Beautifully Yours: A High School Bully Romance (Voclain Academy Book Three)

by Jordan Grant

  Headmistress DuMonte’s smile is starting to wear, and I’m starting to worry if she doesn’t give it up soon, it’ll crack like porcelain falling to the floor. Still, her lips are pulled back as she announces, “Now, it is with great pleasure I ask our New York State Division II championship football team to stand.”

  Ian stands beside me, and I beam up at him, clapping. I see Finn now down the row from us, but to my surprise he’s not scowling, he’s grinning.

  Shit. That’s never good.

  As if the universe heard my thoughts and answered, the doors at the back of the exhibition hall open, all eight sets of double doors at once, spilling in daylight across the rows of seats. Headmistress’s mouth falls open, but she recovers quickly, scowling at the back of the room as she raises a hand over her eyes and calls out to the people funneling inside, “What is the meaning of this? Show yourselves!”

  Only it’s just the people on stage who can’t see who’s come to join us. I, along with the rest of the audience, can see them, and they have “police” stamped in giant white letters across swat-style uniforms. I grab Ian’s hand blindly and squeeze it tight.

  “Cheatham County Police!” someone yells back at her. “We have an arrest warrant to serve.”

  Headmistress does a screech-slash-gurgle into the microphone, and I’m right there with her.

  “On whom?” she finally manages, and at least half of the room shifts in their chairs uneasily, no doubt wondering if the SEC has suddenly teamed up with local law enforcement.

  “Ian Beckett.”

  Gasps ripple through the crowd, and it’s like Finn has taken a page straight out of Ian’s playbook to ensure both Ian and his family’s social demise.

  “You brought a team to arrest one of my students?!” Headmistress screeches, sending the microphone screaming. Her entire head including her ears turns bright red beneath the stage lights.

  The police descend the stairs, and the rest of the football team is still standing, Ian included. I squeeze harder, and it has to be hurting him, but I refuse to let go.

  They round the corner of the rows, searching, and when they finally arrive at Ian, I see the guy, the detective who first arrested Ian back at Raven’s party, the one Ian said was on Berkshire’s payroll.

  “Son, it is with great pleasure,” he says with a sneer, “that I am placing you under arrest.”

  Ian rolls his eyes but offers his hands without issue. As the detective raises the cuffs and clinks the first one into place, Aurora stands up in the row behind us and says, “Ok, this is ridiculous. Everyone knows he didn’t do anything, asshole!”

  The detective raises a bushy eyebrow at her, probably debating arresting her too.

  “Unless you have something important to say, young lady, I suggest you sit down.”

  A guy I recognize from photographs as Raven’s dad stands up in the section over. “Watch your tone. That’s my daughter you’re speaking to!”

  Aurora raises a hand to silence her father and smirks at the cop. “I actually do have something else to say,” she calls out for everyone to hear. “I saw everything, and Finn Berkshire is a lying piece of shit.”

  31

  Ian

  Holy fuck. This just went from infuriating to interesting.

  One moment, I have Sergeant Sourface reappear in my life like an unwanted fangirl jonesing for me, and the next, he’s completely forgotten my existence and is glaring at Aurora like he wants to kill her. I get the sentiment, really I do, but seriously, back off, creepo. I need answers first, starting with what did she just say?

  Aurora tosses her red locks over her shoulder and smiles at the cop, and I can’t help but get a little satisfaction out of watching her. Sure, she’s crazy and definitely a conniving, somewhat maniacal bitch, but she knows how to work a room, and right now, she’s got the attention of everyone in this exhibition hall, all thousand of us, probably more. The acoustics are so great in here, and she’s so damn loud, I know they can hear every last word.

  It was stupid of Berkshit to go public and try to humiliate me. The newspapers will print this fiasco tomorrow, and there will be thousands of dollars spent on both sides trying to deal with the aftermath. If you’re going to go balls deep into a career of public debasement, you’d better know what you are doing or at least be assured of the results. From the shocked look on Finn’s ugly mug at the moment, I know he didn’t expect Aurora to stand up for me. To be fair though, I guess I didn’t expect it either.

