Stupid Boy Read online

  STUPID BOY

  A New Adult Romance Novel

  by Cindy Miles

  Table of Contents

  STUPID BOY

  Other Books by Cindy Miles

  Then: Harper

  Then: Kane

  After: Harper

  After: Kane

  1. Now

  2. Prospects

  3. Chosen

  4. Pursuit

  5. Masquerade

  6. Falling

  7. Chances

  8. Kane

  9. Consumed

  10. Alone

  11. Home

  12. Savior

  13. Lost

  14. Regrets

  15. Kane

  16. Scars

  17. Truths

  18. Letting Go

  19. Kane

  20. Broken

  21. Demons

  22. Kane

  Excerpt from STUPID GIRL

  Coming Soon: STUPID LOVE

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  Other Books by Cindy Miles

  The Stupid in Love Series:

  Stupid Girl

  Stupid Boy

  Stupid Love (Coming Soon)

  The Cassabaw Island Series:

  Those Cassabaw Days: A Malone Brothers Novel (Book 1, April 2015)

  Other Titles:

  Forevermore (Young Adult, Scholastic books)

  Spirited Away (Adult ghost romance, NAL)

  Into Thin Air (Adult ghost romance, NAL)

  Highland Knight (Adult ghost romance, NAL)

  MacGowan’s Ghost (Adult ghost romance, NAL)

  Thirteen Chances (Adult ghost romance, NAL)

  Visit Cindy on her website, Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads!

  Contact her at [email protected]

  Dedication

  For my mom, Dale. My biggest fan. My best friend. I love you.

  “Harper? Are you in here?”

  Daddy? No, not Daddy. Can’t be Daddy. Somebody else. Somebody bad. My eyes felt cold. Dry. Wide open, like I couldn’t blink at all. Against my back the damp wood beneath the kitchen sink pressed into my favorite Beauty and the Beast tee shirt. The cabinet was dark and smelled really bad, like the old faded pink sponge Mama sometimes washed dishes with. I pulled my knees closer to my chest, held them tight with my arms, and squeezed my cold dry eyes shut. Pushed my head against the wood. Further into that smelly damp place I sank, further, further, and I shivered. Go away! You’re one of them! Go away...

  “Come on out, honey. It’s okay now. No need to hide anymore. I promise.”

  The man’s deep voice seeped through the cracks of the kitchen cabinet I hid inside of, and no, it wasn’t gonna be okay. Never was it gonna be okay.

  Footsteps, heavy, gritty, as if dragging through sand scraped across the torn kitchen floor, suddenly stopped. “Harper, my name is Detective Shanks. Me and Detective Crimshaw are here to help you.”

  “Harper?” This time, a woman’s voice. “Come on out, sweetie. You’re safe now.” A pause. “The bad people are all gone. We won’t let them come back.” Another pause. “I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you? We’ll take you for a hamburger. Would you like that?”

  I said nothing. I hardly breathed. No, I didn’t want a hamburger. My stomach felt sick. The voices sounded close, yet stuck in a tunnel somewhere, and I think I wanted them to stay that way. My eyes pinched shut, and I squeezed my knees so tightly the bones hurt my chest. Please, just go away…

  “Jesus, Shanks,” the woman called Crimshaw whispered. “She’s been gone for days.” Another pause. “You don’t think she’s really in here, do you?”

  Footsteps closer to my hiding place made my breath catch like a high-pitched whistle in my throat. In the next second, the cabinet door eased open on creaky hinges. The sound made the skin on my arm grow cold. A dark head lowered and looked inside, and I closed my eyes back tight. My breath came fast now, faster and faster and I couldn’t help it, and my arms began to slip from around my knees…

  “Crimshaw, she’s here!” Big hands that looked like rubber doll hands reached in and grabbed me under my arms and dragged me out, my legs knocking over an old plastic bottle of dish detergent. I tried to scream but the noise pushed silent out of my throat, so dry it was like a scratchy old pipe. The sound came out like a creaky whisper. I was lifted, and the man called Shanks held me tight to stop my wiggling.

