After all, my family is rich as sin and used to getting whatever they want. How hard could it be?
Except when we arrive in Faulkner, someone already owns this town.
The Darling family.
They’re every bit as wealthy as we are, and they’re not happy with our new money moving in. The three Darling cousins, each one more cruel and gorgeous than the last, rule the halls of Willow Heights the way my brothers ruled our prep school in Manhattan. None is worse than Devlin Darling, who makes it his personal mission to ruin his new rivals.
The Darlings see my brothers as a threat. They want them gone.
It doesn’t take them long to find my brothers’ one weakness.
Me.
Crystal
I lie in bed the night before our first day of school, listening to the big house settling around us. Daddy’s still at the office, working late to get everything in order for the new branch he’s opening here. I can’t seem to sleep in the new, strange house. Foreign noises invade my consciousness—the crickets and other insects so loud I can hardly go outside after dark, the wind through trees making eerie sighs like restless ghosts in the hot night.
Tonight, another sound that I can’t identify rouses me from my half-sleep. I check my phone. It’s midnight, and Daddy’s car still hasn’t turned into the white gravel drive. Outside, an irregular slapping sound catches my attention. I snag a silk robe from the back of my closet door and step outside, cinching it around my waist. A gust of hot wind sweeps over me, and I think I must have heard a loose shutter banging somewhere.
Twack!
The sound is somehow familiar, though I can’t tell what it is. I peer down into the bright moonlight that lights up the entire yard in an eerie glow. The balcony runs all the way around the top floor of the house, though my room is on the far back corner. To reach the stairs, I’d have to walk past Duke’s windows on one side and then King’s windows on two sides since he has the front corner room. I’m pretty sure they set it up that way on purpose.
From the balcony outside my room, I can see the back yard, the side yard, and the row of lilac bushes that forms the boundary between the houses. According to the new housekeeper who came with the house, they’re quite impressive in springtime. Beyond the lilacs, a slice of the neighbor’s backyard and one side of their house are visible. A handful of looming shade trees toss in the heat and wind as I wait for the sound that disturbed my attempted slumber.
Suddenly, something small and dark races between the lilacs and into the moonlit yard. I gasp, startled into thinking it’s a varmint for a second. But then it rolls to a stop in the dewy grass, and I see that it’s something much more familiar than a yard pest. A football.
I blink at it, not sure if I’m dreaming. The light on the dew gives everything a silvery, dreamlike quality. Then a tall, blond guy steps between the lilacs. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of drawstring sweats hanging so low on his hips that I can see more of him than I should want to. His body is slicked in sweat, his tan skin glistening in the moonlight. I swallow, my eyes raking from his tattooed shoulders, over his washboard abs, down to the V of muscle that dips into the waistband of his pale grey sweats, which he’s cut off at the knee.
It’s not like I’ve never seen a guy in nothing but shorts before. My brothers spend half their time dressed that way. But this boy is not my brother. He’s thinner than my brothers, less bulky, but every bit as muscular in a more lean, ropy way. The kind of muscle you might get from working instead of working out. His skin is more golden than the olive tone my Italian brothers have, and his tan is concentrated on his shoulders and arms, like he got it from being outside. I can see so much of him, and yet, seeing doesn’t illuminate. Each thing I notice is a mystery, a question instead of an answer.
He jogs across our lawn, picks up the ball, and draws back like he’s going to throw a long, spiral pass toward his house. Just before he completes the pass, he hesitates. Lowering the ball, he turns slowly. My body freezes, but my heart races. Every part of me knows that I should duck back into the shadows on the balcony, that I shouldn’t let the careless-driving, football-tossing insomniac neighbor see me watching him.
And yet.
For one reckless moment, I want something other than what is. I don’t want to be Crystal Dolce, darling daughter of a possible mob family and coddled sister of four very dangerous boys. I don’t want to be the mean girl who did a terrible thing, or the one who’s off limits to every boy if they want to live. I don’t want to be the Queen B or cheerleader.
I want to be seen. I want to be a girl standing in a silk robe in the moonlight, with disheveled hair streaming in the hot midnight wind and the moon making me luminous. I want to be a mystery to him, too. I want him to see me and want to solve this mystery.
His eyes settle on mine, and he stills. For a long moment, no one moves. The see-saw music of the crickets falls away. The shimmering moonlight disappears. The suffocating heat of the night dissipates, and the wind dies. There is only us, suspended in time, in place. I sink into the ocean depths of his eyes, plunging deeper and deeper below the surface until nothing else exists.
The crunch of tires on gravel invades our world, the one we built for only us. Headlights sweep across the front of our house, and I glance that way to see Daddy’s car pulling into the drive. When I turn back, the boy is gone, leaving me to wonder if I dreamed the moment with him.
*
“Crys, what are you doing?” King asks, banging on my bathroom door.
“I’m changing my tampon, what do you think?” I yell, shoving my phone into my pocket.
“Let’s go,” he says. “It’s time.”
“Time to dominate,” Duke yells, thudding a fist against my door.
I take one last look at myself in the mirror. For a minute, I considered changing my image. But I’ve been this person so long, I don’t know what else to be. Maybe it’s who I really am. Pretty. Spoiled.
Mean.
At any rate, I look the same as I’ve always looked. I don’t dare change my image. I thought, for a minute, I might be a girl who wore slouchy sweats, oversized T’s, and messy buns. But my brothers wouldn’t let me out of the house like that. We have an image to uphold. Dolces take care of themselves and each other. Looking the part is half the battle.