Heart Broke (Broken Home Book 1) Read online

  I link my arms through my friends, “Let’s go and party.” I giggle and we all glug down the last of our drinks and head for the door.

  Krystal’s big sister who is home from college has kindly driven us over to Lance’s house. Sonia is cool, and she tells us to watch out for boys slipping stuff in our drinks and to make sure we all stick together.

  We climb out of the car at nine o’clock and the music is thumping all the way down the street. Lance’s house is enormous and it’s lit up like the Las Vegas strip. He’s got two of his mates on the door checking people out as they come in and one of them beckons me with his finger.

  “Why, sweetheart, I’m gonna have to frisk you to make sure you aren’t bringing in contraband.”

  I don’t have a clue what he’s going on about because, all around me, I see kids drinking and the smell of weed is overpowering.

  “Be a doll, put your hands on the siding.” He croons and I obey.

  The next minute, he has his hands all over me and is feeling up and down my dress. His hands wrap around my boobs and he leans over my shoulder, a smirk on his face that makes me feel sick. “Hmm, need to check your boobs real careful. I know what you chicks are like, always putting shit down your bras.”

  I pull away and duck under his arms, yelling, “Pervert,” as I hurry inside.

  “Over here,” Krystal squeals and points to the kitchen.

  I follow her in and we are confronted by booze and chips. She pours something all the way up a disposable cup and I sniff it cautiously. “What is it?”

  Krystal shrugs. “Who knows,” she says. “Just drink it, we’re here to have fun.”

  I wrinkle my nose, taking a huge gulp. Ugh, vodka? Spluttering on the strong taste, I take a few more large gulps and follow Krystal into the backyard. As I look around, I find myself searching a sea of senior faces and sigh.

  What am I doing here?

  Damn, I wish I’d said yes to Rick when I had the chance.

  Chapter 5

  RICK

  Cocaine.

  I sit in my car for a minute, checking out the surrounding mansions. Rich Pricks always want the expensive stuff and I’m amazed at how much they’re willing to pay for crap.

  Getting out of my red convertible 1957 Ford Thunderbird, I walk slowly towards the rear to ogle her—my car. My Thunderbird’s faded paint job still shines bright in a few spots despite the night hours. One day, I swear, I’m going to treat my car so good. I’m going to get all her little rust spots fixed, restore her original cherry color with a brand-new paint job, and then pimp her with shiny wire rims and wide white wall tires.

  Yep, one day.

  When this Prank can afford it.

  I had to borrow twenty bucks from Teddy for gas to get to this party but I was good for that, at least. This hustle is going to earn us nearly a grand.

  I parked two blocks away from the drop off and spin my head to make sure no one is looking before I pop the trunk to see it’s empty. Looking around again and seeing there’s no one about, I slip my fingers between the inner wall of my car and the floor of the trunk to lift the floorboard, revealing hidden goods. I pull my cigarettes out of my back pocket, pat the Marlboro pack against my palm until one falls out. Tossing it in my mouth I light it up and take a long drag. Tucking the smoke pack back at my ass, I eye up the duffle bag that contains several small bags of cocaine plus a giant jar of moonshine made by Skinny—although he’s not skinny at all, he’s a big fat guy and one of my neighbors from down the street.

  Taking another big inhale, I pinch the cigarette between my lips before pulling out the twenty-four-pack of Bud Light in one hand and the duffle bag in the other. I lower the goods on the ground so I can fix the floorboard of my trunk before slamming the hood shut and catching a glimpse of my passenger front seat.

  For a brief moment, I’m wondering what Franny would’ve looked like sitting inside my Thunderbird, if she had accepted our date tonight. I fantasize about her in my car and what the scene would be like if my Thunderbird had been all fixed up like it ought a be. Of course, there’s no way I’d let her ride up front wearing that dumb school uniform...

  Shit. Who am I kidding? I dig that uniform. I’d like to throw Fanny in my backseat and get under that uniform.

  Tossing the thought out of my mind, I shake my head.

  Ain’t no way I’ll ever get Franny in my car so there’s no use dreaming.

