Dancing With Lies (Barre To Bar Book 1) Read online

  “I love you too, Mom. Have fun tonight.” She pecked her mom’s cheek again and headed out the back door to get her bike. She loved her parents, but she liked the independence of being on her bike, and it was their anniversary. True love deserved a night off from kids.

  3

  Chloe was on her way out to June’s again a few days later, her mom’s watch on her arm. Her mom didn’t complain when Chloe snuck into her bedroom to ‘borrow’ jewelry without permission, because Chloe always made it back in time to replace whatever she’d taken before her mom woke up the next morning. She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d taken the watch earlier. She’d looked it up and discovered it cost over a hundred grand so it wasn’t like the earrings or necklaces she sometimes pilfered, but she knew that all she really wanted to do was show the watch to June. They’d talked about it a few times since her parent’s anniversary. She’d bring it back, safe and sound in the morning.

  She walked out to the barn behind the house, a barn that cost nearly as much as the house, and straddled the bike she kept there. She’d taken out her iPhone and had David Gray playing through her headphones. She loved most of his music, but one song in particular made her think of nights like this, cool nights full of hope and mystery.

  She’d had crushes on boys before, but she’d never expected to feel like this about Liam. He was June’s older brother and had always been a nuisance, but then one day he wasn’t. She’d smiled at him in a way she’d never smiled before and she’d seen a look on his face…uncertainty? Interest? He’d almost kissed her beside his family’s pool that evening, which would have been her first real kiss, and she’d felt everything swell with what she thought could only be love. Lincoln, known as Link by his friends, came out and interrupted before their lips could meet though. He was such an asshole, she thought with a frown. Lincoln always got in the way.

  Chloe let thoughts of the other boy go as she turned down the driveway that would lead to June’s house, her thoughts back on Liam. When she’d heard David Gray sing ‘This Year’s Love’ it made her remember that night he’d almost kissed her and she knew what she felt must be love.

  Since then, there’d been no more attempts at stolen kisses, only promises made and notes left in a birdhouse on the edge of his family’s property. The green and white birdhouse was perched on a fence, a few rows down from their mailbox and it was the hiding spot where they left their notes to each other when he was home. The brothers sometimes came home on the weekends, just because they liked to show off for their friends, Chloe thought, since they always came home with a crowd of boys.

  She stopped at the birdhouse, pulled off the roof, and felt around inside. It was dark already so she couldn’t see what was in there, but she felt a note and a small box. He’d sent her a gift, she thought with delight. That made up for all the times he reminded her they had to keep their romance a secret. She didn’t think her parents would mind at all if she was dating Liam, but he seemed to think they would, so she did as he wished.

  With nervous fingers, she opened the note and pulled out her phone to light it up enough to see what he’d written. His handwriting was tight but neat, small but somehow still romantic. She giggled as she read his words, and nearly burst with glee when he wrote about how beautiful her full lips were, about how much he dreamed about kissing her. Which was why he’d sent her the small pink lipstick case. Dior lip balm, the kind June wore, one of her favorites. Chloe could have gotten her own, but she loved borrowing it from June and savoring the taste. He’d bought her a tube of her own so that he’d almost know what it was like to kiss her and so that her lips would be soft for him when he finally did get to kiss her.

  A mosquito bit at her and Chloe jumped, wondering how long she’d stood there reading and re-reading the note Liam sent her. He was so sweet and romantic. He could have emailed her, but she loved seeing his handwriting, knowing he’d written these words just for her. It let her know just how special she was to him.

  She touched the letter one last time, had one more sniff of the present he’d left for her, then tucked it all securely in her backpack. There was a huge smile on her face as she left the birdhouse behind and rode up to the front door of the three-story brick mansion. She wasn’t impressed by the house, hers was older and bigger, but she did love how it was always alive with sound and life.

  Her bladder spasmed as she made her way in the door and she decided to head for the bathroom before she went up to June’s room. She didn’t worry about whether anyone knew she was there, she and June were such fixtures at the other’s house that it wasn’t necessary to knock or announce themselves anymore. She was humming along with the next David Gray song on her phone when she made it to the bathroom and pushed the closed door open.

