by J Bree
I barely know the asshole but finding the underwear on him is like the last fucking nail in the coffin. I have to remind myself, over and over again, that we’re at school and this isn’t the fucking Bay, and while Avery can make things disappear that doesn’t mean that we can just kill this fuck.
As long as the Jackal believes that he’s lying, Lance lives to have the shit kicked out of him by me another day. Fuck, I might even make a sport of it from now on, just schedule that shit in for every day at 7 p.m..
The moment we open the door to Lance’s room all I see is Lips’ face, her photos covering entire fucking walls in the tiny fucking storage cupboard of a room. My mind whites out in rage, every coherent thought just fucking leaves me, and Blaise nudges me to the side.
“Go and keep an eye on the girls. Wait, take these for Avery first. Get out of here before you give us a whole new fucking mess to clean.”
Morrison shoves some of the photos into my hands and I turn to find Ash knocking Lance to the floor, kicking him in the ribs as he stalks past him to toss the rest of the room.
“How are you so fucking calm about this? You don’t want him fucking buried for this?”
He shrugs and starts ripping the photos off of the wall, starting a pile of them on the bed. “If Lips wants him dead, she’ll do it herself. She knows her way around a knife, and I’m not taking his death away from her.”
Lance’s blackened eyes swivel over to me and I can see by the look on his face that he doesn’t believe we mean actual death.
We do though, we really fucking do.
I leave Ash and Blaise to toss the rest of the room because I might just go back on my own decision not to kill the fuck if I have to see whatever else is hiding in there, and I barely remember anything about the walk over. Sure, there’s still people fucking gossiping, the word having already gotten around this place about Lance lying because gossip spreads faster at Hannaford than herpes, but it rolls the fuck off of me now.
Something about knowing that Lips’ aversion to Hannaford boys is about the Jackal’s sick fascination and nothing to do with tastes or morals has added a little pep to my fucking step.
Avery answers the door with her phone in her hands and a distracted look on her face until she realizes I’m alone and holding the envelope of photos.
“Ash has already text me; he’s found a stockpile of her underwear there. This is so much more than a little crush or hurt feelings.”
I nod and look over her shoulder at where Lips is tucked into bed with ice cream and headphones. “Have you told her yet? I’ll go back over there and slit his throat right the fuck now if we have a cleanup organized.”
Avery shakes her head as she steps aside to let me in. “I haven’t yet, I wanted to wait it out a little. She’s PMS-ing and not in the greatest of moods. I didn’t want her charging down there and hacking him to pieces just because her hormones are raging out.”
Huh.
Well, I guess that explains her ripping my head off this morning.
Avery giggles like a psycho at the look on my face and we both head over to break the news to our Mounty. She startles when I sit down on the edge of her bed, barely fucking perching there because she can be weird as hell about shit. I keep my entire body tense in case she shoves me off or takes a swing at me, Avery has taught me to always expect the unexpected, but she just blushes and winces a little as she sits up. I glance at Avery but she doesn’t look worried so the wince isn’t an injury.
“What? What’s happened?” Lips croaks, her voice drenched in exhaustion.
I don’t want to, but I hand the envelope over and watch as she pulls the photos out one by one, looking them over blankly. Her face gives away nothing about what’s going on in her head; her shit is locked down so fucking tight.
I can’t stand the silence.
“Ash and Morrison are trashing his room as we speak and looking for anything else he might have. He stays on the planner,” I say and she finally looks at me, something close to sickening horror in her eyes.
I don’t want to make this worse for her.
She looks over at Avery and my cousin rips the goddamn band-aid off. “Harley found your underwear on him when he beat him. He was carrying it around like some sick pervert. He said he took it as extra proof for the bet but we all know there has been dozens of pairs taken.”
Three seconds.
All it takes is three seconds for Lips to go from disgusted to filled with rage, the calm and deadly kind that I’m so used to seeing her with.
I fucking love it.
I smirk at her and she gives me a nod like we’ve come to an agreement. “Give me two days to sort my uterus out and then I’ll deal with him myself.”
A chuckle bursts out of me at her words, she’s such a fucking Mounty street kid sometimes, but Avery’s eyes narrow at her. “I can hand all of this over to the school board and get him expelled; you don’t have to be involved in this.”
Lips shakes her head back, her words slow and carefully thought out. “This sort of disrespect needs to be punished, Aves.”
Fuck.
They’re talking about shit they haven’t clued me in on again, I can fucking tell by Avery’s curt nod. I hate it, I fucking loathe not knowing what the fuck is going on especially if the Jackal is involved, but I’m playing the long game here. If I keep showing up, being here for Lips and proving I’m not the next guy just trying to get into her pants for money or some sort of weird agenda… hopefully she’ll come around.
The hardest part is that I know she wants me too.
It’s written over every fucking inch of her. I’m not some arrogant fuck, I can see she wants Ash and Morrison too, but knowing I have some kind of a chance is the only thing stopping me from raging the fuck out at the secrets.
I grab the photos back off of her and shove them into one of Avery’s drawers. We don’t need that shit hanging around but I’m sure they’ll come in handy for something.