  It is backwards day? Is time running in reverse? Am I suddenly going to find out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn’t really like pizza?

  “Let’s talk outside,” Sergeant Sourface nearly yells at her, sending spittle everywhere but mostly over me. Gross.

  To her credit, Aurora just keeps on smiling with that beauty-pageant grin of hers and goes, “No, thank you. Everything I have to say in front you, I can say in front of everyone else here.”

  “And certainly not without me present!” her father chirps.

  Smart move. Sergeant Sourface is seeing his monthly Berkshire stipend swirl at the bottom of the toilet, and I’m pretty sure if she leaves with him, she’s joining me in a jail cell tonight.

  “What did you see?” I ask her. Now Sergeant Sourface looks like he’s going to kill me.

  Bring it on, bud. Your bushy eyebrows and bullshit won’t protect you here.

  Headmistress’s gaze darts from the crowd to me to the cops and back again, like she can’t decide who to address first, if at all. I look to my father and find him sitting calmly in his seat beside my mother, watching the whole fiasco unfold. I know what he’s doing, buying his time, watching what will happen, and figuring out how to use it to his benefit.

  Aurora looks back at her dad, and I can’t help but think this show is at least partially for her benefit to gain some goodwill back in the eyes of her parents. She’s not the Virgin Mary. Hell, she’s not even remotely altruistic. She doesn’t do anything unless it gives her something in return.

  “I was hanging out at the kitchen, grabbing a drink or whatever,” she begins, twirling a shiny auburn lock around her index finger. “I’d left the pool because Lahey was being a dick,” she pins Harlow’s blonde friend, my fellow baseball teammate, with a gaze that throws daggers, “and didn’t want to share.”

  She draws in a deep breath like this conversation is already boring her. “So, I went to the kitchen because I was thirsty.”

  “What time was this?” Sergeant Sourface barks, glaring at her. He looks about five seconds away from an anger-induced stroke.

  “Like five minutes before midnight,” Aurora replies instantly. “I know that because Ivy had just texted me to let me know that she saw Adrian Devonshire doing battle of the tongues with a transfer, and she sent me a GIF of like two aliens going at it. It was hilarious.”

  Adrian Devonshire flushes the color of a fire engine and chokes on air a few rows back. Aren’t his parents here too? God, that has to hurt. Archie snorts a few seats down from me and ducks his head between his knees, shaking as he tries to not laugh. I’d think it was funny too if I wasn’t the one in cuffs.

  “So, yeah, it was 11:55, and I was thirsty, so I head toward the kitchen…”

  “Can someone shut her up? Isn’t this like hearsay or something?” Berkshire roars, the veins in his forehead popping out with his shriek. He looks at the row of cops standing there like he expects them to do something. After a long moment, Sergeant Sourface snaps out of it.

  “Let’s take this outside,” he demands like he’s used to people just agreeing with his shit.

  “Over my dead body,” Aurora’s father roars. “She’s not going anywhere with you!”

  “It’s not hearsay if she saw it herself,” someone calls from the back, and there are murmurs of agreement throughout the hall. We’re in a room full of people who have multiple lawyers on retainer in case something goes wrong…or in case they get caught.

  “Let the girl speak!” some
one else shouts, and I feel the room turning in my favor. I stifle my grin as Harlow reaches up and takes hold of my free hand again. I look down at her, trying to silently convey that it will be okay. I know this is terrifying to her, but it’s not the first time cops have been on campus, and it won’t be the last. Granted, it’s normally not so many of them, and they aren’t typically dressed in tactical gear like I’m a damn threat to society.

  Some of the audience knows about the accusations from Finn, but most of them only had an inkling something was awry when I missed three games in a row this season. Now the cops show up to arrest their star player, and they are invested. They want to know what’s going on and not because of the shame that would come to the school when it hits the headlines that their quarterback got arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. They are invested because they all know the shit their kids get into and what they have to do to cover it up. None of them wants a damn police unit showing up every time their little angel makes a mistake. For the rest, this was supposed to be their night, and if it’s going to be so rudely interrupted, then they are going to at least get some entertainment out of it.