  I pick up the bag and booze.

  Franny doesn’t date Pranks.

  Making my way through well-paved streets—beer in one hand, drugs and booze in the other—I hear music. The pumping boom and bass is getting me excited and when I round a corner, a white mansion with huge front columns and a bunch of rich Pricks appears in front of me. I’d planned to make this drop off quick but then I see a few half-naked chicks and wonder if I should reconsider.

  The Pricks staring at me as I walk across lush grass of the front yard make me nervous, especially since their chicks are staring, too. But the Pricks don’t move. They stay huddled, which is great. I’d hate to get rowdy in the middle of a hustle.

  Making my way up a set of stone steps, I walk right through the front door and am immediately greeted with cheers by a bunch of dudes in preppy attire.

  “There he is!” cries a big brawny blond. The fucker hugs me. He’s already drunk.

  “Dude, we’ve been waiting for you,” says a thinner, more preppy guy with slick black hair—Jerry. He’s my contact.

  “Sorry,” I hand the case of beer to the big guy. “I had to park a few blocks away.”

  People start gathering around me. “Back up!” cries Jerry waving his hands. “This is the man. The man we’ve been waiting for.”

  “He looks like a Prank.” A redhead smirks. Her nose looks too small for her face, which I figure was a result of a bad nose job. “Did he bring the good stuff?” She eyes up my crotch.

  Jerry puts one arm around the chick but he leans in to me. “You bring the stuff?”

  I cock my chin up. “You bring the money?”

  Jerry puts his hand in the front pocket of his khakis and pulls out a wad of cash. “Here you go.” He puts it in my hand.

  I spit out the dead cigarette butt lingering on my lips straight on to the polished hardwood floors. “This better be all of it,” I warn, pressing the wad between my palm and shoving it in my pocket.

  “Dude—” He reaches for the duffle bag. “Nobody here is going to fuck with a Prank, especially when he’s our supplier.” I jerk the bag back and Jerry yells to everyone, “You hear that?” Most people turn in our direction. “Nobody fucks with the Prank. Is that understood? Unless you’re a hot horny slut, then you need to take him outside,” Jerry chuckles and everyone laughs with him.

  Jerry tries to take the bag again, but I pull it back once more, giving him the stare down. For whatever reason, I don’t trust him.

  “Hey, man, it’s totally cool,” coos Jerry. “Your brother mentioned you might be on edge. He said it might take a while to earn your trust. He said you have a lot of animosity against Uptowners.”

  Yeah! Because of what an Uptowner did to my mother when I was born!

  “I swear there’s no hard feeling.” Jerry pats my shoulder and I give him a stern look. He removes his hand. “Look man, why don’t you hang out for a while. Nobody’s going to mess with you. Eat some chips. Grab a beer. Your brother has hung out once or twice.”

  “He’s not really my brother,” I correct and give up the bag.

  “Whatever,” he says, “and look!” I glance up to see a pretty brunette—long hair, dark eyes. She’s batting her lashes and biting her bottom lip. Her gaze is dead set on me. “You might even get your dick wet.” Jerry laughs and stumbles past me.

  Prick. I’m at freakin’ Prick party, and surprisingly, it looks kinda fun.

  Downtown Prank parties always turn into a disaster. By this time, a Prank party would literally look like a tornado struck with glass and underwear everywhere. B
ut everyone here still has their clothes on and most of ‘em are dancing. No one actually dances at a Prank party unless they’re stripping.

  The tiny brunette peels off her tight white short sleeve sweater, tossing it over the back of a chair, and comes at me. The black halter top below, compresses her tits together and I can’t look away from them, though I get the feeling I shouldn’t touch the soft melons. When she pops her well-developed chest right in front of me, she does a little jiggle before she says, “Hi.”

  “Hi.” I smile, still looking at her cleavage.

  “You want a drink?” She puts her hand in mine.

  I’d like a suck actually, but, “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

  She smiles and leads me to a huge kitchen. The space has a ceiling so high, I’m sure the room is taller than our entire house in the gutters.

