The Inheritance (Volume Two) by Zelda Reed Read Free Book Online

plastic red roses, a bag of stale candy held together by cellophane and a pale pink ribbon.
    My father never allowed posters on the wall, but that didn’t stop me from sticking one on the back of my door. A vintage pink and black poster of Funny Face . Not too cliché, though Audrey Hepburn, every teenage girl’s idol, stares wide-eyed back at me.
    Neal stands near the door, watching me move from one corner of the room to the next. My beside table holds my bright red alarm clock, bought for fifty dollars and never used. A disposable camera (remember those?) lays face down on the second shelf, from the weekend Suzanne and I spent at Six Flags. Beneath my bed there’s a thin pile of dust, an old gum wrapper, and a fuzzy red sock I lost around Christmas. I pull it out, shake the dust loose and wallow in the release of my sneeze.
    For the first time since stepping off the plane I’m filled with an impenetrable joy. Maybe my father didn’t love me, but he thought of me enough to keep my memory lingering behind a door in his house.
    Neal and I sit on the edge of my bed. The mattress sinks beneath our weight, always too soft, like sleeping on a cloud, but I never outwardly complained. We silently sip our drinks, David Bowie floating through the bottom crack of the door. Our ice cubes clack against our glasses, liquid slurping on our tongues. The soundtrack of our evening.
    “I should apologize,” Neal says.
    “I agree.”
    A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
    “But what are you apologizing for?”
    His tongue curls against the back of his teeth. “Lying. About who I was to your father.”
    I down the rest of my drink. “I accept your apology.”
    Neal raises a sharp eyebrow. “You do?”
    I nod and stand, setting my glass on my bed side table. I remember the rings of liquid I used to leave behind, the sweat from soda cans forming a perfect circle on the wood.
    Neal leans back on my bed, his elbows pressing into the mattress, his empty glass balanced between two fingers. When I was a teenager I would’ve killed to have someone who looked like him in my bed. Someone to comfort me after Justin. Someone who sent a shiver down my spine with a single glance. Someone who commanded my attention with a single swipe of their tongue across their bottom lip.
    “Come here,” he says.
    I pull my hands behind my back. “I don’t think so.”
    “I thought you forgave me?”
    “That doesn’t mean I’m going to open my legs and let you in.”
    Neal lowers his glass onto the floor. “Am I not making myself clear?”
    “I don’t think you are.”
    “Then let me reiterate: I want you to come over here.”
    “And I think I told you, ‘no’.”
    A fire ignites behind Neal’s eyes, a flicker of red that flashes amongst a clear blue. I plant my feet where I stand, my head slightly cocked to the side, a single eyebrow raised in defiance. If you want me, you better come and get me.
    Neal stands and shrugs off his jacket, black fabric rolling past his shoulders and arms until it’s neatly folded across the back of my desk chair. “Last chance,” he says, fiddling with his gold cufflinks. A pop of color in his black ensemble.
    “You don’t listen very well do you?” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    Neal moves across the room with a quickness found only in the most majestic of animals. His legs stretching across the floor, arms and hands reaching for my waist. His fingers curl into the fabric of my dress, tugging me forward until our hips slap against one another.
    “You moved,” he says, the corner of his mouth raised into a smirk.
    “Have I?”
    His mouth devours mine, his hand flat against my lower back as his tongue snakes between his lips. I can taste the bourbon on his tongue, his own lapping up the dessert and champagne notes that paint the inside of my mouth.
    My legs knock into the mattress, fingers twisting in his shirt as I lay back on the bed. I try to bring Neal with me, our chests pressed together,