Lips slumps back against her pillows with her eyes shut, seething and angry for so fucking long while Avery and I just stand here like idiots watching her. Right when I think I’m going to have to drag her out of bed for some whiskey and more ice cream, she slides her earphones back into her ears and pulls her covers up, falling asleep like none of this ever happened.
“I’m staying here tonight,” I murmur, and Avery huffs at me.
“Well, of course you are. Ash and Blaise will too because you’re all stupid, pig-headed boys who can’t get your acts together without me doing it for you.”
I blink at her but she shoves a blanket into my chest and pushes me toward the pullout bed.
She’s completely right because we are all that fucking hopeless.
Ash and Morrison get back in a little after midnight and pass out here too without a word. We haven’t all bunked in together like this since Joey’s campaign of terror last year, when Ash was in over his head and wouldn’t ask for help so we had to just fucking stalk the both of them and pitch in on Avery Watch.
I go to swim training early the next morning because I need the distraction from all of the anger balled up in my chest. I meet the girls back in their room to walk down to breakfast together and I plan on fucking glueing myself to Lips’ side for the rest of the day. Sharing our classes means she probably wouldn’t notice except that I blatantly tell Avery that I’m sleeping on the rollout bed in their room until Lance has been dealt with. Lips chokes on her toast and almost dies.
I don’t care.
I’m not letting this situation turn into another Rory.
Lance needs to fucking go.
When Ash and Blaise leave with Avery to walk her to class, I follow Lips as she takes a detour on the way to ours to check out the photography room.
Fuck knows why she’s suddenly so interested in photos; you’d think after seeing her stalker’s work she’d hate being down here, but she looks around at everything intently.
I stand guard over her the entire time,
ignoring the little sighs and huffs she lets out in my direction. She’s always going to be a loner at heart, a kid who’s had to do everything by, and for, herself but that doesn’t mean she can’t learn to lean on me a little.
She leans on Avery… not often, but she does.
“I can take care of myself,” she murmurs as we slip out and head to our class.
I shrug. “You can, but that doesn’t mean you have to. I’m not fucking risking it, Mounty, nothing you say is going to change that.”
She clamps her mouth shut and doesn’t say another word about it, not until we’re back in the dining hall for lunch with everyone else, food spread out and Avery more focused on her phone than what the topic of the day is.
“I don’t need a guard, just leave me alone to deal with this myself.”
I peg her with a look across the table. “I’m not doubting you’re skilled with your knife, I’m just saying any guy at this school is twice as big as you and Lance is clearly fucking deranged.”
Ash glances between the two of us and then shrugs at me. “She took down Rory. Don’t baby her like we do Avery, she doesn’t need it.”
I want to kill him. “She had the element of surprise with Rory and he had his dick out. She’s inviting Lance somewhere and I doubt she’s going to get him in such a compromising position.”
Lips shudders at me and pretends to gag. “I’ve seen more of him then I ever wanted to. If it means that much to you then you can keep watch for me but you’re not coming into the classroom. I’ve got something very specific in mind for the little fuck.”
Well… that at least sounds devious and promising.
She sets the meet up for after classes and the fucking creep agrees to meet her as if we didn’t spend the night destroying his life. Lips and I bicker about her plan for the rest of the day and finally I relent, but only to stay out of the photography room itself. I take up watch in an alcove outside the room where I can still hear if the little fuck tries anything, and I make Lips swear to call out for me if she needs me.
She doesn’t.
I can barely fucking believe my eyes when after six and a half minutes—I was timing—Lance comes bolting out of the photography room like his ass is on fire. He’s beyond pale, shaking, and looking like he’s going to throw up. I catch the whole thing on camera, sending the clip off in the group message right as Lips steps out of the room without a single mark on her. Not a speck of dust or crease to show what the actual fuck went down in there.
I’m instantly pissed off at myself for not snooping.
I cover it with a smirk, drawling out to her, “If I asked you what you did, would you tell me?”
“Who says I even did anything? We had a chat,” she says with a smile.
What a load of shit.
I snort and shove my phone at her, hitting play on the video. There’s no arguing with the sheer terror etched into every line of the creep. Her eyes light up as she sinks her teeth into that perfect lip of hers. Fuck, I wish it was my teeth. I miss the taste of her, the feel of her body on mine, her hips moving like they have a mind of their own.
Fuck.
Focus, Arbour.
“A chat did that?”
She nods and then tucks her arm into mine like she does with Avery. I force my body not to freeze or show any reaction but this has to fucking mean something, right? If she’s comfortable enough to casually touch me, I have to be making some progress. When I’m silent for a little too long, running all of the variables through my head and sending myself just a little fucking crazy, she blushes and tries to move.
Nope.
No fucking chance of that happening, so I grab her hand and thread our fingers together. Of course she doesn’t just let it go, but there’s no way I’m giving in now.
“Uhm—”
“Get over it, Mounty, we’re friends now, remember?”
She sighs and drags me down the hall like this is so fucking inconvenient for her, but her fingers are holding on just as tight as mine are. Even with my phone blowing up in my pocket with texts from the others, I just enjoy this little fucking moment in time where she’s letting me in.
