Fries Before Guys

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Therefore, I passed out right there on the chair, straight up and down, and didn’t move until Derek arrived home well after four the next morning.

  I woke to him lifting me up and carrying me bridal style into his bedroom.

  He was dressed all in black, so it was hard for me to make out anything other than his shockingly blond hair that almost looked like it was glowing in the moonlight that was cast through the window blinds.

  “I’m not hurting you, am I?” he asked.

  I allowed my head to rest against his arm and muttered out a, “Nope.”

  “Good,” he said. “You didn’t look at all comfortable.”

  I yawned and closed my hand around his wrist, or tried to. The man had a massive wrist.

  “I took a shower,” I said. “And I ripped all the padding out from underneath my halo’s brace. I need to put it back in. But your sweatshirt is doing a sufficient job holding it in place.”

  He made a rumbling sound in his throat that caused his chest to vibrate.

  “I couldn’t shave my legs,” I commented. “I might be able to tomorrow, but today it wasn’t happening. I also used two pieces of bread, four pieces of turkey, some mustard and a slice of cheese. I was hungry and couldn’t wait.”

  He chuckled, once again causing his chest to vibrate.

  I closed my eyes and only opened them again when I felt the softness of a bed beneath my body and pillows beneath my head.

  I groaned. “Why is your stuff so ridiculously soft?”

  He grunted out a, “Have no fuckin’ clue,” and went back to covering me up.

  I expected him to leave altogether.

  But just as I was once again falling into sleep, I felt the bed dip beside me.

  My eyes shot open like he’d poured cold water all over me.

  “What are you doing?” I found myself squeaking.

  “Going to bed,” he answered, moving until his heat was near me, but not completely touching.

  I swallowed hard. Then tried to tell myself to calm down. That this wasn’t a big deal.

  That sleeping in bed, next to Derek Roberts, wasn’t as big of a deal as I was making it out to be.

  Only, I couldn’t calm my racing heart down.

  Not when he finally fell asleep, snoring softly.

  Not when he rolled over so that his knee was pressing against the side of my ass.

  And definitely not when his hand slid over to press against my belly, sneaking under his sweatshirt and coming to a rest just above my pubic bone.

  It was then, at five oh five in the morning, that I knew I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep.

  By seven fifty-five, I had to find a way out of bed.

  By ten that morning, bladder screaming, I knew that I was fucked.

  Even after rocking hard enough to wake him, him helping me up, and then immediately going back to bed, I knew that I was a goner.

  Derek Roberts was going to break my heart.

  I just knew it.

  Chapter 10

  -Single

  -Taken

  X Hungry AF.

  -Avery to Derek

  Avery

  I was released from the hospital three days after my arrival and now, on the sixth day since my halo brace had been put on, I was going back to school.

  “If you need me, call me,” Derek ordered softly.

  There was need, and then there was need.

  After spending the last three days in his bed, with him all up on me, I was well on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

  I’d never been so happy for it to be a Monday, and a school day, before today.

  “Yes, sir.” I scrunched up my nose at him.

  He rolled his eyes and got out of the cruiser, walking around to my side of the vehicle and opening the door.

  I rolled my eyes at his overprotectiveness and got out, looking down at my backpack that was on the floorboard.

  “I’ll get it,” he said as he gently swept me to the side.

  I stepped back, which then allowed me to see all the students standing around staring. Some were whispering while others were just plain talking loud enough for me to hear.

  And if I could hear, Derek definitely could, too.

  He heard me getting up and trying to make coffee this morning while he’d been outside talking to Dax about where to move my stuff and where to put it today.

  So yeah, needless to say, when he finally handed me my backpack, his eyes were hot and annoyed.

  I rolled my eyes and took it from him, holding it by the loop at the top instead of trying to settle it on my back.

  “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” he ordered.

  I winked at him.

  “It’s high school, Derek,” I said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Apparently, the worst that could happen was torture me relentlessly until I had no other choice but to call Derek.

  And even then, it was with the utmost reluctance.

  It all honestly started out okay.

  I carried my backpack into the school, avoided everyone’s eyes, even Marcus’, Rachel’s boyfriend.

  Usually I at least smiled at him since he smiled at me, but today, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Marcus was officially off of my smile list.

  Hell, quite a few people were off of it, actually.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to do much smiling in the office for my first ‘off’ period as I ran errands for the office staff.

  Luckily, they took pity on me and allowed me to work on my laptop, which then allowed me to work and edit photos for a newlywed couple and get them sent off, instead of walking the halls of the school for an hour.

  Second period went much the same.

  That was until the teacher had to make a phone call and left the classroom.

  I tried to pull out my computer and continue to work on editing some photos, but before I could even pull it out of my backpack, the entire thing was taken away from me by a boy.

  “Hey, metalhead. Who was that guy you were with today?” Marques, the school’s quarterback, asked.

