by Anna Paige
If I hadn’t screamed in my sleep, he never would have barged in in the first place.
As soon as he was gone, Ash rolled onto his back and tugged me onto his chest again. “Just five more minutes like this, okay? That’s all I ask.”
“You aren’t tired of me crushing you yet?”
“One, you’re far from crushing me. And two, fuck no. I could sleep like this every night of my life and be the most well-rested man on earth.”
I ran my hand over his peck, tucking my head down even more to hide my smile. “Since when do you say stuff like that? It’s not like you to be so . . . sweet.”
“I’m not sweet, as a general rule. I’m just so fucking relieved to be able to tell you what I’m feeling that I can’t seem to shut it off. Hopefully, it will die down over time. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking I’ve gone all sensitive or whatever.”
“What if I like sensitive?”
“Then you and you alone will get to see that side of me.” He poked my ribs with one finger, tickling me. “But I’m gonna make you work for it.”
“That sounds somewhat intriguing.” I fought not to laugh as he continued to work his way up and down my ribcage. “We’ll have to delve into this again when we have more time.” I went to sit up and he tugged me back down, grinning when I looked up at him in frustration.
“All the time in the world, sweetheart,” he muttered with his eyes locked on my mouth. “We have all the time in the world.”
Ashton
Beck delivered on the breakfast we requested, and everyone dug in with gusto, our appetites seemingly having recovered even if mentally we were all still processing.
Last night with Blair had been incredible, for the most part. I’d loved holding her all night but hated that her dreams kept causing her to shiver and jerk in her sleep.
I watched her between bites as we ate in relative silence and wondered how long it would be before she could sleep peacefully again. Hopefully sooner rather than later, though I doubted it. She’d been through something horrific and that tended to wreak havoc on the subconscious.
We finished up breakfast and all four of us cleaned the kitchen, even though Blair insisted that Beck didn’t have to because he’d cooked.
“We need to get this done so we can go down and give our statements. No point in procrastinating,” Beck said as he put the last of the utensils in the dishwasher.
Blair visibly flinched, and we all noticed.
“Maybe we can wait a day,” Charli suggested. “Give everyone whose stuff got stolen time to make their statements, then we can go in tomorrow when it’s less . . . hectic.”
“I’ll call Jake and find out if we can hold off until tomorrow,” Becker announced, nodding like he approved of the idea and stopping to kiss Blair’s forehead on the way to get his phone.
Everyone was silent for a while, lost in our own chaotic thoughts. At least, my thoughts were chaotic. I had no doubt theirs were, as well.
“Hey, Charli, didn’t your wallet go missing a few weeks ago . . . right after you stopped by the coffee shop for a latte?” Blair asked suddenly, still pale.
Charli’s hand came up to her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh, shit. I didn’t even make the connection.” Her gaze swept between the two of us as she asked, “Do you think he was stealing from customers this whole time?”
“There’s a good chance he was. I think a call to his bosses is in order. They need to know what’s going on and that he may have been victimizing their patrons.” The word victimizing made Blair pale further, so I let it go for now. “I’ll stop in later and talk to them. You.” I pointed at Charli. “Be sure to mention the missing wallet to Jake tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“You’ll what?” Becker asked, stepping back into the room. “Jake said that’s fine, by the way,” he tossed out quickly before refocusing on Charli, who then got him up to speed about the missing wallet.
When she finished, Beck eyed me over her head for a moment but didn’t say anything.
“He’s gonna be in jail for a long time,” Blair commented, patting Charli on the arm. When no one responded, she looked around at us. “Right?”
“Absolutely. I’m a witness to what he did to you.” I hurried on so neither of us could dwell too long on that statement. “And there’s no valid reason I can think of why he would have all those wallets without the knowledge of their owners, so that’s kind of a no-brainer.”
“Do they give bail to people who’ve done the things he’s done?” This from Charli, who sounded incredibly young and small as she spoke.
I shook my head. “Doubtful. He’s going to be facing some serious charges.”
“Doubtful, but it could happen, right?” she pressed. “I mean, they let people charged with murder out on bail. I’ve seen it on the news.”
“It’s not going to happen. Most of those people have deep pockets, are well-connected, and have attack-dog lawyers who know how to work the system.” Not entirely true, but I was more focused on calming their fears than providing accurate information. “Tommy will probably have a public defender, and I doubt anyone will be looking to do him any favors.”
Becker was silent throughout this exchange between me and Charli, his expression carefully neutral, like he was stewing about something.
It didn’t hit me why until Blair let out a soft gasp. “If he took Charli’s wallet, he has our address. She had to get a new student ID, new license, new everything. Our address was on half the stuff in there.”
The two girls stared at each other with wide eyes for a moment.
Becker pursed his mouth and came over to stand between the two of them, leaning against the edge of the small table where Blair and I had sat talking just a few hours before. “He’s not going to come after you. He won’t get bail; I’d bet money on it. He’s going to stay in the crappy county jail until he’s sentenced and then he’ll go on to a larger prison, hopefully for a few decades at least. You don’t have to worry about him.” He gave each girl a long look. “Neither of you.”
