Imperfect Princess (Modern Princess Collection Book 1) Page 2

  “Too many people know who you are, Thorn. And I don’t think I like that much.”

  Frigid air surrounds us, but my cheeks heat up at the very lack of space between us. “I prefer it when people don’t notice.”

  Kai repositions himself to face me and crooks his finger, summoning me to do the same. We sit, bent knees touching. Two nervous smiles and a pounding heart. He drapes his hoodie over his head and removes his jacket. “I’m not the biggest fan of it either.”

  He drapes the material over my shoulders, then helps me thread my arms through the sleeves. When I wince from the pain, he holds onto the lapels, searching me for an answer. Scanning the fine lines of my face, he reads the encoded secrets like a barcode. He sighs softly as he lowers his gaze to his jacket.

  Both of us watch his hands.

  His thumbs smooth over the soft black material as he summons his next words to the surface. “I can’t keep you all to myself forever.”

  I wish he could. Now my heart beats harshly for a whole different reason. I bite the inside of my lower lip, locking the skin between my teeth, my gaze flickering between his eyes and his lips. Between shaking breaths, I manage an “Oh?” and an anxious smile, my mind reeling with the position of our bodies.

  Face-to-face. Knee-to-knee.

  Oh, so close to mouth-to-mouth.

  He leans in, siphoning the air from my lungs. Still holding onto his jacket—on my body—his gaze hones in on my mouth. The tension in my chest so strong, it rockets the words out of me. “You didn’t have to tell Ledger you knew me.” I deflect the emotions running rampant inside me. “I’m used to being nobody.”

  His hand glides up toward my neck, the pads of his fingers gently gliding over the skin and summoning a low hum from me. It tickles in strange ways.

  “Yes, I did. Ledger thought I was making up the neighbor girl. Wednesday nights used to be when we recorded content for our channel.”

  “Is he mad that you canceled?”

  Cocking his head to the side, he slides his fingers under my hair, gently brushing my cheeks with his hands and dismissing my question. “I don’t really care. You should know by now that I rather spend them with you than him.”

  My eyes widen at his confession, and my lips part slightly, drawing his gaze to them again.

  He cups my cheek, bringing me near and touching our foreheads. “You’re a lot prettier.”

  My instinct is to turn away, but he anticipates this and gently strokes my cheek, begging me to let him in. There’s so much kindness in the tiny gesture that tears nearly drift to the surface.

  “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  “What do I have to tell?” My body aches in protest, reminding me of the many secrets hidden just underneath the layers of cloth and the many more beneath the layers of skin.

  What good does voicing truths do? A shared heavy burden is still a burden, and I like feeling weightless in his presence.

  “Everything…” He slips closer, breaths landing on my trembling lips. His thick blond lashes flutter, and in that same exact instant, our lips touch. And touch again.

  Silk and smooth. Like melting ice.

  They glide over mine, as though one extra year of life has blessed him with skill; my inexperience clearly evident in my ragged breaths. But he doesn’t seem to mind, because he likes my lips. My heartbeat pulsates through them, adding a beat to the melody of his kiss.

  When he tears his lips from mine, his hand falls to my chin, and he tilts it upward. Warm brown eyes to cool blue ones.

  Well, if my glasses hadn’t fogged up.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for a while now.”

  “Thank you,” I mumble out awkwardly as I remove the frame and wipe the lenses on the blanket. “My toes aren’t cold anymore.”

  “You’re so different, Thorn.” Hovering his lips a couple inches away from mine, he says, “Be careful with the Del Rios. They aren’t who you think they are.”

  I don’t even have time to process his remark or ask what he means because his lips crush the worry out of me.

  At least, until I hear the angry scream of Meryl.

  2

  Shard of Glass

  Kai, Present Day

  “VA-NE-SSA!” The word catapults out of my mouth in dangerously broken-up syllables, each one an octave higher.