  Her jaw dropped when she saw Lincoln standing there, fussing with his hair, rubbing gel into the dark locks to get it to lie just right. He didn’t react when she opened the door, he just stood there, his swimmer’s body on display for anybody to see. Chloe couldn’t move, her eyes were caught by the muscles in his stomach, by the swell of his ass, and the strong, broad shoulders that could hold the world at bay if he so chose.

  “Chloe? What are you doing?” He turned at last, a smirk on his face that she could have slapped off if she wasn’t busy trying to hide her flaming cheeks. He’d caught her staring! “Like what you see, honey?”

  “As if, you asshole. Holy fuck, I just needed the bathroom you stupid ass! I hate you so much!” Chloe slammed the door on him and hurried off to the next bathroom before she embarrassed herself even more by wetting her own pants.

  That was one of the reasons she hated Lincoln so much: he was always so full of himself, like he owned everything and everyone around him, just because he was the boy all the girls wanted to date back in high school. And he always had to pick on her. Of all the people in the world, why did he have to be June’s brother?

  As she rushed off, she couldn’t get how hot Lincoln was out of her head. His skin had been smooth and tan and so silky looking she’d wanted to reach out and touch him. But that was wrong, she was in love with Liam, she admonished herself.

  So why couldn’t she get the sight of Lincoln off her mind for the rest of the night? She had to wonder as she and June listened to the latest music Chloe had downloaded to her phone and then re-watched an episode of their favorite TV show ‘Pretty Little Liars’. And although Chloe and June normally told each other everything, they hadn’t talked about that day at her house and Chloe hadn’t told her best friend about the notes she exchanged with Liam. That was her secret. Kind of like the secret she now had about hot Lincoln was without his clothes. She’d seen far more when he turned around to face her with that smirk, and he was so…big. Everywhere.

  “Are you staying the night, Chloe?” June asked as the show ended and she stretched with a yawn.

  “No, I’m heading home. Mom wants to plan out some party or other and wants me to be there.” Chloe rolled her eyes to let her friend know what an absolute drag that was.

  “Bummer. Well, I’ll see you next time then.” June hugged her friend before she plopped back down to her bed and sighed. “PS: I love you.”

  “PS, I love you, June,” Chloe answered with a smile, picked up her backpack, and headed out of June’s bedroom. Lincoln was there in the hallway and he stopped walking the minute she left the room.

  “You heading home?” He asked nonchalantly, as if it didn’t matter what she was doing.

  Why had he asked her then? She wondered. “Yeah, assmunch. What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing really. I’m just heading out to a party. Want a lift home? You shouldn’t be out on your bike this late.”

  “I guess.” She mumbled. It was colder outside now, and it would take him five minutes to drop her off. “Whatever.”

  “Fine, get your bike.”

  She put it in the trunk of his car and then got in.

  “I can’t believe you still haven’t learned to drive, Chloe. Failed the test
too many times already?” He asked as he started the car while she put her seatbelt on.

  Her jaw dropped for the second time that night. “Are you kidding me, Lincoln? I’ve just been too busy, if it’s any of your business.”

  “It’s not, I guess. I just can’t believe any girl with half a brain hasn’t got her driver’s license by eighteen. That must suck hard to be that lame.” He grinned over at her in a way that would be disarming if she wasn’t ready to spit feathers at him.

  “You can kiss my ass, Lincoln Young. Right on the crack, buddy.” She tucked her arms around her chest and turned her head away from him.

  She didn’t normally swear much but he brought it out in her. Although one of her favorite sayings was holy fucking moly, she only ever said it out of hearing of her parents. They were kind of old-fashioned about her swearing.

  “Language, Miss Abshire, language.” He teased her with a hint of laughter in his voice.

