Chapter 5 Her Endgame

NOAH

I might despise Max, but I was there to teach my scumbag boyfriend that he could not cheat on me and make me cry. No, I was never going to be that girl.

Moving on was a consistent part of my life, and I was not about to stop doing it now.

Max had left the girls at the corner, and I could not have been more grateful; his kiss had left me speechless, not that I would ever admit it, and my cheeks were flushed.

Max was more skilled than Evan at making me swoon, perhaps even more so than Evan because I was kind of watching how the girls looked at him and groaned when he kissed them.

He was a kind of god, their prince charming, and I did not really care. Everything made sense; this was his way of retaliating after I crushed his ego, and he decided to get back at me by revealing that my golden boyfriend was a scumbag, and now I had to use him to exact revenge.

My situation could not have been worse. I had only eleven months and three weeks until I went to college and would be free of his obnoxious presence and the damned city.

As usual, he had some girl rocking her waist on him, and I felt a pain in my chest; couldn't he just stick to one girl?

Mario, my phantom serial killer, approached me, his hands wrapped around my shoulders.

"Oh, I forgot to warn you that this is a party and you need to be careful out here."

"Mario, get right to the point," I said, my discomfort clearly audible in my voice.

"You do not seem very well. Are you alright?"

"I am," I lied, faking a smile. "And you were saying,"

"Right, the guy over there," he indicated in a low tone, and my eyes swiveled to find the male he mentioned. He had tattoos on the visible parts of his neck and arms, one tiny earring, and smoky eyes.

"Yes, I can see him."

"That is Ronnie. He just got released from jail a day ago and is big trouble; you might as well avoid him because he does not get along with your brother."

"Wow, I guess the perfect boy has more enemies than I thought."

"I would not say that if I were you; Max is a nice guy, but you would get to know him soon enough."

"Tell me something I do not already know," I sighed, lowering my shoulder.

I was genuinely fed up with everyone complimenting Max at this point; it was clear that they did not see what I did.

Mario uses the occasion to excuse himself when a girl my age arrives. She is wearing a knee-length fitted gown and has short, curly hair.

"Hello, my name is Chloe," she says, reaching out her hand for a handshake, which I reciprocate.

"Noah," I answered.

"Mario told me what he did," she states.

"I apologise; are you his girlfriend or something?"

"No, Mario," she says, waving her hands in the air. "We are just friends."

"Let me guess, Max sent you over to come watch over me. Do I look six or something?" I said, my voice a little louder than usual. I was pissed off, and Max was getting on my nerves.

Why was he drinking tequila from a girl's neck, and did the kiss mean so little to him?

"Hey," she said, resting her hands on my arms and drawing my attention back to her face. "You need to relax because you are boiling up."

"Why does Max have his lips over every girl's throat?" I asked, wrapping my hands around my midsection.

"Doesn't that sound like you're jealous?" she hints, tightening her arm around my shoulder.

"You might as well tell me I am horny right now; for god's sake, he is my stepbrother and the last guy I would ever have sex with," I boldly stated.

"Mmmm," she said, smiling and blinking at me. "Not from what I saw earlier," she said, her mischievous tone startling me.

No way, she had seen us kiss. Moreover, it was in a secluded area.

"But that is by the way," she adds, wrapping a red handkerchief with tiny white prints around my arm.

As she says, "There are purple, red, green, and our colour red; with this Ronnie and his gang would not try bothering you," a man approaches and puts his hand around her. Before I can respond, she turns and gives him a passionate kiss.

She falters, "This is my boyfriend, Nick," before they kiss more passionately.

I muttered to myself, "Oh lord," but they gave no indication that I was there, so I chose to go to a different corner.

The city was less than I imagined, and nothing in Memphis was really making sense to me.

I walked gingerly to a location, my hands still wrapped around my middle, when a voice caught my attention.

"Hello, you are Noah, Max's sister," the voice said, and I turned to face the gang's most dangerous leader. He sat on a side stool, and the person behind him was probably watching something on his phone.

"I did not realise words travel that fast, Ronnie," I replied. No way I was acting innocent with this ex-convict around.

Not that I judged people, but the smirk on his face suggested that he was up to something.

With a wave of his hand, the guy behind him walks over to me, carrying two cups filled with liquid.

"Coke or Mojito?" he enquired.

"Coke," I responded; I was not good with drinks, and it did not seem right to start now.

I take a sip of the drink after he hands it over.

However, the taste was different, as if something had been added to it.

When I handed the drink back to him, I assumed it was "Rom", but he persisted in getting me to take more sips.

This does not sit well with me, and I disagree, but he will not stop. Mid-argument, the guy receives a hard punch to the face, and before I could process what had happened, Max is in front of me, hitting him a second time.

This enrages me; as much as the guy is wrong for forcing the drink on me, I did not expect Max to escalate into violence, which creeps the hell out of me.

"Why do you keep meddling in my business? You do not need to resort to violence to show me you are the boss around here," I yelled at him, so enraged that I drank almost all of the coke in one gulp.

"Do you not know guys like that go around spiking girls' drinks?" Max asks as he drags the cup from my grasp, spilling its contents on the ground, but it is too late.

"Shit, what?" My head feels different as everything begins to blur.

He drags my wrist to get me home, but I resist until my legs start to give out and he manages to catch me halfway. Only then did I realise I was in the endgame.