  “Shh, shh, Harper,” his voice comforted quietly. He patted the back of my head. “Just breathe, just breathe. It’s okay, honey, everything’s going to be okay now. We’re the police. We’re here to help you and take you outta here.” He patted me some more. “Shh…”

  He was the police. He was gonna take me out of here. I buried my head into the man’s shoulder, and he smelled good, like pine cones, and although he said everything was going to be okay, it wasn’t. My breath continued, faster, faster, and then everything started growing darker and darker. My arms felt heavy, my legs just dangled.

  “Dammit Crimshaw, call for an ambulance!” I heard the man say. “She’s going into shock or something.”

  “Already called them,” the woman said. “Jesus, Frank. She’s been in here alone with them for days...Jesus.”

  Just as the smell hit my nose and then my stomach, my head felt light, felt like a balloon that was gonna float away into the air. The room got so dark I couldn’t tell if my cold eyes were open or hidden hard against the man’s shoulder, and I felt the air leave me. I gasped. Blackness filled my eyes. I’d smelled that awful smell before, when Mama had found a dead cat in the trashcan out back. I gagged, gasped, and began to shake.

  “Poor kid. She’ll never be right after this…”

  The glass shattered against the old green and gold linoleum kitchen floor. My gaze darted fast to my sister, whose eyes widened in terror. She stood there, her hand in the C shape it’d been in before the wet glass slipped out of it. Her lip quivered. We both knew what was coming. It was just some old NFL team glass he’d gotten from Burger King. It’d come with a value meal. Cheap. Stupid. So stupid. It mattered to him, though. He’d make it seem like the end of the world.

  Footsteps pounded in the hallway. Heavy, familiar. Grew closer.

  “Get behind me, Katy,” I whispered harshly. She did, her small fingers threading through the belt loops on my jeans and holding tight. As her face pressed against the small of my back, I drew a deep breath in, steadied myself.

  He burst through the kitchen and stood, staring at the broken glass on the floor. His frame filled the doorway. His face was beet red; his nose was redder. Bloodshot eyes flamed and narrowed as he fixed his angry glare on me.

  “What in the goddamn hell did you do?” he thundered. Fury rolled off him like waves from a drum fire.

  I drew myself up. “It was an accident. Glass slipped.”

  His hazy eyes moved, and he tried to focus on my sister. “Did she do it? You coverin’ for her again, Kane?”

  “No,” I answered. “It was me.”

  In two steps he was there, grabbing me by the collar of my tee shirt and yanking me hard enough that the material ripped. I stumbled onto the glass and winced as a piece of it dug into my palm.

  “You lyin’ sack of shit,” he spat. “Girl, did you do it?”

  Katy sobbed behind me. “N-n-no, sir,” she stuttered, then whimpered.

  I hated him at that moment. More than ever. Just for making my sister scared, making her cry.

  “Well, one of you has to pay for it,” he said. His words slurred, and I knew he didn’t mean pay for it in money. “Which one of ya’s it gonna be?”

  I pushed off the floor, blocking my sister from his view. “Me.”

  “Figured you’d say that,” he replied, and he wiped hi
s bearded jaw with his hand. “Always acting like some fucking goddamn hero, huh, Kane?” His eyes dropped to the floor, scanning the broken NFL glass. Kneeling, he picked up the bottom. It had remained intact; the sides now jagged and sharp.

  My insides froze, and like all the other times, I shoved the fear to the back of my throat as I watched him rise.

  “Take off your shirt, boy,” he ordered. “Then turn around and grab that chair.”

  I glared at him, and I knew he could see the hate there. He was bigger than me, since I was only eight, and he knew it. But I did it. Did what he asked. Yanked my shirt over my head, threw it on the floor. Turned around. Grabbed the back of the chair, my knuckles turning white from my grip. Fury and fear boiled inside of me. I could feel it like a rolling pot of water under my skin.