  Vanessa, my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, whips her head around toward the bathroom door, holding in her hands the only picture I had of the girl who tore my heart up—a picture that was tucked under my bed in a box, nestled beneath a jar of pennies and the crushed rose Thorn used to keep in a first edition fairy-tale book the mobster, Del Rio, had given her.

  “Who is this?” Vanessa growls ridiculously, turning the picture around to show me the face of the girl who still claims a piece of my heart. Thorn’s gorgeous red hair flows to her shoulders in ringlets. Ringlets I used to twirl around my finger when we lay under the stars and roses. Back then, I was a nice guy with a good heart.

  But shit happened.

  “Why are you going through my stuff?” I stomp forward, ready to snatch the picture from her hands and return it to its rightful place, but I veer left and take a seat on the unmade bed, next to the box full of Thorn memories. Snatching the picture from Vanessa’s grasp will do two things: prove it matters to me and probably rip it.

  As I toss my damp towel on the edge of the bed, Vanessa says something under her breath that ends in, “Lame-ass-dipshit-cheater, who can’t even sing.”

  On second thought, with the anger coursing through my veins at the moment, ripping will most definitely happen, and it’s the only photo I have.

  “You think I don’t know you screw girls in the back room of The Reef?”

  “Ledger does,” I correct her. “I’m not a fan of sharing.” And we’ll leave it there. My best friend’s sexual stories are his to tell.

  She slips her phone out of her back pocket as a threat. We’ve been here before. She threatens to do something, I ignore her, and she eventually calms down. This meltdown has become part of a routine I’m growing extremely tired of.

  Me playing at The Reef with the guys on off-days drives her insane. As much as she wants to pretend like everyone worships the ground she walks on, Vanessa is as insecure as they come and the worst kind of daddy’s girl.

  “You know I can have my dad blacklist you in a split second?”

  I’ve heard just about every threat from her, but this one is new.

  “That’s right. My dad designs socks for people who could step all over you and kill your career before it even starts.”

  I meet her haughty self-assured gaze with my own predatory glare, and with a lifted brow, caution her, “Careful, Vanessa.” I’m on edge. I’m always on the damn edge in October. Not that I’m not known for my easygoing demeanor, but this is a hard month for me, and I’m about done with a girl who I can’t even talk to.

  “Careful?” she echoes back, adding in a mock laugh. “Please, do you know who you’re talking to?”

  “Pretty sure my ex-girlfriend, if you don’t drop your fucking tone.” Don’t really care if she’s an heiress to Voight’s empire, or that her fashionista daddy owns half of California. She’s my girlfriend by choice—a choice I can revoke when I damn well please—and a choice she fails to remember exists.

  “Sometimes I wonder why we are still together if you’re going to cheat on me!” she howls. “With this!”

  Why are all the rich girls crazy? She knows damn well I haven’t. I may be an asshole, but I’m not a cheater. Not that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind before, but ideas and actions are two very distinct things.

  For example, I really want to slap some duct tape over her mouth and shut her the hell up, but I’m not reaching for some.

  “I haven’t,” I say in my defense. I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but Vanessa inches me in that direction sometimes. I have yet to find someone as easy to talk to as Thorn, and things like this just make me miss her more
. Everything from the awkward silence she seemed to love to the stilted breaths every time my lips were close to hers. With Thorn, things were simple, even when they were complicated.

  Vanessa, however, is complicated. Simple isn’t in her vocabulary.

  “I saw you sneak the box out last night. AFTER WE HAD SEX!” Vanessa’s insecurity comes out in spades. She waves the picture of Thorn in the air, touching the one thing that matters to me in this room and disrespecting her. “Who the hell is this bitch?”

  My blood boils. To control the words bubbling in my throat, because they aren’t nice, I shut my eyes. I’m going to try and keep my cool until I can hang out with Ledger. Unlike Vanessa, my best friend understands me and what I went through with Thorn. Through anger and therapy, tears and pain, he’s always been by my side. It made our friendship stronger.

