This might have been a mistake, but not one I would regret.
When I pulled up to Bellamy’s, his car was in the drive and the trunk was open. He stepped outside of his house and went straight to his car to haul another of my suitcases out.
I was really doing this. No going back.
I’d emptied my account before my dad could figure out what I was moving in with Bellamy and his family, because I knew the second he figured it out, he’d cut me off. I was going to re-enroll in Dayton to finish school.
Holy shit. I was moving in with him...
Would his mom think I was dragging her son down? Should I have spoken to her myself and asked to stay with her? The protocol for shacking up at eighteen was a little hazy. I would pay her though...I thumbed through the cash in the envelope, about six thousand dollars. The price of a handbag normally. Now it was the price of freedom--for a little while at least.
I stuffed the envelope inside my purse and got out of the car.
Bellamy stood at the back of his Honda, an unreadable expression on his face as he stared at the bumper. “You cannot leave that thing in my drive.”
I glanced at the Porsche, then back to him. “Well, where do you want me to put it?”
“I don’t know.” He swiped a hand through his hair. “We’ll have to get a tarp and cover it up. Someone will absolutely try to steal it.”
I walked toward him. “Well, you would know...”
This boy was a car thief, a drug dealer, a criminal, and though I said he was no knight, and I was no princess, it sure as hell felt like he was saving me.
He grabbed onto my hips, pulling me in for a kiss. “Think he’s gotten the, ‘you’re not in school’ text from Barrington yet?”
“I’m almost disappointed I didn’t get to make a show of leaving. You know I like some theatrics.” I could picture my father’s face when he realized I wasn’t coming back.
I didn’t think for a second he’d been upset at losing his daughter, just angry that he couldn’t control me.
“I think we should just skip school and fuck, since no one’s home. What do you think?”
I thought it was a great idea.
I’d just broken a nail on his headboard when the muffled noise of a car door closing came through the single pane, bedroom window.
Bellamy leaned over his headboard to peek through the plastic blinds. “The fucking balls on this asshole...”
“Who is it?”
He rolled off the bed, pulling on jeans before storming into the hall. “Your dad.”
Of course, he was here. The man had barely given a crap about me, but now, when I decided to pick a poor guy...now he suddenly wanted to try and parent me.
“Bellamy, do not punch him!” I called after him, hurrying to get dressed.
I pulled my shirt over my head on my way into the hall just as the lock to the front door clicked.
“You need to get the fuck off my porch.” The pure restraint was evident in Bellamy’s tone.
“I will do no such thing. I’m here for my daughter.”
The silence seemed to stretch on for minutes, but it could have only been a matter of seconds before I made it into the tiny living room.
Bellamy stood, arms crossed. Jeans not fastened. My nail marks fresh on his bare chest. My soul died a little bit at that moment.
“She’s not leaving.” His back muscles bunched and tensed. I knew one wrong word from my dad, and Bellamy may very well knock him out.
My father’s gaze skirted over me like I was no better than one of those hookers up by the pawn shops in Dayton, and I shouldn’t have cared, but it cut me to the core. “Drucella…”
“I’m not coming.” I held my breath, my pulse going haywire as Bellamy’s fingers threaded through mine. “I’m eighteen. I’m moving out.”
My father’s face turned every shade of red, then purple. “That’s how you want to be? Fine.” He smoothed a hand down his pressed dress shirt. “If you want to play poverty-stricken house, by all means. Play.”
His gaze swung back to Bellamy and he paused, like he was about to say something. “The least you can do is wear a condom. Let’s not make her momentary lapse in judgement a lifetime of punishment.”
When I glanced at Bellamy he looked like he was ready to blow. “Get the hell.” He took an unsteady breath. “Off my porch.”
My dad gave me one, last disapproving look before he turned and stormed down the drive to his car.
44
Bellamy
The next day after school, Drew went with me to pick Arlo up from the bus stop, then go meet the guys at Waffle Hut.
