Make My Move

by J Bree

  Guess he's not any use to her in her plans of fucking us all over.

  The moment the hour is up the Mounty starts packing her shit away, eager to get the fuck away from the tension. Blaise is busy frowning at the notes she's given him, looking even more confused than when we first got here, and the freshman pounces on the Mounty like the desperate piece of shit he is.

  He jerks his head in Blaise's direction and says, “How do you stay away from them if you’re tutoring him?”

  I level a glare at him and it catches Blaise's attention as he slings his bag over his shoulder. Good to know we both agree on pulverizing him the moment we can.

  The Mounty shrugs, her tone dismissive as she says, “I don’t. Avery is my best friend and roommate. I tutor Ash even though he hates me. Joey is hell-bent on murdering me. I’m saying you should stay away from them if you want to survive the year.”

  “You think you’re tougher than me?” He grins at her and, no. Absolutely not. I'm not having him play the macho bullshit card on her.

  I might fucking loathe her but she could break him in half with one arm tied behind her back.

  I'd also pay to watch that, but for entirely different reasons than Harley would.

  “Have you ever broken the bones in a guy’s hand in half a second one-handed?” I drawl, and when he frowns at me and shakes his head, I smirk and continue, “Then she’s tougher than you.”

  He blinks at her, utterly dumbstruck at the little brawler Mounty.

  “Are you here to study or to try to get into the Mounty girl’s panties because you should be warned, she only fucks crime lords,” Blaise laughs and she shoves his math workbook into his chest like that will shut him up.

  Immediately, the freshman comes to her rescue. “You think you’re cool because your daddy bought your shitty punk band a record deal? Write another pathetic song about your feelings, dickhead, and stay out of my business.”

  The Mounty looks fucking horrified and Blaise stiffens, but I burst out laughing, so loud that the students around us stop and stare. “They’re not going to find enough of your corpse left to get an ID by the time we’re done with you.”

  “You didn’t want to take my advice at all then?”

  The freshman shrugs and murmurs back to her, conspiratorially like they're the best of fucking friends, “Mounties stick together. I don’t like the way they talk to you.”

  And I don't give a fuck what he wants.

  The freshman needs to go.

  Chapter Four

  Blaise

  Ash’s sour mood about the Mounty only gets worse as the weeks go on.

  He comes back to our room from the fight club each night pissed that Lance won’t show his face there, and there’s nothing on this Earth that Ash hates more than a coward. I think it comes from Joey being a gutless little fuck, hiding behind Senior’s money and wielding it against his siblings like the fucking psychopath he is, so the freshman’s behavior just won’t fly.

  It takes Avery’s social campaign wreaking havoc on his life before Lance shows up at the fight club and Ash fucking pummels him into the ground. Harley peels him off before there’s too much permanent damage, which confuses the fuck out of me until I realize Ash hasn’t told him that this whole fucking thing is about the Mounty.

  Harley would probably slit Lance’s throat in a jealous fit.

  He’s getting more and more pathetic over her, chasing her tail around the school grounds, and when Ash brings it up, telling him he stinks of ‘pick-me’ energy, Harley takes a swing at his cousin for only the second time in his life.

  The first time was over his mother’s locket and Joey.

  Ash loses what little of his mind he has left.

  I bounce.

  There’s absolutely no point in getting between the two of them because this is something they need to get out of their system. Harley needs to let the Mounty go, because I don’t see Ash changing his mind about this and we all know that at some point Ash will change Avery’s mind about the girl. The twins have never disagreed on something like this.

  There’s a party held at the groundskeeper cottage at the start of every year and the music is usually decent enough, but it’s the copious amount of weed and alcohol that I’m after tonight. Anything to drown out the noise still ringing in my head about the Mounty and everyone fighting over her.

  It’s fucking boring but it also keeps reminding me about my own tangled mess of feelings for her.