“What’s the plan for today?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from Tommy. “We don’t have anywhere to be. We can do whatever you guys want.”
Blair eyed her phone as it vibrated on the table, a look of resignation on her face as she reached for it. “Looks like Mom’s up. I better take this and talk her down.” She answered the phone with a hasty, “Hey, Mom, hang on just a sec,” before muting the call and looking around the room. “After I’m done here”—she directed this at all of us, a pleading look on her face—“I want the rest of today to be Tommy-talk free. I’m not taking calls from anyone, I’m not mentioning his name, and I’m begging you guys not to either. Find us something to do, get us away for the day, and let’s try to be normal—whatever the hell that is—for the next twenty-four hours. We’ll deal with the drama tomorrow. Okay?”
Beck nodded, as did Charli.
When Blair’s gaze came to rest on my face, I offered a smile and gave her a wink that let her know I was on board with that. With whatever she needed, always.
One heavy sigh later, she was headed down the hall to take her mother’s call in privacy. I didn’t know what she intended to tell her, how much and how specific, but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. On either of them.
Charli let out a sigh of her own and took out her phone. “May as well call my folks too, so they can tell me all the reasons I bring these things on myself and remind me for the billionth time that I should be more like my brother.” She blew out a defeated breath and started toward the porch. “I’d have to be contortionist to get my head that far up my ass.”
She and Blair both needed to unwind, something to distract them from all of this. And I thought maybe I knew just the place. I excused myself and made a quick call of my own, already working on a supply list in my head.
If the girls needed to get away for the day, I would make sure that’s exactly what she did.
We all could use a m
inute to unplug, unwind, and breathe. The last twenty-four hours had been brutal, and the next few days would probably introduce new issues as everything came to light. People were going to talk, things Blair would rather not think about would be the new hot topic of gossip in our little town, and there would be more eyes on all of us than we’d like. Somehow, I knew we’d get through it.
But first, we needed to get through today.
We needed to get Blair through today.
And we would—I would—no matter what.
Blair
I knew I’d cry. I knew it.
For all my annoyance at my mom’s hovering, her overprotectiveness over the years, I still crumbled the moment I heard her voice.
“Blair, honey, talk to me. Your father said there was some boy at the party, that he . . . attacked you.” She choked on the word attacked, and my chin quivered at the sound of utter devastation in her voice. “I’m packing now. We can be home tomorrow if we drive straight through.”
“No, Mom. Don’t come home. I’m okay.” I took a minute to try and stifle the waver in my voice, to blink back the tears that weren’t slowing one bit. “Well, I’m shaken up, but there’s really no reason to cut your trip short. You’ve been planning this for over a year. Don’t let me be the reason you miss out on anything. It would make me feel so much worse if you did.”
“Blair, we can always—”
“But you won’t. It took over twenty years for you two to go this time. Please, Mom, don’t let that asshole on the beach take this from you. He’s already taken enough.”
She was quiet for a moment, the sound of her soft sniffling making me wish I could hug her. “Honey, can you tell me what happened? How far did this go?”
“I’ve got a few bumps and bruises, but he didn’t hurt anything that won’t be healed in a week or so.” I knew what her question really was, and I hoped my answer would be enough.
“You’re sure? You know you can tell me anything, even things you’d rather I didn’t tell your father . . .” she trailed off, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Things that are hard to say out loud.”
Now I was the one sniffling, while I knew my mother was waiting, holding her breath and steeling herself for whatever I might say next.
“I was lucky. Ash found us before it could get that far.” I didn’t tell her about the bites on my breasts or how he taunted me, assuring I knew what he planned for me and what was to come after.
She didn’t need to know that. I wished I could scrub it from my own brain, because I knew I’d be hearing it in my mind for the rest of my life. No way was I laying that on her. She was already rather fragile.
“If I didn’t already love that boy like a son, I would now,” she said, her sniffles slowing finally.
“Becker was right on his heels. They both took the guy down. Beck knocked him out so thoroughly, the cops were already there and taking statements before he came to.”
“Good. I hope he beat the living shit out of him.”
I gasped into my free hand.
My mother never cursed.
Never.
Okay, once I heard her say damn when she burned her hand on the stove, but that was it.
“Mom . . . you cussed,” I finally sputtered in disbelief, wishing Beck had been here to hear it.
“I sure as hell did. And I meant it, too. I hope those boys beat that bastard within an inch of his life. And Lord help him if your father ever gets within fifty feet of his sorry ass. He’ll think what Beck and Ash did to him was pleasant by comparison.”
“You foul-mouthed heathen!” I chuckled, feeling instantly lighter. “I feel so close to you right now.”
She laughed in that light, breezy way I missed from my childhood—from before my illness. I never heard it anymore. “It felt kind of amazing to let loose with a few dirty words. Took the edge right off. I never would have thought.”
“Been saying that shit for years,” I teased.
There was that laugh again. “I remember. Heathen.”