  I gritted my teeth and held my hand out for my bag. He grinned and pulled it farther toward him.

  “Marques,” I said sweetly. “Please give it back.”

  Marques pulled it even closer, practically hugging my backpack to his chest now.

  I gritted my teeth and tried not to get pissed, but it was honestly a very hard job at this point because I wanted to deck the kid.

  Violence is not the answer. Violence is not the answer.

  “Just be careful with my laptop, Marques,” I ordered. “It cost me about two thousand dollars and I can’t afford to replace it if you break it. And I don’t think your mom can, either.”

  Marques’ mom was one of the receptionists at the police station and a very nice lady. Also, she had Marques on such a tight leash that just the mention of her had him handing the backpack over almost immediately.

  I was kind of happy, because by mentioning her, the class started to jeer at Marques about his mommy being strict.

  Which had me almost laughing.

  She was strict, but she was great, and Marques knew it.

  Marques and another boy, Jude, got in a fight then because Jude wouldn’t stop giving him shit about his mother.

  Which caused the entire class to get up and start yelling.

  The entire class but me, because I knew that if I got up, I would just be pushed right into the middle of the fight.

  There were too many Rachel followers in the classroom for me to ever get away unscathed.

  “Teacher’s coming,” I said, spotting her walking toward us from down the hall.

  My desk was at the most prime spot in the room for leaving. I’d made sure to get it the day that school started.

  Marques and Jude retook their seats just as the teacher walked back in.

  She gave us
all stern looks that clearly said she knew that we weren’t behaving.

  Well, I was behaving, but she’d included me in the look.

  It didn’t affect me at all.

  I felt fully justified to act the way I’d acted and bring up Marques’ mom.

  I’d do what I had to do and fuck everyone else.

  Well, everyone but Derek.

  I was beginning to like him.

  The teacher got on with the lecture, and I tried to pay attention, but I’d already read the chapter we were going over at Derek’s last night. He’d teased me relentlessly for being an ‘overachiever,’ but he’d stopped when I’d explained.

  I’d explained that the whispers and the teasing and the constant interruptions usually made it to where I couldn’t concentrate during class. When he’d realized why I had to read the chapters, he’d immediately gone from teasing to angry on my behalf.

  It was nice that he cared, but I could handle it.

  I would handle it, in fact.

  All I had to do was get through another month and a half of school. And technically it wasn’t even that. Technically it was even less because that included weekends and one more holiday.

  Whispers started up behind me, but I ignored them.

  I shouldn’t have.

  Because had I not ignored them, I might not have had what happened next, happen.

  ***

  Derek

  “Hello?” I answered the phone.

  “I need your help,” Avery whispered.

  I frowned and looked down at my watch. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m hiding in a janitor’s closet,” she whispered.

  Terror started to pour through my veins as scenario after scenario of exactly why she was hiding in a broom closet rolled through my brain.

  “Why?” I stood up, catching the attention of the men surrounding me.

  Adam, Malachi, Saint, Nathan, and Louis all looked up, frowning at my stiffness. Now they were alert and on their feet, too.

  “Just… everything’s okay.” She paused. “But shit. This is so embarrassing. Can you bring a handcuff key?”

  I frowned hard down at the table we’d been having our weekly meeting around.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she breathed. “I’m okay. I promise.”

  I had a feeling that things weren’t okay.

  Things were very far from okay if she was hiding in a janitor’s closet, calling me, while whispering.

  Not okay in the least.

  “I’ll be there in five minutes, okay?” I said.

  Her hum of acceptance was enough to make me lose some of my tension.

  “Okay.”

  Then she hung up, leaving me staring at the table with anger rolling in my veins.

  “Something wrong?” Saint asked once I hung up the phone.

  I looked at Saint and shrugged. “I have no fucking idea.”

  Malachi stood up and said, “Well let’s go. We can take Bertha.”

  Bertha was our newest acquisition, an armored vehicle that was meant to protect us in dangerous situations. It weighed a fucking ton, had bulletproof glass and metal siding that could withstand a fifty caliber bullet, and got four miles to the gallon.

  It was a fucking beast.

  “I don’t…”

  “We’re going.” Nathan stood, too. “We weren’t getting shit done, anyway. We have to log all these hours this week for training. We might as well make use of this distraction and capitalize on it.”

  He was right.

  It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have the backup.

  And the men could keep everybody distracted while I went to find Avery.

  “Didn’t you say that she only had half days?” Malachi asked as he fell into step with me.

  Malachi was the newest member to the SWAT team. He was also one of the most supportive on the team when it came to Avery, and I didn’t know why.

  Honestly, I had a feeling it was likely in part due to the fact that he knew what it was like not to have parents.

  Oh, his weren’t dead or anything, they’d just always been absentee parents and he might as well not have had any at all.