  My sister sobbed, and then my head was snatched back as he grabbed a fistful of my hair. His voice brushed my ear.

  “You make one sound and you’ll get an extra letter.” He yanked my head. “So far you have six to look forward to. Every time you fuck up, you get another letter. You hear me, hero? You get this game now, smartass?”

  I nodded, and when my eyes found my sister, I mouthed to her, be quiet.

  My breath quickened; he’d not done this before. Fear stuffed inside my throat, my lungs and I hated that even more than the pain about to happen. Fastening my eyes on my sister’s, I concentrated. Breathed.

  Waited.

  And just before the first swipe of that glass bottom dug into my back, I watched my sister cover her mouth with both of her hands and scream silently. I felt the first letter as he carved it into my back. Curved it around. S.

  My head pounded, but I kept my eyes on my sister. Then I saw nothing but red.

  When the car turned into the black iron gates and onto the long drive, my stomach started to go numb inside. Trees overhung the single lane, and it wound and wound through a pecan grove until I’d lost sight of the road behind me. The driver hadn’t said a word to me, and I hadn’t said one to him, either. He drove and drove and drove. I waited.

  Finally, a flash of white, and then appeared the hugest house I’d ever seen. It had a double porch—one on top, one on bottom, and when the car pulled around the circle drive and stopped, I glanced up through my window. An older woman stood on that upper porch, arms folded over her chest. She wore a fancy looking black dress, one that reached the floor, and I recognized her from the funeral.

  My grandmother. My mother’s mother, Corinne Belle.

  I’d never met her before the funeral.

  With her back stiff and straight my grandmother turned and disappeared through the veranda’s double doors.

  My car door opened, and the driver held it for me as I climbed out. I had no suitcase; only my backpack, and he handed that to me.

  “This way, miss,” he said, and I followed him up a sweeping set of brick steps.

  Just as my foot touched the first step, the tall doors opened and my grandmother stood there. She looked down at me then, and I looked up at her, and wordlessly she inspected me. She did that for so long I began to squirm, shift from foot to foot. Blue, icy eyes studied me hard.

  “Stop fidgeting, Harper, and come this way,” she finally said, and turned on her heel. Her voice wasn’t friendly. It wasn’t exactly hateful, either. But it was cold and as sharp as the noise her heels made across the wood floor.

  I followed her through the cavernous old house, filled with old stuff and vases and smelling like lemons, up a wide staircase to the second floor, and down a long, long hallway. Not once did my grandmother turn to see if I followed; I guess she knew I would. Halfway down the hall she stopped, opened a door on the right, and turned, hands folded in front of her, waiting on me. At the opened door I stood still.

  “This is your room,” she said. “Go inside.”

  Hesitantly, I did as she asked, and her clicking heels trailed behind me. I didn’t know what to do, really. Or where to go. So I walked to the bed and stopped. Laid out on the bedspread were clothes: underwear, socks with lace trim and a pair of shiny black shoes, and a dress the color of very ripe plums. Also, a large white towel and washcloth. I glanced up at my grandmother.

  “Hand me your bag, child,” she said, and I slid it off my shoulder and did so. With her finger and thumb, she pinched the zipper, just barely, as if it were covered in germs, and opened my backpack. There wasn’t anything in it, really—just what few clothes I had, a pair of old sandals, and a picture of Mama and Daddy. It was an old picture—back…before. It was the only one I had. Corinne Belle then gave me a stern look.

  “You’ll discard the items you’re wearing, all of them, and place them in here,” she said sharply. “Then you’ll wrap the towel about you and you’ll follow me to the bathroom.”

  I hesitated; I didn’t like taking my clothes off in front of her. She might be my grandmother and all, but she was a stranger to me.

  “Stop pondering, child, and for God’s sake stop staring at me as if you’re brainless and do as I say at once. The faster you discard, the faster you can wrap that towel around you.”

  My face grew hot as I quickly took off all of my clothes, dropped them into my backpack, and then bound the towel around my body. My grandmother watched the entire time, and now we stood, facing one another. Again, I waited.