Even if it’s only for a minute.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ash
Whatever the Mounty did to get Avery and I clear from Senior, it’s fucking life changing.
I know it had to be her doing, that maybe she wasn’t ordering a hit back in Haven but instead buying us a reprieve, because I haven’t set eyes on the man since then. Not a single demand to come home and that can’t be a coincidence.
The phone call I received from one of my father’s men to say that we’ll be staying at Hannaford for the entire break was short and cutting, but I feel like a weight has shifted off of my chest. Sure, it also means Joey is staying here and I’ll have to watch out for him the entire time, but that’s nothing new.
I pack a bag to take over to Avery’s room and when I get there I find the Mounty giggling like a schoolgirl on her bed with earphones in.
Clearly a present from Blaise and I refuse to let myself get jealous that he can make her that happy… or that she’s listening to music I might not have heard yet.
She spots me staring down at her and glares back at me, her cheeks flushed and rosy. “What time are you leaving?”
I smirk back, playing along for now. “Avery didn’t tell you? Our father has been called away on business and he told us to stay here. You’re stuck with all three Beaumonts this week, Mounty.”
She shrugs like it’s nothing, like she has had nothing to do with this and instead shoves the earphone back into her ear to shut me out.
I don’t take dismissals well and certainly not from her.
I tug it back out, ignoring the glare she throws at me. “I haven’t seen my father since you had your mysterious little midnight meeting in Haven. How long should I be expecting this separation to continue?”
Her face falls into that carefully blank slate she’s the expert at wearing as she sits up on the bed, her eyes flicking behind me as she answers, “If I had anything to do with your father’s busy schedule, I would think that after graduation you and Avery would both be free of him anyway and the… interference would no longer be necessary.”
And what the fuck can I say back to that? She’s told me everything and absolutely fucking nothing.
I want nothing more than to spend the rest of the break stalking her until I know every last one of her secrets, all of the things that she won’t tell us in the shared looks with my sister, but Avery runs interference like she’s spent her whole life training for this moment.
I sleep on the pullout just to be sure that Joey isn’t going to show up and try to kill Avery the moment I turn my back for a second… and, honestly, I’m here to make sure that the Jackal doesn’t send one of his men in to kill Lips.
Or kidnap her.
I get fucking livid just thinking about it.
When the school fills up with students again the night before classes go back, I head back to my room, feeling safer once there’s more bodies in the building. Joey is easily distracted and with his stupid fucking friends around he’ll just get high and fuck some brainless girl instead of worrying about us.
Harley grills me about the break, but there’s nothing to tell him. Blaise fared better at home with Harley as a buffer so at least we’re not back on suicide watch. There’s a long list of people I’d love to see buried in cheap pine boxes, and the Morrisons are on that fucking list.
Impressive considering they’re the only ‘clean’ people on it.
I pass out for the night, ready for the early start of getting back to training in the morning, but I’m woken by my phone at two in the morning.
Avery is the only one who calls after midnight.
“Joey’s at the bar in Haven. Ria said he’s cooked, we’ve got to go now.”
For fuck’s sake.
Harley is already awake, the insomnia still wrapping him up tight. When I gl
ance over to where he’s studying on his bed, he huffs at the sight of me. “Joey? Gotta be that asshole if you’re looking like that.”
I nod and heave myself up. “Of course it’s him, when is he not ruining my fucking life. Get Morrison up; I need to take a leak.”
I pull a pair of jeans on and shove a jacket over the tank I was sleeping in while Blaise grunts and groans his way back to consciousness. Harley looks fucking wrecked, he always does on the bad nights, but he tamps down his usual asshole bitching.
At least until we lock up and head out to meet the girls.
“Why the fuck do we have to pick that asshole up?”
I shrug. “My father will be pissed if we don’t.”
That’s more information than I usually give him and he shares a look with Blaise about it. “So what? Tell him to parent his own fucking kid. If he rages out over you trying to drag him home, are you expecting us to just let him? Because I will kill the cunt the second he raises a fucking hand to you or one of the girls.”
I’m saved from answering as we get to the stairs, Avery and Lips already waiting for us there. I give Lips a nod as I tuck Avery under my arm, because I know she’ll be freaking out about the potential shit-show this might turn into.
When we get to the Maserati, Lips mumbles something, probably snarky, and Avery cackles at her. I find myself feeling really fucking grateful, not only that they found each other, but that my sister told me to fuck off about being friends with her.
I’ve never seen her so happy and relaxed with a friend before.
I could have ruined that for her.
I tuck Avery into the front seat with Blaise and then sit in the back seat with Lips between Harley and I. She sits so stiffly, it’s as though she thinks we’ll kill her for touching us.
Really, I’d kill to have her touch me.
“Park around the back, Ria will let us in the service entrance. She’s lost sight of him, we need to get in and out fast,” Avery says, her phone now glued to her ear as she fixes up Joey’s mess once again.
I don’t want to know what the fuck he’s been doing here all night. There’s very possibly a trail of dead bodies we’re about to trip over and won’t that be fun to explain to everyone.