  “Fuck you.” She spit back, her rage boiling in her head now, her face a mask of anger. She was rude and she wasn’t sorry about it. She had to make sure that Lincoln stayed away from her, or she stayed away from him. Ever since she realized that she somehow always seemed to stumble into him, and when she did, her eyes would disobediently roam his sculpted body.

  He stopped at the end of the long driveway and waited for a car to pass on the road. “Do you want to kiss me, Chloe?”

  The question left her so stunned she was certain her tongue had gone dead. “Why the fuck would I want to kiss you?”

  “For practice? I’ve seen the way you look at Liam, you’re dying for him to take you in his arms and kiss you.” He teased and she tried to ignore the sting of shame his words caused.

  But maybe he was right, she thought with a sudden teenage fear of seeming inexperienced when she did finally kiss Liam. Liam! Damn, she’d actually forgotten about him while she thought about kissing Lincoln. Had Liam been in the house? She hadn’t checked after she walked in on Lincoln. She hadn’t even thanked him for the lip balm, and now here she was, contemplating kissing his step-brother. She’d always hated the other brother, hadn’t she?

  Her head swiveled back to him as he kept the car braked at the turnoff and saw his eyes were on her. He was handsome. And he did smell good. And his lips were so perfectly…kissable. But she wanted to kiss Liam, not Lincoln.

  “That’s what I thought, you’re scared to kiss a real man.” He chuckled about to pull out.

  She was about to blurt out that she’d never kissed anyone, a boy or a real man as he’d put it as she’d always been too busy, too enthralled with her dancing, until Liam caught her eye. Instead of speaking though, she surprised them both by leaning over and taking the dare in his voice. She pressed her lips to his and gasped when she felt how good they felt. He took that as an invitation, and she shivered with pleasure as his tongue slipped over her bottom lip to tease at hers. She gasped again, with keen awareness of how this wasn’t supposed to be happening, but also with how she didn’t want it to stop either.

  She leaned into the kiss, her nose pressed to his face, her hands wrapped in the cloth of his shirt over his chest somehow, holding him to her like she never wanted to let him go. As if her life depended on him continuing to kiss her. When he slanted his head, brought his hand up to cup her cheek, she couldn’t help but moan with how right it all felt. He grasped at her arms, slid his other hand up into her hair, licked a quick trail down her neck, all before she could protest, then brought his mouth back to hers.

  She’d press deeper into him, beg him to do more, to show her more of this wondrous drug he’d just introduced her to, but the seatbelt caught her. She jerked back into her seat, suddenly aware of where they were and who she was with. This was so wrong. But kissing him had been so wild, had awakened something…alive inside of her.

  “Well, I guess you don’t need much teaching then.” He chuckled, obviously pleased with himself.

  “You could have chewed a breath mint or something, Lincoln, that was awful.” She snarled, embarrassed and wanting to hurt him.

  He didn’t say anything, he just chuckled and shook his head as he drove onto the road. They were both silent as he headed towards her house and when she saw a glow in the night sky, an orange glow mixed with the swirl of smoke, she went very still. Her house was the only one down that road. Was her house on fire? It couldn’t be, why should it be? She’d only left a couple of hours before.

  Lincoln pulled into the drive to her house but he had to stop before they got anywhere close. There were emergency vehicles lined up ahead of them and the swirl of multicolored lights nearly blinded her.

  “What the fuck?” She heard Lincoln whisper but she was already unbuckling her seatbelt, ready to run. He stopped her when he grabbed at her hand, jerking on the seatbelt. “Don’t, Chloe. Let me help you. Just stay calm. I’m sure everything is fine.”

  “But...” She brought her eyes up to his, tried to blink away the tears, but couldn’t. “Okay.”

  Lincoln undid the seatbelt and she waited, too afraid to move, for him to open the door and help her out. She didn’t want to get out though, something told her the minute she got close enough, her entire world would explode. “I can’t, Lincoln. I can’t get out.”

  “You can, Chloe. Come on now, baby, get out for me.”

  She shook her head again but found her legs moving and then felt her body as she pushed out of the car. She saw several police cars and was glad when Lincoln headed toward them. She didn’t want to focus on the inferno that was once her home. That had housed her family. Did it still house her parents and Aunt Katie? Were they in there?

