”

“Oh yeah, that happens too.” She fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Sometimes he gets a little too caught up with what he’s doing and then he—”

I slapped my hand over her mouth right as Connor and the others appeared in the hallway.

“So, what’s the verdict, Red?” he said, crossing his arms and looking the two of us over. That nickname… It had my heart racing, pulsing too damn hard in my chest. “Seems like you need a place to stay and…” His eyes slid down me slowly so that I could almost feel his gaze on my skin. That had me frowning slightly, but right as I turned to face him, he finished his sentence. “The Kendall I knew was no coward.”

“Coward?”

I was an adult, capable of having rational, reasonable conversations, but I bit that word out with way too much force.

“She gave as good as she got.” His lips twitched, forming an insolent smile as he looked back at the other two idiots. “Remember when you turned the garden hose on through Finn’s bedroom window?”

I didn’t want to smile, but the muscles in my face had other ideas, remembering exactly how it went down. They had been up late at night playing video games and I’d taken advantage of the open window to send through a stream of water into my brother’s bedroom. Mum was furious when she discovered the saturated beds and bedding, the carpet as well, but I’d just laughed when she tried to punish me and didn’t stop laughing, not even when she grounded me for a week and made me wash all of their bedding.

“You need a place to stay and there’s a nice bedroom you can have through there.” He nodded to a closed door. “Though, there’s a shed outside if that’s more your speed.”

“Ha fucking ha…” I said, then stared each one of them down. “If this is just you looking for another chance to torment me, I’ve gotta say, I’ve upped my prank game over the years. I can give back as good as I get.”

“That right?” God, I’d forgotten that smile. Connor Woods had all the girls sighing when he shot them that same smirk back when we were at school. “I’d like to see you try. So whaddya say, Kendall?” He held out his broad hand and it felt like right then I traced every callus with my eyes. “How about we do a free trial? You move in, see we’re not the same blokes who used to make your life hell, and then if you decide you want to stay, we can negotiate terms from there.”

Free rent… The room behind that door would have to be a cockroach infested cesspit for me to knock that idea back, and somehow, I knew it wouldn’t be. I felt Barbie pull away, ready to convince me, but she needn’t have bothered. Beggars can’t be choosers, and I was one hundred percent a beggar right now. Shit, maybe I could use a bit of the money I would normally use on rent to buy us that tequila to make those margaritas.

But that’s when I had a terrible thought.

“If this is just the biggest prank of all,” I said, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice and failing utterly. “I’ll kill each and every one of you in your sleep. There won’t be enough left to identify you from your dental records.”

I watched the three of them stiffen. Good. Let them be the one feeling the fear right now.

“No pranks,” Connor told me, all seriousness, though was there a little glint in his eye? “Honestly, we should’ve apologised a long time ago for what we did. If you need help right now, then we’re happy to give it.”

I don’t know why I was just standing here, staring them. I didn’t have a choice, because this was the perfect opportunity. To crash somewhere for a while until I worked out what to do next and… I looked the three of them up and down, catching the way they tried to play it cool, all as they edged closer. They say karma is a bitch. Well, so was I.

“OK,” I said, holding out a hand. “You’ve got a deal.”