  I’m ogling the room but nobody else seems to notice how nice it is. White marble floors. Black marble counters. But it’s also really cool lookin’. A few of the appliances are retro-red. The fucking food blender shines brighter than my car.

  The long-haired brunette slips away while I am mesmerized by the students of St. Mary’s. These kids really do have it all. A skinny girl who is already wasted, reaches for a glass off a high shelf. The expensive looking cut crystal slips from her hand and smashes into a thousand pieces at her feet. Her and the douchebags around her burst into a fit of giggles. It pisses me off. They’re throwing food and booze around plus breaking shit—nice stuff—like none of it matters.

  I break shit all the time but that’s because it really doesn’t matter. The shit I break is usually just someone else’s junk that they threw away, which one of us picked up at a flea market or on the curb on trash day.

  Jerry comes into view. He’s at the kitchen island, setting up a line of coke for his chick to sniff and catches sight of me.

  “Hey, Prank,” he calls out. “You want some?”

  “Nah, man,” I shy. “That’s your stash. You go ahead,” I encourage with a wave of my hand.

  Unlike these Pricks, I don’t do that shit. The one time I was about to sniff coke at home to test it out, I got caught by mother. She beat my ass so bad, I still feel the sting to this day. But it’s not the ass beating that keeps me from doing coke or weed or any of that. It was the crying she did after she beat me. Ma cried all night, which made Zane and Teddy uneasy and it was those dickheads who made me feel worse. They begged me not to make my mother cry again—kept saying how Ma was the best in the world and they didn’t know how I could disappoint her so badly.

  So, we don’t do coke or weed or any of that shit. We never made a pact against using drugs but it feels like we did. Actually, it feels more like there’s a contest going on between us—who can be the better son?

  The brunette weaves her way back between partiers to bring me a red solo cup filled to the rim with beer from the keg I’m sure Teddy dropped off earlier.

  As I put the rim to my lips, the chick wraps her arms around my waist and plops her chin on my chest to look up at me. “You are one hot Prank,” she says. “You wanna go upstairs? There are bedrooms up there.”

  I laugh. I can smell wine coolers on her breath and her hips start rocking against my groin in time to the music from the next room. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” she says.

  “Try again.” I scowl at her.

  “Sixteen.” She pouts back at me.

  “One more time,” I growl.

  “Fourteen,” she sobs, “but I swear I’ve got experience.”

  I wrap my arm around her neck and pull her flush against me to whisper in her ear. “I’m sure you do have experience, but I’m not fucking you.”

  “Awh,” she whines, showing her real age and I puff on her hair which stays tangled across my face.

  I put my mouth to her ear again so I can tell her to get lost when—

  Franny’s looking at me.

  The blaze of Francesca’s wide-open eyes beams straight through the kitchen from one opposite end of the room to the other, to me.

  My heart stops. Franny is in a red dress and the whole room seems to be going red, as red as her apple cheeks are turning.

  She’s been drinking and I’m confident every asshole in this room is thinking the same thing that I am. Her chest is heaving. Her skin is glowing. Her gorgeous golden locks are down, just as they are in the commercial, and I want to pull on that hair. I want to tug on it. Pull her to me.

  Franny’s face falls flat as her eyes take in the girl I have draped around me. I let my arm fall loose, but the fourteen-year-old wraps hers tighter around my waist, pressing herself fully flush against me.

  Franny pushes her shoulders back and walks over to where red cups are being filled from a keg. She picks up a cup of beer with a fresh head of foam and chugs it down—the whole damn thing!

  I push the brunette off me and she whines, so I lie, telling her to hold my cup because I gotta piss and that I’ll be right back.

  Franny sees me coming and she darts in the opposite direction. Swiftly, she makes her way towards a room where the music is blaring and students are in a frenzy—dancing. Franny turns glances back at me before she grabs some worthless joker and, the next thing I know, he’s got his hands all over her.

  I push a couple of Pricks out my way to get a good view. She’s shaking her ass like a stripper at a Prank party—scrolling her hands up and down between her thighs, then tossing her hair about with a swing of her head.