  Lincoln was about to interrupt someone who was talking to one of the police officers, but Chloe recognized the man with the neck tattoo and pulled at his hand, still wrapped around hers. Her eyes were huge as she looked up at him and then ducked behind him to hide, instinct taking over.

  “Chloe, what are you doing?” He hissed but she punched him lightly in the ribs and pulled at him as she backed away.

  They could still hear what the man was saying to the policeman and Chloe slowed as his words registered.

  “Yeah, Mr. Abshire was deep in debt, you know? He owes a lot of money to the mafia and, well, I guess he had a plan to get himself out of debt but didn’t get him and the wife out in time. That’d be my guess, detective. Mr. Abshire himself set that fire.” Neck Tattoo said, and Chloe’s world imploded. Her parents were dead?

  Her mind went blank as she stood there for what felt like an eternity. Did they say her parents were dead? How could it be? Did Neck Tattoo have anything to do with it? Her legs went numb as he turned to look her way, sending chills down her spine. Luckily Lincoln was there to pick her up before she fell to the ground and he rushed her back to the car. “Chloe? What the fuck is going on?”

  “Get me out of here, Lincoln, please.” She only started to breathe again when Lincoln started the car and backed up before anyone had really noticed them there.

  4

  “No, don’t take me back to your house. They’ll know I might be there.” Chloe wasn’t sure if the mafia would know about her or not, but she was afraid they might, and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to June’s house. She was cold at the moment, too cold to let pain and anguish in, even if tears were slipping out from under her eyelids like hot reminders of what she’d just lost. Everything. Everything was gone.

  For a moment, a streetlight caught the glint of her mother’s watch and she realized not everything was gone. She slipped open her backpack and unclipped the watch to let it fall into the bag gently. What was she supposed to do now?

  “Who, Chloe? What the hell are you talking about? What was the guy saying about your dad and the mafia? That shit’s not true. Your dad would never…” But he had to pause because of a stoplight that distracted him.

  “That guy was at our house not long ago. He punched my dad in the face. Busted his lip.” Chloe had tried to make herself forget about it,
had pretended to believe her dad when he said he fell, had pretended she hadn’t heard those men in the yard, had pretended to believe the lies about the graffiti and broken plant pots. And now her mom and dad were dead? It couldn’t be. “Are they really?”

  “I think so.” He grabbed at her hand, knowing what she meant without asking, driving with his knees when he had to on the backroads, just to keep hold of her hand as he drove them out of New York City. “I’m going to take you to a hotel, Chloe. Get you somewhere safe and warm.”

  “Thanks.” She looked down at her hand in his and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do. She was over eighteen so the state wouldn’t need to find her somewhere to live, but if her parents had been murdered, or if her dad had killed himself and her mom, well, she didn’t want to see anyone right now. She’d talk to Lincoln about it. For the moment, he was probably the only sensible person she knew. Yeah, he was an ass, but he was also observant, smart, and coldly clinical when he needed to be. “Where are we going?”

  “To Cambridge. I’m not taking you to my dorm, my roommate is an idiot. We might have to stop somewhere for the night anyway. Are you hungry?”

  “No.” She responded without a thought. “Thirsty maybe, but not hungry.”

  He stopped at a convenience store where she picked out bags of chips, beef jerky, and Slim Jims, things she’d never eat because she had to be careful what she ate, but she wasn’t really thinking about what she was doing. She felt numb, like she was just going through the motions. When she got back in the car, she wished she’d asked him to get her some whiskey or bourbon maybe. Anything that would knock her out before this dull numbness disappeared and reality crashed over her.

  Lincoln drove on without a word for an hour and a half before pulling up to a really good hotel. She didn’t care if he’d stopped at one of the fleabag places her parents wouldn’t have looked twice at. She carried in her bag, the bag filled with food and two cold bottles of water, and headed in with him while he registered for a room. They went up in the elevator to a room high above the city where he attended MIT.