  “I realize that what you’ve been through—in fact, your entire existence—isn’t your fault, Harper. You’re but eight years old. But the conditions of you living in this house are strict ones that must be abided by at all times.” The lines around her mouth deepened. “You’ll forget your past. Your mother. Your father. That squalor you lived in. Even your last name will be changed to Belle.” She zipped up my backpack. “You’ll forget everything in this bag and you’ll not mention it again. Ever. And I’ll know if you do.” She leaned down from her towering height, and met my eyes with hers. “I’ll know every move you make, young lady. Every one of them. This is a privilege you’re receiving, to come here and live under my care. You’re lucky to have anyone at all to take you in and I do hope you’re grateful for it, every single day. You’ll obey every rule I set and you’ll not give me a minute’s worry. I’ve already enrolled you in boarding school and you’ll begin in the fall, where no one knows you and you’ll not tell them anything about your previous life.” Her eyes flared. “You’re going to be taught proper manners and become a functioning, useful and productive being of society. You’ll become a Belle. It will be as if the old you never existed at all. Is that clearly understood?”

  My eyes once more felt dry, cold as I stared hard at her. My breath caught in my throat. “Yes, ma’am,” I said shakily. “C-can I have my picture?”

  Corinne inspected me then, from the top of my head to my bare toes, and she frowned. “Absolutely not.” She turned on her heels again, and I knew to follow without question. I fought back tears as she stopped in the hallway, two doors down from my room.

  “You have your own bath, Harper, and I expect you to make use of it every single day. Starting now.” She looked at me. “Wash your hair twice.” She stared at it. “It looks absolutely filthy. And once you’re finished you’ll dress and come downstairs for supper where I’ll inspect you before we sit to the table. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, and I tried to keep my voice steady.

  With one final, stern glare, she straightened her back, turned, and headed down the hallway toward the stairs without another word, her heels click-clicking as she went.

  In the bathroom, I closed the door, turned on the water and watched the tub fill. At the same time, my eyes filled with tears, and when the tub was full I dropped the towel, climbed in, and hugged my knees.

  I don’t exist anymore.

  I’m dead, too. Just as dead as Mama and Daddy.

  Then, I cried.

  “You like baseball?”

  I stared at the mattress above my bunk bed and didn’t say anything. I didn’t know that kid sleeping up there, and that
kid didn’t know me. This was my third foster home in two months. No need to make friends. Didn’t need ‘em. A second later, a head popped over the side from the bunk above and I studied the boy occupying the bed. He hung upside down. Wild curls flung all over, and even wilder blue eyes pierced the room lit only by a small Red Sox night-light. The kid had said his name was Brax. One of his eyes had a big purple shiner around it.

  “You got a hearin’ problem or something?” Brax asked, but he said it with a big smile that showed all of his teeth. “Kane, right? Well do ya? Baseball?”

  “I guess,” I answered.

  Brax continued to stare. He was local—a Southie. I could tell that much by his mouth. Looked a little younger than me, like nine or ten, maybe.

  Brax cocked one brow. “You from around here?”

  I met his gaze. “Dorchester.”

  Brax nodded. Wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He was still hanging upside down. “You been in the system long?”

  “A while.” I kept my stare on Brax’s.

  “Well, I been in my whole fuckin’ life.” He swung down, landing quietly on his socked feet, and squatted beside my bed. “Been here almost two years.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “It’s okay. Wicked better than the last one I stayed at.” Again he cocked his head. “Wanna go to a game tomorrow?”

  I rolled onto my stomach and faced away, hoping Brax would just shut up and go back to bed. “No.”

  “Come on,” Brax coaxed. “It’s more fun with a friend.”

  “We ain’t friends,” I muttered. “We ain’t.”

  In the next second, Brax grabbed the blanket and yanked. “Don’t be such a dickwad—” His words hung unfinished in the air for several seconds. All I heard was his breathing. “Jesus fuck,” Brax finally said in a whisper. “Jesus.”