Still grinning, I gestured toward the rusted ladder. “After you.”

Scowling, she gripped onto the sides and started her climb. I stayed behind, spotting her.

“Aren’t you coming?” she growled. “Or is this just a lame trick to leave me on the roof?”

I frowned. I was never one for pranks, especially those that could hurt the ones I cared about. “Of course not. We’re here to have fun tonight, remember?”

She was already about halfway to the roof when she hissed, “Fun? How is this fun?”

I let my head fall back and admired the way the moonlight illuminated her shapely ass. “Oh trust me; this is a lot of fun.”

***

“If you get her kicked out of school I’m going to kill you.” Stephanie bared her teeth in my direction, which was frightening considering the amount of metal that was inside her mouth. Each bracket shined in the light, reminding me of a shark’s jaw ready to snap.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Steph, you really need to lighten up. Stop being Rocky’s keeper. She’s her own woman—”

“A woman who is being steered down the wrong path by you!” To my relief, she glued her mouth together only to bare her metallic fangs toward me once again.

“And there we are with those ugly braces again,” I murmured under my breath.

Stephanie’s jaw dropped open. “You are such a jerk, Jesse!”

“Oh! I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” I joked sheepishly.

She snapped her fingers centimeters in front of my nose, and I could have sworn I felt a crackle of electricity against my skin. “Rocky told me how you both snuck onto the top of the school last night, and for what reason? Just to be uber cool or something? You guys could have been arrested for trespassing. Not to mention breaking curfew. Do you know how that would look on college applications?”

“I’m not going to college, so I don’t know why that would concern me.” I was getting pretty sick of hearing the word “college,” especially since there was no way I’d be able to afford going even if I actually got accepted into one.

Stephanie shifted uncomfortably. “You may not be going, but what about Rocky? She wants to go to Greystone. You know that. Do you really want to ruin her life by pulling these grade school stunts?”

Damn, that was pretty harsh. I swallowed back what tasted like a bitter pill in my mouth. “Do you get off being so overdramatic?”

“I’ll get off by peeling your skin slowly off your body and dumping your pathetic muscle covered bones into a pot of boiling water.”

I froze. Now that was harsh. She’d definitely taken it a step too far, and I really had no comeback seeing as the conversation took a detour into weirdsville.

To my surprise, Stephanie threw her head back and began to laugh, and I’m not talking about a weird witchy laugh either—she really sounded as if she were entertained. “Really? Tough guy Jesse is scared by that? Please. It’s just a quote from my newest fanfiction.”

“Not scared, more like disturbed.” I shuddered to make my point. “Either way, if you take your head out of your stupid elf-themed written pornography—”

“Ha, ha.”

“—you’d see that I’m not forcing her to do anything. She joins me on my—”

“Shenanigans?” Stephanie made a disgusted face.

I shifted uneasily and shook my head. We all knew ‘shenanigans’ was a code word for fooling around. We also knew that I’d never do that with Rocky—not that I didn’t want to, but that’s another story.

“Of course not.” I cleared my throat.

“Good. She’s already been traumatized from that one time she accidentally walked in on you fucking one of your conquests. No need for you to cause further damage by adding her to your bedpost notches.”

The blood drained from my face. “What? What are you talking about? When did she walk in on me?” I paused and winced. “With who?”

“Whoops. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Forget I said anything about it,” Stephanie replied quickly.

How the hell was I supposed to forget something like that? Especially since she had it all wrong. I was just about to tell Stephanie that there was no way Rocky could have seen me fucking anybody, but she was clearly keen on changing the unfortunate subject, which I was most grateful for.

Brushing her tangled mess of hair away from her face, she sighed. “I’m just looking out for my friend. For some reason, when she’s with you it’s as if her judgment gets clouded.” She paused to scrutinize me. “It’s as if you’re some drug addiction she can’t shake.”

If my insides weren’t twisted before, they certainly were now. Being compared to a drug was the lowest insult anybody could give me, especially given the household I had grown up in. Of course Stephanie was as oblivious to it all as usual. She was lucky she was my friend. She’d get a free pass and avoid the lashing out that I’d been known to give at a drop of a hat.

Stephanie groaned in exasperation. “Besides, she’s been ditching me all month to hang out with you! You know she didn’t show up for our weekly Thursday TV night? We ended up missing our favorite show and for what? So she could join you on the roof? How lame is that?”

Okay, now I was angry. Slamming my locker shut, I turned at my waist and scowled at her. “Is this what this bullshit is really about? You’re mad because you missed watching that stupid actor strut around shirtless?”

Stephanie’s mouth dropped open. “No! Of course not!”

“Rocky’s my friend too. You don’t think I want what’s best for her? If you really want her to stop doing the things she likes to do, why don’t you talk to her and not to me? Seems there’s a common denominator to this question and I’m not it.”

“Jesse—”

I turned and walked away before she could finish her sentence, flipping my middle finger in the air as I walked off. There was enough bullshit in my life, and I didn’t need any more. Especially from somebody who was supposed to be my friend.

As I meandered through the hallways of the school, the crowd parted—on cue—looking like the Red Sea. Usually being the school pariah didn’t bother me much, but that day it especially rubbed me wrong. Maybe Stephanie was right. Maybe I was a bad influence.

“Whatever,” I muttered, sneering at my schoolmates. “It’s just high school.”

Bethel Falls High School was the bane of my existence. It wasn’t like any of those dumb shows on TV depicting high school as the best years of your life, and it definitely was not a place to grow and prosper in—at least for me it wasn’t. With all its social hierarchies and pseudo-caste systems, high school was just a reminder that those who were lucky enough to be considered a member of the privileged bunch had an easier time than lowlifes like me.

Now, don’t go feeling sorry for me. I was used to it…at least I made myself believe I was. It was even a bit fun to think that I somehow had the ability to scare and shake up the BFHS population. Still, on some days school did nothing but remind me of the legacy my mother had left me with—I was nothing but the poor bad boy that your parents warned you about. Hell, if I had one of those ‘Hello My Name Is’ nametags, it’d probably say:

Hi, I’m Jesse Tyler. I am seventeen years old and am basically an orphan. Sure, both my parents are alive and kicking, but considering who they are and how they treat me I’m basically abandoned. Dad up and left me for a better life in South Carolina, and as for Mom, well, let’s just say I’m the adult in that relationship. I cook, clean, pay the bills, and do my best to ignore her alcohol-infused madness.

“My name is Jesse Tyler,” I mumbled to myself. “I used to hate the sight of alcohol and the smell of weed. Now, I want nothing more than to go home and throw back a few bottles while smoking a blunt.”

Yup, I was basically the textbook definition of nature and nurture. After all those years trying to keep my mom away from the bad stuff, I found myself diving into her stash as well. Stephanie was right—I did deserve to be boiled.