There was a long moment of silence before she quietly asked, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come home? I feel like I should, but if you need time to process, I won’t smother you.” She seemed to be struggling with her words, like she needed to say them but wasn’t sure how. “I know I can be a lot to deal with sometimes. I’m working on that, I really am. Your father and I have had a lot of time to talk as we drove halfway across the country and we talked a lot about how you and your brother are all grown up now. How you still need us but not in the same way. It’s going to take me a while to get it figured out, but I’m going to try. Your father says it’s best to let you know we’re here, and let you tell us when you need our help.”
“Of course we still need you. I still need you. And when you get home in a few days, I’m going to squeeze the shit out of you both, but Dad’s right. This is your time. Do all the things you couldn’t do when you had Beck and me underfoot. Fall in love with each other all over again, fall in love with travel and good food and your friends you didn’t get to see as much as you wanted. You’re a great mom, but that’s not all you are. Okay?”
“How’d I manage to raise such a smart, sensitive young lady?”
“Because you’re a damn good mom.”
She really, really was.
When we ended the call a few minutes later, I felt a lot better. There was a part of me that had wanted to tell her everything, to bawl and rage and get it all out at once to try and get this horrible knot out of my stomach, but I couldn’t do that to her. Not while she was hundreds of miles away.
“Hey, you all good in here?” Charli stuck her head in a minute later.
I wiped my eyes where they were still leaking and nodded, waving her in. “Just trying to get myself together so I can face the guys again.”
“Did you tell your mom the truth?”
“Most of it. I left out the graphic details and the fact Becker almost murdered someone.”
“What about the hospital? Did she ask about that?”
“Thankfully, no. I glossed over it with a quick ‘I got checked out and I’m fine’ then changed the subject before she could press for details.”
Charli’s expression was sad. “I’m glad they let me stay with you for everything, but I wasn’t prepared to see . . . I mean, they were thorough and everything, but there was this level of detachment I wasn’t expecting. It made me realize they see a lot of horrible things in that emergency room.”
“They would have seen far worse with me if it hadn’t been for Ash and Becker.” I crossed my arms over my aching breasts, considering again what she said. “But yeah, I know what you’re saying. They weren’t mean or anything, just efficient. I guess it would seem cold to some people, but I wasn’t looking to be social anyway, so I didn’t mind that they didn’t say much.”
She offered me a soft smile. “Except that one nurse, of course.”
“Nurse Bellamy. Yeah, she was great. It was hard not to smile around her.”
Charli was quiet for a time, studying me. “Does Ash know about . . . ?” she asked finally, her gaze darting to my chest in a pointed look.
“No. What would be the point in telling anyone? So they can feel sorrier for me? I think they’re better left in the dark. My parents, Beck, and definitely Ash. There’s nothing they can do to help, right? So why give them details that will only make things worse on everyone?”
“Because maybe talking it out, purging everything to someone, will help you work your way through it.”
“I told you. Isn’t that enough?”
She shook her head, looking incredibly sad. “But you didn’t tell me, Blair. You let me see for myself while they examined you, let me be present when you told it to the nurse who was examining you, but you couldn’t even look at me when we were in that room. I was there to support you, but you didn’t let me. You shut down.” Her eyes filled with tears and I felt like a complete ass for pushing her away.
“I didn’t d
o any of it on purpose. I just didn’t know how to talk about it with you. I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone, but I had to. So, I pretended it wasn’t me I was talking about. I described it, but it was like I was seeing it on a movie screen in my head, standing apart from it. Witnessing but not feeling. I had to. I had to shut down or I was going to break down.” By now I was crying with her.
Her arm went around my shoulders and she tugged me close to her side. “Maybe that’s what you need. I know you want normalcy—to stop thinking about it and get back to how it was before—but if you don’t get it out, at least once, it’s not going to heal. It’ll fester.”
I shook my head, pulling away and hating the look of hurt on her face as I did. “I can’t break down. If I do that, he wins. And I’m not about to let that happen.” I used the hem of my shirt to wipe my face, clearing away the last of my tears before heading toward the door. “I love you, Charli. And I know you love me too. Do you love me enough to let me deal with this my way?”
She stood and brushed the tears from her cheeks, giving a reluctant but firm nod. “Whatever you need. You know I’ve got you.”
“What I need now is to get the hell out of this town for a little while.” I threaded my arm through hers and reached for the doorknob. “Here’s hoping the guys can make that happen. The sooner the better.”
Ashton
“It’s really great of Phil to let us use his cabin. I hope you thanked him for us,” Beck commented as he drove us down the long stretch of highway that led to the rarely-used lakeside cabin where we were headed for the day. Just over the state line but somehow a world away from the tiny town where we lived.
Okay, it wasn’t much of a lake. More like a large pond. But it was privately owned—by Phil, my stepfather—and stocked with a ton of fish. There was also a dock with a large sunning platform that jutted halfway out into the water. It was too cool out to sunbathe, but the platform made a great spot from which to fish. Much more comfortable than from the bank.