  Vanessa’s upper lip curls at my silence, and her nostrils flare slightly as she peers at Thorn again. The picture was dated on the back. It was of her on her fifteenth birthday, almost five years ago. Her makeup was done, and she looked so pretty it hurts to remember.

  “Was she your high school girlfriend?”

  No, but only because she left before I could ask her. She wasn’t my first kiss, but she was the first girl I ever cared about, and maybe the only one I really cared for, aside from my mom.

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Vanessa, it’s really early, and I don’t want to deal with your shit today.”

  “It’s noon!” she squeals. “You missed class. I walked over to the Keane building after my class to ask about the Glass Ball, and you weren’t there.” She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out two long, rectangular tickets with gold and blue embellishments and slams them on my counter.

  “You came to check on me?” I let that roll around in my head a moment and avoid the Glass Ball conversation. I had no intention of going to class today, but she didn’t know that. My plans for the day don’t include her.

  “Yes, kind of. You don’t normally cut this class.”

  She’s right. If I want to be serious in the industry, I need all the help I can get in composition.

  “I always have lunch with the team after class.” I crook my head to the side, realizing exactly why she came in here. “Be honest, you wanted to rummage through my private things,” I correct the fashion princess. I live in the Rugger Loft. Any of the guys could have let her in… if she came at the right time.

  “What if I did?” She props one hand on her hip. Carelessly holding Thorn’s photograph in the air again, she smashes her lips together and sways her head. “Did you think you could hide the ugly chick under your bed the whole time? Do you go home to see her?”

  Letting the ugly comments slide.

  “How does someone who likes me… like her?”

  I prefer the plastic-less.

  “Her nose is crooked, and her eyes are shaped weird.”

  They weren’t, but Vanessa continues on, finger flicking the corner of the photograph with every point she makes. “What the hell is this red stuff on her neck and chin?”

  A birthmark.

  “Her bone structure is just…”

  I mute Vanessa. She’s pointing out all the things about Penelope Thornton that I loved. She may not have been the hottest girl at school, but she mattered. She was thin, mostly because she didn’t eat much. Later on, she had told me it was because she preferred to avoid Meryl and all the common areas in the house.

  “The nerd’s not even cute!” Vanessa unmutes herself.

  She was cute to me, I think as I look up at Vanessa. Instead, I find myself staring at Thorn’s wide cheekbones, which clearly define her face, offset by a narrow chin that boxed in her jawline. She was different, unique. Her kind of beauty only comes from a perfect mix of heritages—Asian, Mayan, Irish, Italian, Hispanic—all came together to make a stunning girl. This nuance made her quite a stir in high school. We used to discuss her ethnicity during lunch.

  Her eyes did it for most of us, even Ledger. Behind those big coke-bottle glasses, were eyes the color of aquamarine—a light mix of ultramarine blue and green, streaked with bursts of yellow, according to the girls. To me, they were ice and sun, like flames on reflected glass, complimenting her vibrant hair and snow-white skin.

  The girls thought her red hair was dyed to look like the copper color of a new penny and that the curls were from something called an acid perm. The guys commented on her thin lips and how she barely had a Cupid’s bow, but mostly, they were fascinated by her mouth. Since she had a small chin and a heart-shaped face, her mouth seemed larger than most. Being the juvenile dipshits they were, many liked to comment on the perks of having that particular feature.

  I almost taught them the perks of having a black eye, but showing interest would have only made her more of a target, and she hated the spotlight. Penelope Rose Thornton was perfectly content being the thorn rather than the rose.

  “I said,” Vanessa emphasizes with a roll of her neck. “Was she like your ex or something?”

  Even though I had tuned most of this conversation out, I was over it at her first word. “Are you done?”

  “Am I done?” she echoes back, like a girl with way too much confidence in a shaky relationship.

  Everyone is replaceable, except Thorn. No one has been able to replace her, especially not Vanessa Voight.

  “Oh, I’m so done.” The way she stretches out the word ‘so’ irks me. “You, however, don’t seem to be done with this girl?”