  She’s too fucking… nice. I mean, she’s not nice but she’s nice to me without ever asking anything from me in return which is… nice. Fuck. How can I write entire albums about the trauma of my father and hopelessness of the world but I can’t fucking unpack what the Mounty is doing to me except to say she’s fucking nice?

  Beers and bongs.

  That’s what I fucking need.

  I’ve used that shit to run away from my feelings since I was nine; this is the party trick I’m good at and I need it so I head down to the party by myself, dodging the invitations and hands of the girls heading that way as well because that’s not what I’m here for tonight. The thought of fucking one of these girls just doesn’t sound appealing right now.

  I’m not going to think about the whys of it.

  I get absolutely fucking trashed in the first hour. There’s a table outside and more than enough drugs around that if I wanted to attempt something stronger, then tonight would be the night, but Joey has put me off of any interest in experimenting.

  I’m clutching at a bottle of beer and weaving my way onto the dance floor when I spot them.

  Avery and the Mounty.

  I could ignore them, I would ignore them, except they’re heading towards the staircase that leads to the sex rooms and no. Nope, absolutely not. Avery goes up there and Ash burns the school to the ground in his rage.

  I’m stumbling a little but I manage to get to them before Avery’s feet hit the staircase, a hand around her arm to stop her but there’s no way to grab the Mounty without tipping Avery over.

  My brain feels as though it’s working in slow motion, like the sight of the girls talking to each other on the screen on Avery’s phone is coming in delayed so by the time I realize they’ve agreed to split up and the Mounty is still going upstairs, she’s already gone and Avery is tugging me over to the dance floor.

  Fuck.

  Stay with Avery and stop anything that might happen to her, or go up after the Mounty and get her out of the rooms of debauchery. I’m not a prude or against the orgies that happen up there but the thought of her around them has me feeling fucking sick.

  Or it’s the beer.

  Totally the beer, I don’t care about the Mounty. Except for her tutoring me better than literally any of the many, many highly paid educators my parents have thrown at me. Or the fact that she has defended me with that sharp tongue and acidic wit of hers. She saved Avery from being raped and beaten even when Avery was tormenting her. I can’t think of a single girl in this fucking hellhole who would do the same.

  I frown down at Avery, ready to drag her upstairs with me to go after the Mounty so we could drag her back down here where I can keep them both safe, but she smirks at me and holds up the bottle of champagne for me to take.

  I’m not proud but after two giant gulps, the pressing need to rescue the Mounty isn’t such a big thing anymore. Fuck, she’s a big girl. She can take care of herself and getting involved with her while Ash is raging out and Harley is panting after her? Not smart.

  We swap the bottle back and forth a few times and when we’ve polished it off Avery hands me another bottle of whiskey she’s found somewhere. By the time it’s done I feel fucking invincible and suddenly the Mounty appears, safe and untouched from what I can see.

  I feel a hell of a lot more relief than I have any right to, throwing my head back and roaring with the type of drunken laughter that feels just a little hysterical.

  Tonight isn’t going to end well.

  But for right now
we just dance and, fuck me, the Mounty can move. Avery is all sorts of grace and poise but Lips is… fuck, she’s languid and swinging hips and her ass is fucking out of this world. The dance floor is crowded enough that she brushes against me a few times and it’s only because of the drunken delay I have going on that I don’t do something about it.

  Too fucking tempting.

  I guess I’m lucky that the drinking finally catches up to me and I have to puke. I stumble outside to puke all over the steps, my stomach cramping like fucking crazy as the girls out there squeal and yell at me for getting it on their shoes. Joke’s on them, I couldn’t give less of a fuck about any of them.

  I barely register anything happening around me until Avery wedges herself under my arm, helping keep me upright as we stumble through the trees toward the school. My feet aren’t working right at all and I know I’m leaning too heavily on her but I just can’t keep my balance.

  Until I can.

  The Mounty smells too good, too inviting, too alluring to my completely fucked state and with my eyes shut like this there’s nothing else to focus on except the way that she’s tucked in tight against me. Thank God my words are all fucked up because no matter how hard I try to tell her that I want her, that I’m sorry for being such a dick to her, and that really I’m the one desperately hoping she picks me, they never come out right.