  I realize I’m pacing—back and forth, back and forth. So, I pause, attempting to collect my cool and reach in my back pocket to pull out another cigarette. I light it and the smoke fills my lungs, however, it does little to tame the angst. I’m about to spew fire as Franny wiggles her pretty ass all over that ugly, unworthy Prick.

  Franny makes eye contact with me again, licking her lips this time as that Prick she’s dancing with grabs her hips and pokes his peanut against her backside. I scroll my hand down my face to ease the muscle tension in my jaw and take another puff and blow.

  A hand waves at the smoke in front of me and the fourteen-year-old is back in my face. “What-ch-ya doin’?” she questions, tugging on the waistline of my pants.

  “Go back to the kitchen.” I turn her around. “Wait for me there.” I give a gentle push and pat her on the ass.

  Quickly, I turn back to see Franny is gone.

  Fuck!

  I flick my half-smoked cigarette to the ground, step on the bright red cherry to put it out, and push my way through the dance pit. When I get to the center, I’m jerking my head around, searching for the girl who laid her lips on me yesterday and who I’m afraid is so drunk that she might lay her lips—or worse, her body—on someone else.

  To the left, I spy a stairwell and I see the hem of a red dress and thighs I’d recognize anywhere, but the sexy heels scurry out of view from the top landing.

  Elbowing a few Pricks out the way, I manage to come free of the dance pit and hike my way up the stairs. I scan the hall of teen couples standing around making out, and I think I hear Franny talking but her voice is muffled. Opening one door after the other, I finally hear her voice outside a closed door.

  “No, I don’t know about this,” she says.

  I jiggle the handle, but it’s locked so I kick the door in.

  “What the fuck?” The Prick she was dancing with has his hand on her ass as she’s bent over a bathroom counter about to snort some cocaine.

  “Fuck no.” I charge in with my fist up. I’m going to kill this motherfucker.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Wussy Prick puts both hands up as he falls on his ass. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he squeals. “If you want the coke, take it. It’s yours. I thought it was Jerry’s.”

  I pull him up by his stiff gelled hair. “I don’t want the fucking coke, asshole.” I shove him out the door. “Get out.”

  As the Prick runs away, I shut the door behind him. Of course, the handle won’t latch because I broke it. Damn, I’ve ruine
d a lot of things this week.

  Poor Franny has turned as white as the powder on the counter. Both of her hands are clenched into fists at her mouth as she watches me. I run my fingers under the faucet, and use my wet hands to dust the cocaine down the drain. When it’s all cleaned up, I grab a fluffy lime-green towel hanging over the bath to dry my palms and rub between my fingers. Franny has yet to say anything or give any reaction to my intervention.

  “You don’t need that shit.” I lean back against the door to keep it shut and dig my hands into my pockets. “I can’t believe you’d chose to spend your night doing drugs in a bathroom with an ugly Prick instead of cruising around town with me.”

  Franny’s eyes drift to the floor.

  “You know, I would’ve shown you a good time. Maybe not the best time. Like you said, I’m a Prank. I don’t have a trust fund like all your boyfriends here but I still would’ve made it worth your while.”

  She sniffles and swipes at the tears welling up in her eyes.

  I sigh. “How often do you sniff coke?”

  Her bottom lip pokes out as she speaks, “I’ve never used coke but I did want to try it. I saw you with that girl and I... I...”

  She’s never done coke, but she was about to try it because she saw me with another girl?

  Ugh—my heart! It’s bleeding.

  I lean up, stepping closer to her and I can smell the booze leaking from her pores. Her eyes are even glazed over and she’s teetering. “C’mon.” I put my hand out to her. “I’m gonna take you home.”

  Chapter 6

  FRANNY

  Why would I go home with you?”

  Rick hovers in front of me and I badly want to take his hand. The way he grabbed that guy and threw him out the bathroom was sooo crazy, and he did it for me.

  “Because if you don’t go home now, you’re gonna regret this for the rest of your life.” His hand is still there reaching for mine but inside my head, Daddy’s voice is bombarding me—never trust a Prank, Francesca. They’re filthy scum that won’t think twice about violating you and tossing you aside.