Arlo shot inside, hurling himself into the booth, then patting the plastic seat. “Miss Drew, you sit next to me.”
Hendrix’s head lifted on a glare, tracking Drew as we made our way across the restaurant. She sat beside Arlo and I sat next to her.
“Don’t, dude.” Wolf shook his head at Hendrix. “Just don’t.”
Hendrix twisted the straw paper in his hand, then dropped it to the table. “You disgust me, Bell.”
“Jesus Christ, man. Shut up.” Not that I expected Hendrix to be excited about me moving Drew in. I threw an arm around Drew’s shoulders and Hendrix sank back in the seat with a snarl.
“It’s bullshit, Wolf.” He snatched up a menu. “And you know it.”
Drew flipped him off. “You need me to buy you a tiara over there, drama queen?”
One of his eyes twitched before he looked at me. “And you chose to live with that…”
“Miss Drew’s living with us?” Arlo clapped his hands. “Yay!”
“No, Arlo.” Hendrix leaned across the table with a stern glare. “It’s not yay. She’s a succubus and she’s just sunk her claws into your brother, and is dragging him down to an estrogen-riddled hell.”
“Estrogen?”
“Don’t listen to Hendrix, Peehead.” Drew patted Arlo’s head. “He’s just salty because no girls like him for more than one night.”
This would never end.
“Hendrix. Shut up. Drew, shut up.” I grabbed a menu. “Arlo, yes, she’s staying for a while.”
Wolf chuckled, opening his menu and hiding his face behind it while humming the tune to “Another One Bites the Dust”.
After the waitress came over and took our order, Arlo crawled over the back of the booth to go to the restroom.
Hendrix glared at Drew for a second. “So we’re gonna talk business in front of her now, I guess?”
“Yeah…”
Wolf’s gaze drifted to the front. “Shit…” He yanked the joint from behind his ear and crammed it in his pocket. “Cops are coming over here.”
Officer Robins stopped beside our booth, a cup of coffee in his hand.
His gaze shifted from me to Hendrix to Wolf, then stopped on Drew. “Miss Morgan, right? How you doing?”
Wolf and Hendrix stared straight ahead at the wall.
“I’m good…” She glanced at me like I knew what the hell was going on. “How are you?”
Hendrix groaned, tossing his head back on the booth.
“That’s good to hear. Just came in for a cup of Joe. They’ve got some good coffee here.” He took a sip from his mug. “Just thought I would come by and check that you were okay. We’ve had a report down at the station that says you’re a missing person…”
Jesus Christ. She was eighteen, there wasn’t crap that could be done about it if she decided to leave. But since he saw her as nothing more than a possession, I guess it made sense to him.
“Oh, that’s...Nope. I’m right here.”
“Well, your father seems to think you’re missing.” Another sip of coffee. “Guess it might be those authoritative differences, huh?” His gaze strayed to me momentarily.
She actually laughed. “Let’s just say they escalated.”
“I see. I’ll make a note when I get back to the station, ma’am. Call him and tell him you’re A-Okay.”
“Sure.”
Hendrix scoffed. “Miss? Ma’am? We get called assholes and little shits.”
Because we were. Drew snatched her drink. “You are an asshole, Hendrix.”
“This is the kinda shit I’m talking about, Bell.” He balled up a napkin and lobbed at it Drew. “Getting all Chatty Kathy with the police. Calling me names. Giving me head injuries. What’s next? Burning my fucking house down and taking a shit on it?” He shook his head. “Where is the line?”
“You pissed in my car!” Drew all but shouted.
“You got him arrested!” Hendrix did shout.
Wolf barked out a laugh. “God, Zepp is missing some grade-A shit.”
Arlo came back, and Drew helped him over the back of the booth while I ignored the argument continuing to go back and forth, seething.
The waitress brought our food over before I finally couldn’t take it any longer. Her dad thought he’d get me in trouble, and that lit my ass on fire. “Your dad just implied I kidnapped you, you realize that?”