  Just a long stream of mumbling sounds and grumbling.

  Neither of them take any notice of me or anything they might be able to decipher from me, though I’m sure Avery will call me out for shit later. She’s been around me enough when I’m trashed that she might know what the fuck I’m saying.

  Thank God Ash isn’t here, he’d read me like an open fucking book.

  My eyes stay closed up tight and my legs like jelly under me; they don’t stop fucking wobbling as we walk.

  The Mounty smells really fucking good.

  She feels good too, tucked up tight under my shoulder, and I decide this is the best type of torture. The type where I know it’ll bite me in the ass later but, for now, I don’t want it to end.

  I almost pitch over when we stop abruptly, the Mounty cursing viciously under her breath and then Avery snaps, “Move, Summers.”

  Ugh. Annabelle again.

  “Give him here. We came together and we’ll leave together,” she calls out, which is a complete lie but if I open my mouth, I will puke all over Avery’s shoes and I like my balls where they are, thanks, so I’ll just have to plead my innocence later.

  Avery huffs and wriggles until she has a better hold of my waist, my stomach roiling at the movement… wait, no, that’s me moving. Fuck. How do I stop the rocking? I can’t. Fuck.

  I start swallowing, praying I don’t puke again, but no one notices. Avery and Lips are too busy trying to get rid of Annabelle.

  “He’s done for the night. We’ll see him back safely,” Lips says and I tuck my face into her neck and breathe her in a little more, the scent distracting me from the bile creeping up my throat. I just need to keep it together until we’re back up in the dorms; Avery will hate me puking in her bathroom but it’ll be better than her shoes.

  “You? Fuck no, if he goes home with you he’ll be tied to a fucking bed and forced to play out all of your stalker fantasies.”

  “If he goes home with you, he’ll wake up naked and an expectant father. Now fuck off,” Avery hisses at her and we start moving again.

  I stumble over my feet again, and when Annabelle starts screaming at us, I lift my head away from Lips’ neck and yell out to her, my eyes still shut tight, “I told you to leave me the fuck alone, Summers.”

  Nope.

  Gonna puke.

  I tuck back into her neck and breathe deeply to ride out the waves of sickness.

  I think I pass out for a minute.

  I don’t remember arriving back to the main building or the stairs at all, only coming aware again when we stop and I sway forward, Avery grunting and cursing at me like a fucking pro which means I’m on her last goddamn nerve before she smothers me in my sleep.

  Then the loud sound of the door unlocking, the extra locks the Mounty put on aren’t exactly subtle, and they shuffle me inside. I try to open my eyes or thank them or fucking something but then I’m pitching forward without them stopping me until I’m face down on the couch.

  Thank fuck it’s as soft as a fucking cloud, the blanket that’s thrown over me is also one of Avery’s cashmere ones, and I’m in fucking heaven.

  The last thing I hear before I pass the fuck out is Lips mumbling, “Fucking rich kids,” and Avery’s laugh.

  Ash and I became friends in grade school and I’ve known all along that Joey was trying to kill him and his beloved twin sister. One look into the older sibling's eyes when he’s raging out and you know without a shadow of doubt that he’s desperate for blood, destruction, and oblivion.

  Boom.

  Doesn’t matter how fucking drunk I still am, I know exactly what that noise is. There’s no one else who’d be showing up to Avery’s door in the middle of the night and trying to kick it in, so my brain doesn’t even have to come online before I’m moving.

  The light comes on in the room and Avery calls out to me but I’m storming toward the door, tearing it open and finding Joey, raving and screaming, with his leg raised to kick out again.

  Fuck him.

  I dive at him, taking him to the ground with ease because he’s nothing but a drugged-up psychopath, and no matter how fucking wasted I am, I can take this asshole out. He bucks and flails wildly to try to flip me off of his body, but I can hold my own in the ring with Harley and Ash so this is fucking nothing.