  I hate the way her pitch elevates, getting thinner and louder the angrier she gets. Borderline banshee shrieks.

  “Why were you looking through that stupid box last night? Did you meet up with her this summer when you stayed here?”

  “Every. Damn. Time,” I mumble and lie back on the bed, running my palm over my face. It does little to wipe my mood away. “Can we stop talking about this, Vanessa? We’ve been back at school for a couple of months now, and all we do is fight.” Luckily, it’s usually followed by sex, or I would’ve dumped her weeks ago. Three years is a long time with the same girl, especially when it’s the wrong girl.

  “We don’t talk about anything anymore. We barely even hang out. If you’re not at practice, you’re on that stupid guitar, or with Ledger, ignoring me.”

  I stare at the white paint on the ceiling and sigh loudly. “All you do is yell.”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  “Vanessa,” I warn and shut my eyes. What am I fighting to hold on for? “This isn’t working.”

  A strangled squeal comes from her lips as she wedges herself between my legs and peers down her nose at me, like she looks down at everyone else. “You want to go there?” She nudges my knee with her leg, demanding my attention.

  My eyes swerve toward her, rolling on the way. “We’re already here, aren’t we?” I say carelessly; the state of our relationship no longer makes a difference to me. “You keep instigating.”

  “Because you traded a summer in the Bahamas with my family for some stupid weekly gig at a shit bar. I was so damn bored all the time, missing you.”

  “The Reef is not a shit gig,” I growl out and rest my forearm on my forehead to shield my eyes from the overhead lights.

  Plus, I know for a fact she did not miss me. Only one of us understood the definition of faithful. She has no idea that I know though. “You’re obviously still pissed… It’s October. How many more months are you going to be on my case for not tagging along on your family vacation?”

  “You used to always come,” she pouts. “Between your voice lessons, practice, and your games, you barely have time for me. We never see each other.”

  “Yet here you are.” I prop myself up on my elbows. It’s time to break up with her. Our time away from each other proved one thing: I like space. “The team, the band, the music—they make me happy.”

  “But I don’t?” She steps back and glances at the picture. “She does?”

  “She did,” I conf
ess.

  Her lips twist to the side, and before I can stop her, she rips Thorn in pieces, pivoting on the ball of her foot to throw them in my face. A piece of Thorn’s red hair gets caught on my damp skin. I pluck the paper off my abs and sit up straight, heat flooding my cheeks and burning through any kind of nice filter. The tightness in my chest mangles my thoughts into angry words. All I see is rage with legs.

  “You’re an asshole,” she adds to the sting, and everything I had been holding back erupts between us.

  “Why? Because when I was fifteen, I met this girl.” I hold some of the pieces of the shattered photograph in the palm of my hand, squeezing them. “You don’t even know who she is.”

  Vanessa rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t need a recap of how you lost your V-card.”

  “I never slept with Thorn.” The tidbit spurs Vanessa’s anger, twisting her normally plastic face into a wrinkled mess.

  “So, you’re pining over her?” She grabs her cell phone off the floor, drawing my attention to Ledger’s side of the room. “We’ve been together since freshman year, and you prefer this?” Her hands point to the torn photograph.

  “This?” I stand up, torn pieces falling to my feet. I snatch the jar of pennies out of the box, recalling the day I had exchanged twenty dollars in pennies. “Do you know why I have this jar of pennies?”

  “Penny-whores?”

  The heat in my chest explodes into a caustic string of words: “The only whore in my life is you.”

  She crosses her arms in front of her chest and shifts her weight onto her left foot while bobbing her head and poking her tongue on the inside of her cheek. After a sharp inhale, she points at me with her phone. “I’m going to let that slide.”

  “Because it’s true?” She avoids any talk about her activities in the Bahamas, but I’ve seen the pictures online. I dip my head to her phone, cluing her in on a little piece of information: she blocked Ledger and me from the album, but that doesn’t mean other people didn’t see it. “Serious girls don’t let random guys pose for photos with hands near their crotch.”