Vicious by Brandon Massey

Author:Brandon Massey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Corner Publishing

Chapter 24

They cleaned themselves up and changed clothes in the ladies’ room, and then they got back on the road. Ashley offered to drive; Kym rode in the passenger seat, while Desmond napped in the back.

As the smooth sounds of an Amel Larrieux CD pumped out of the speakers, the Oklahoma landscape drifted past: dusty ranches and farms. It was a hot day, the heat creating quicksilver mirages on the lonesome highway.

Although Kym checked in the side-view mirror periodically, she didn’t see the cowboy’s pickup. She cautiously hoped that her telling the highway patrol officer about him had scared him off.

For perhaps a half hour, they rode without talking, just listening to the music, when Ashley finally spoke.

“You slap really hard, you know. That first time you smacked me, I was like, seeing stars.”

“I slap hard? You should talk. When you hit me I thought I’d lost a tooth.”

“Sorry about that. I sort of saw red, went crazy.”

“Tell me about it.” Kym sighed, touched her sore face. “I think we both got way out of control.”

“Are you going to tell Daddy? I’m not. He’d have a hissy fit.”

“He doesn’t need to know about it. We’re both adults. We can work out our differences ourselves—peacefully.”

“Agreed.”

“But I do want to ask you a question,” Kym said.

Ashley glanced at her. “Go ahead.”

“When we were fighting, you said, ‘you always win.’ What did you mean by that? We’ve never competed in anything.”

Ashley smiled, but it was a rueful expression. “Tell that to Daddy.”

“Huh?”

“Daddy’s always comparing me to you. I never measure up.”

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t compare me to you by saying something like, ‘Kym did this, but you only did that.’ He does it in other ways. Like by constantly bragging about you.”

“He does?”

“ ‘Kym finished undergrad in three years,’ ” Ashley said, mimicking her father’s baritone voice. “ ‘She earned her M.B.A by the age of twenty-five. She got her own house—didn’t ask me for a dime. She’s got a real job—she pulls down six figures.’ ”

“He says all that stuff about me?”

“Are you kidding? Daddy’s like your twenty-four-seven personal publicist.”

“He doesn’t say any of that stuff when I’m around. I mean, I know he’s proud of me, but I didn’t know he carried on like that.”

“Well, you know it now.” Ashley shook her head. “But nothing I do impresses him all that much. He thinks pursuing an acting career is ‘frivolous’ and says he hopes that I won’t be out in L.A. waiting tables for minimum wage after I graduate.”

“He actually says that to you?”

“Oh yeah, sis. He says if that happens, it would be a waste of all the money they’re paying for my tuition. They’re letting me go to USC only ’cause Mom pushed him for it, you know.”

“That’s harsh,” Kym said. “But you know Dad is Mr. Pragmatic. He doesn’t understand artists and the things they do. He’s about business.”

“Do you know when I got the part in that Spike Lee film last year? Daddy wasn’t impressed, not at all.

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