  “She used to have half days,” I said. “But she was able to work it out with the school. She still has an early day, but she gets them all done on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday now. She’s there from eight to one. Doesn’t have to go to lunch anymore, either. Which they were requiring her to do before. Tuesday and Thursday, she doesn’t have to go at all except for a night class that the local college is putting on around six.”

  Malachi nodded. “I remember graduating with a lot of college credit hours. Is that what she’s doing?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea about that. I know that she’s taking two online courses, and two actual in-room courses. I’ll have to ask her.”

  “I’m driving,” Nathan called.

  “Shotgun.” Adam jogged around the vehicle once we reached it.

  The rest of us piled in the back.

  “I don’t remember high school being bad,” Louis said. “I remember it being great.”

  “That’s because you were popular,” Saint added his two cents. “If you weren’t, you would’ve been bullied just like Avery. It’s not cool being unpopular. It’s even more uncool to have to go to school when you know that it’s going to be fuckin’ awful.”

  “You sound like you have experience,” I said, my eyes trained on Saint.

  Saint shrugged. “You could say that.”

  I snorted. “Come on, details.”

  Saint sighed.

  “I was the puny kid that didn’t get a growth spurt until the summer between my junior and senior year,” he answered. “Needless to say, I got a lot of crap for it growing up. They planned to start right off where we’d left it the school year before, but I’d put on a foot and a half of height, twenty pounds of pure muscle, and they decided it would be prudent to leave me alone. I had to get suspended for fighting to do it, though.”

  I snorted. “Avery’s not going to fight anyone. Or she better not.”

  Saint’s eyes came to me.

  “Sometimes that’s the only way to make them back off. Kids are assholes, man. Bullying is at an all-time high. Kids are getting worse and worse because their parents just don’t discipline them. The schools let it go because they’re more worried about their attendance numbers than they are about kicking kids out for doing shit wrong. And all the while the kids that are getting bullied think that the only way out is by doing really bad shit to the kids that bullied them, or contemplating suicide to just make it end.”

  The back cab was silent for a long moment as we all processed that news.

  “Which one were you?” Malachi asked quietly.

  Saint didn’t answer because we arrived at the school and he bailed out before he could.

  I looked over at Malachi and raised my brow at him.

  “This world is fucked up,” he muttered, following the rest of the men out.

  Adam, Malachi, Saint, Nathan, and Louis all followed me into the school.

  I walked straight up to the office and ignored all the stupid asshole kids that I passed that were in awe of us.

  I found Principal Bailey right where I thought he’d be.

  In Mrs. Teague’s office. Mrs. Teague being the assistant principal, and the woman that he had a crush on even when I was in high school.

  It was a very poorly kept secret if you asked me.

  “Principal Bailey,” I said, coming to a stop in the main room of the office instead of going into the office itself. “May I have a word with you?”

  Principal Bailey stiffened when he saw all the men at my back.

  He came out, as well as Mrs. Teague, and frowned at me.

  “What can I help you with, Derek?” he asked.

  I’d spent quite a bit of time in their offices. They definitely knew me by sight,
even all these years later.

  “I had a call from Avery Flynn,” I said. “She’s currently hiding in a janitor’s closet somewhere because of something, and I want your permission to go find her.”

  His face went hard. “You’re not allowed to go walking around my school.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I’m sure that Superintendent Roman will fucking love that I got a call from Avery in the middle of school hours because she was scared shitless and crying because you can’t watch your fucking students and ensure that she’s safe.” I paused. “May I remind you that this is supposed to be a safe place for these students? Even the ones that aren’t popular and their parents don’t kiss your ass?”

  Principal Bailey stiffened.

  “You can’t…”

  “I can,” I confirmed. “I’m just doing you the courtesy of telling you that I’m going to find her.”

  His jaws worked as they ground together slowly.

  “Fine,” he said. “But you might as well just take her home at this point while I investigate what happened. Bring her here first to give me a recounting.”

  I rolled my eyes and disappeared through the maze of hallways.

  I used to love this school.

  Now I hated it for what it was doing to Avery.

  I tapped her name on my phone and called her.

  “Hey, are you here?” she rushed out.

  She didn’t sound timid or upset anymore.

  She sounded pissed.

  “Yes,” I answered, my eyes taking in the students. “Which hallway are you in?”

  “The freshman,” she answered, a little steadier now. “At the back janitor’s closet. The one near the water fountain.”

  “The freshman?” I asked, sounding confused. “Why the freshman?”

  She sighed long and loud. “Because this was the only one that I knew they wouldn’t follow me to.”

  I gritted my teeth and continued down the hallways until I got to what I assumed was her janitor’s closet.

  “Okay,” I said. “I think I’m here.”

  The door cracked open, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  At first glance, she looked good. Happy and healthy.

  Her eyes were swollen as if she’d been crying.

  And then I got a load of the rest of her.

  “What the absolute fuck?” I barked.