  There’s nothing more satisfying than beating the fuck out of Joey, just fucking whaling on the asshole until his face is a bloodied mess. Ash never lets it get this far when he’s around so I take my chance and fuck him up. The Mounty stalks out behind me and distracts me for a second; the savage look on her face isn’t anything new but the fact that she’s here ready to back me up is.

  Fuck.

  I shouldn’t have lost my focus, now my stomach is aching and cramping so fucking bad.

  Joey’s out cold so I move to pin his arms to his body with my legs so he doesn’t catch me unaware and then I say, my voice all types of fucked up, “Mounty, I’m gonna fucking puke.”

  She startles and bolts back into the bedroom for me, thank fuck, and Avery cusses me out with her phone pinned to her ear, reinforcements on the way.

  I’m sweating by the time the Mounty shoves a bowl under my nose and finally, finally, I empty my guts up. Fuck, when I start puking I just can’t fucking stop and I’m feeling miserable until the Mounty runs a wet washcloth over my forehead.

  I’m about to say something really fucking stupid, like how much I like her, when Ash and Harley arrive.

  Chapter Five

  Harley

  Morrison is straddling Joey’s limp and bloodied form, dry retching as the Mounty scrubs at his face.

  I’m fucking livid.

  What the fuck is he doing here and why the hell is Joey showing up here in the middle of the night again? I thought we sorted this shit out with him last year but the psychopath just doesn’t learn.

  Morrison’s only saving grace is the fact that he wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t help defend the girls, but I’m ready to rip his fucking arms off over the way that Lips is fussing over him.

  “What the fuck, Morrison?” I snap, when she starts rubbing his back gently, the sorts of soft touches she gives exactly no one. I can hear Avery in the bathroom emptying something in the toilet and gagging, so he must have already been sick.

  Fucking pathetic.

  He needs to control his drinking before it gets him in shit again.

  “This is what death must feel like,” he moans and Lips scoffs at him, rolling her eyes because we all know he’s gonna start whining over his hangover.

  Ash glares at them both as he grabs Morrison under the arms and pulls him off of Joey’
s unconscious form. Avery appears in the doorframe, her robe tucked tight around her body and looking queasy, and she stalks over to scrub at Blaise’s face with a clean washcloth. “If Blaise wasn’t here Joey would have gotten in. Lips would have had to stab the asshole.”

  Lips crosses her arms with a frown, muttering under her breath, “I fucking would’ve, too.”

  Fucking Joey.

  I don’t know how the fuck to get rid of him without having Ash and Avery pitching a fucking fit at me, but we’re almost at a breaking point. He needs to be dealt with.

  I give Avery a quick hug and then I grab Joey’s legs to drag him back to the boys’ dorm. I make sure Joey’s head slams into every bump and chair leg on the way because I’m almost fucking jealous of Morrison for getting to beat the shit out of him.

  I’m also fucking seething with jealousy over all of the soft touches he was getting from Lips but if I start shit with him now, Ash will pitch a fucking fit and make a big deal out of it. Lips is too fucking… jumpy. Every time I think I have a handle on her she throws something new at me and I’m back at square one.

  I need to figure out how the hell to get her attention, but the fact I’m even thinking this is pissing me off.

  I’ve never had to work for a girl’s attention before. I’m not being an arrogant dick by saying that, there’s never been a shortage of girls wanting to chase after me and I’ve never found one that I wanted enough to go after before so, naturally, I find the most fucking difficult option possible to lose my head over.

  Fucking typical.

  I make it out of the girls’ dorm and down the hall toward the junior boys’ rooms before Ash catches up to me, seething and spitting in anger.

  “We need to get a fucking camera on their door, an alarm, fucking something.”

  I turn another corner and smirk at the loud thump noise of Joey’s head hitting the stone wall. “Floss will smother you in your sleep if you try to pull that shit on her. They were lucky Morrison was in there.”