The banter fell silent, and Drew’s hand landed on my thigh. “My dad is an arrogant old man who is pissed because I’m not falling in line. He’s just throwing everything and anything he can at the situation because he has no control.” She squeezed. “Really you should be flattered you have him so on the ropes.”
Flattered? Pissed was more like it.
Arlo stood up in the booth, patting Drew on the head. “Miss Drew, you wanna watch The Good Dinosaur with me tonight? It’s sad. The dinosaur parents die.”
“Well, now you just told me the ending.”
He frowned. “It’s not the ending. That’s just the beginning.”
“That’s not depressing.” She snorted, tugging his shirt down where it had ridden up. “Sure. You want popcorn?”
He nodded enthusiastically.
“Okay. Eat your burger before Hendrix steals it like the vulture he is.”
He leaned across the table, whispering, “Arlo. Remember the bro-code. Bros before hoes.”
Drew covered Arlo’s ears. “Really? He is going to figure out that is not the garden variety soon.”
When she released him, he glanced over at me, his little brow creased in confusion. “‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’, and bros before hose…”
“No! Do not go to school and say that crap.”
Hendrix cackled like the idiot he was, and I crammed fries in my mouth.
I couldn’t deal with this shit...
45
Drew
The rest of the week went by.
Me waking up at Bellamy’s.
Us driving to school.
It became a weird kind of normal, and I felt a kind of warmth I had never experienced before in my short life. Bellamy, Arlo, their mom. It was a family-- a real family, unlike mine.
Over the past week, I’d watched Carol hug Arlo, and kiss Bellamy’s cheek, and each time it made my heart squeeze, pining for something I’d never had and it was now too late for.
Bellamy had to go do some ‘work’, so I’d offered to pick Arlo up from the bus stop. When he hopped in my car, he stuck out his tongue.
“Why is the stuff on your seat pink?” he asked.
“Don’t judge me, kid. My mom picked it out.”
“What music do you want?” I put the roof down, and a grin covered his face.
“The angry lady that screams.”
I fist-bumped him before changing the station and putting the car in drive. “You tell your brother that rap sucks.”
“No way. That’ll hurt his heart, Miss Drew.”
I laughed because it would. It really would.
I scruffed his hair. “We can’t have that, kid.”
It was a quick two-block drive back to Bellamy’s house. I went to pull into the drive, then pumped the brakes when I saw a pick-up parked where I usually did.
“Daddy’s here!”
Panic instantly washed over me. I pulled over at the curb, staring at the rundown truck. “What? That’s your dad’s car?”
He nodded, reaching for the door, but I grabbed him and pressed the button for the locks. “Let’s wait here.” Then I took out my phone and called Bellamy.
It rang a few times, then connected.
“Hey.”
“Your dad’s here.”
“Shit… Just stay in the car.” The whine of his engine revving came through the speaker.
“When does your mom get off work?”
“Not until later.”
“Should I call the police?”
“Fuck no! Pop’s is there and they’ll take him to jail. Just… I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Why in the hell would they take him to jail? Bellamy’s dad was the one with a restraining order on his ass. “Okay...” I said.
When I hung up, Arlo frowned at me. “Why can’t we go inside?”
“We have to wait for Bellamy, okay?”
“Okay.”
There was a beat of silence, filled only with the angry lyrics coming from the sound system.
I stared at the front of the house, wondering if his Grandpa was okay. I hoped Bellamy was right, and his Grandpa was crazy, because as far as I’d seen, he was just a bit kooky and redneck.
No sooner had I thought that before shouting came from the house.
A salt and pepper man, who looked an awful lot like an aged Bellamy, shot around the carport, blood trickling from his forehead. He clamored into the pickup, and Grandpa sprinted around the side of the house with a golf club raised above his head.
The truck’s tail lights flashed and the engine revved. But before Bellamy’s dad could back out, the old man hurled the club at his windshield. Then picked up a brick from the flower bed border and chucked that at the truck before it peeled out of the driveway.
“Pop-Pop!” Arlo cheered.
I unlocked the door, staring wide-eyed at Bellamy’s bat shit crazy Grandpa as I got out of the car.
The old man leaned over his knees on a wheeze.
“Need to smoke less, Pops.”
“Aw, smoking ain’t got nothing to do with this, Sugar-pie.” He placed a hand to his chest. “I’m just pissed I couldn’t run faster.” He covered Arlo’s ears with his old, weather hands. “Or I would’ve killed the son-of-a-bitch. Then you and me’d be going out to the woods to bury him.” He spit on the ground before uncovering Arlo’s ears.
Okay, he really was crazy.
Bellamy’s car chugged into the driveway. When he got out, he looked pissed as hell.
“I busted the son-of-a-bitch upside the head with his own nine-iron.” Grandpa grinned, placing a cigarette to his lips and lighting it. “Teach that motherfucker to come back ‘round here.” He hitched up his pants and took a hefty drag from his smoke.
Bellamy cast a deadpanned look in my direction. “See. No cops gonna take a nine-iron to someone’s head…”
This was so Dayton I didn’t even know where to begin.
“You think your momma would make some of her famous meatloaf?” Grandpa whacked Bellamy on the back. “Attempted murder sure can stir up an appetite.”
This was insanity, and this was what I’d chosen to immerse myself in.
I guided Arlo inside, and he went right past the hole in the drywall, the upturned coffee table, and smashed picture frames. He just sat down on the couch and turned on the TV like it was any other Tuesday. And that was the point where my heart sunk because the kid thought this was normal.
I knelt and started collecting broken shards of the ceramic lamp.
Bellamy came in, dragging a hand through his hair as he took a quick survey of the damage before he flipped the coffee table back over.
“Do you need to check he didn’t take anything?” I asked, thinking of the envelope of cash in his dresser drawer. “Like...in your room.”
“He doesn’t know about that.” He grabbed a shattered frame, removing the picture before he went
to the kitchen to throw the broken wood and glass away.
Arlo was used to this, and so was Bellamy.
I wondered how many times Bellamy saw this shit when he was a little boy, but without a big brother to look out for him. I wished someone would have been there for him, but even now he was still the pillar holding it all up.
When he came back into the living room, I took him by the jaw and kissed him. I didn’t want him to feel like the lone pillar.
His hand came to my waist; his forehead pressed to mine. “Don’t judge me by this shit.”
Cartoons hummed in the background, and I was absolutely judging him by this shit. Because as much as it may embarrass him, how he dealt with it just showed how truly good he was.
“You’re so not a bad boy,” I breathed.
“Don’t tell me shit like that…”
“Why?” I put my lips to his ear. “Does it make you want to prove me wrong?”
His hands went to my ass. “Absolutely.”
“Ewww!” Arlo shouted before tossing a throw pillow at us. “I don’t like it when you do that!”
“Fine…” Bellamy huffed, threading his fingers through mine before he led me to his room.
He flipped the lock, then cocked a brow at me. “You’re gonna regret telling me I wasn’t bad…”
I really didn’t think I would...
Later that evening, after we’d helped Arlo with his homework, we left to grab groceries for dinner.
Bellamy zoomed past Wal-E-Mart, and I thumbed back at the brightly lit building.
“Uh, didn’t you want to go there?”
“Can’t go to that one. There’s another one at the other end of town.”
I waited for him to explain, but, of course, he didn’t. “Well, are you going to tell me why, or leave me in suspense?”
“Hendrix kept stealing random shit and now we’re banned. It wasn’t even good crap. It was plungers and porcelain Santa Claus decorations.”
“Is he a kleptomaniac or something?”
“No, his brother used to hit him in the head with a whiffle ball bat when we were kids.” He lowered my window, a light breeze rustling through the inside of the car. “He was also the glue eater in first grade.”
No Good: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 26