  Aurora crosses her arms over her chest and gives Sergeant Sourface a look that tells of her annoyance.

  “Like I was saying,” she continues with an eye roll, “I went to the kitchen, and I was looking for a, uh, Coke or whatever, when Ian came in from the opposite side. I didn’t want to get into it with him, and I know he’s still pissed at me about last semester, so I ducked out of there and waited around the corner against the wall until I could hear him leave.”

  She rolls her eyes again. “It took like forever too. I don’t know what he was in there getting, but I’d been waiting and waiting and waiting when I heard Finn enter. Berkshire made some shi—er, crappy—taunt at Ian, but I can’t remember what it was.” She shrugs and looks at Finn with her famous dead-eyed stare, the one that tells you she absolutely does not give a fuck. “I guess it just wasn’t memorable.”

  The auditorium snickers. I can feel Finn’s rage from where I am standing, giving me a sunburn.

  “Anyway, so I totally expected Ian to kick his ass at that point because Finn’s like asking for it, right? And then I thought I’m never going to get my drink, so I peek around the corner, ready to walk in, grab a drink, and leave before it gets bloody, but they are both just standing there. Ian’s on one side of the island over here.” She waves her hands like she’s setting up a miniature model of her kitchen in the air for everyone to see. “And Finn’s on the other side of the kitchen, the island and the countertop between them, near my mom’s knife rack. Well, technically, it’s our chef, Manny’s, because like Mom never uses it, but…”

  “Aurora!” I hear Mrs. Blakely screech, and I don’t know why she’s getting so offended. Most of the people in this room never cook for themselves. It’s like a badge of honor for them to have a private chef.

  “Yeah, so,” Aurora continues, apparently unfazed by raising her mother’s ire, “Ian’s about to walk away, and Finn just grabs the knife.” She directs her next words directly to Berkshire. “One of Manny’s favorites too, asshole, so thanks for that, and he just plunges it right in his side like some kind of psycho freak.”

  “Aurora!” Mrs. Blakely screeches again, and Aurora snaps her attention over to her mom.

  “What?” she asks. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, okay?”

  Her mother frowns but says nothing further. Raven stares wide-eyed at her sister from her seat beside Molly.

  “Why now?” I ask because although I am grateful for it, she could have done it literally weeks earlier.

  Aurora shrugs one chenille-covered shoulder. “Because I’m tired of being treated like shit,” she says. Ah, there it is. Self-interest at its finest. “So if everyone could just stop doing that, that would be great. I did a good thing for once.”

  She doesn’t say the words, but they hang there in the air, the unspoken we’re even. I tip my chin at her, acknowledging that we are, once and for all, good.

  My father stands, staring straight at Sergeant Sourface.

  “Uncuff my son now,” he commands, his voice booming out over the crowd. “And arrest that kid,” he points at Finn, “while you are at it.”

  I’m pretty sure the swirl of this guy’s career just disappeared down the drain now.

  “I have a warrant signed by a judge,” Sergeant Sourface says, but his friends aren’t looking too sure now, their gazes darting back and forth between each other. No way all of them are on Berkshire’s payroll, maybe a couple plus this guy, and they aren’t about to lose their pensions because of some other asshole.

  “Call the judge then,” my father demands.

  “Yeah, call him!” Mr. Blakely adds, his fist raised.

  “Yeah!” someone else calls from the back.

  The crowd murmurs around us, and from what I can make out at least, most of them are in agreement. Finn looks like he’s about to blow his lid, and I can’t wait for that happen. My way would have taken at least a few more weeks, maybe months, but this is karma, hand-delivered. When I look back at Aurora, who’s examining her nails like she’s bored, I can’t help but wonder how much of that night she really did see and how much of what she just said is lies for her own benefit.

  It doesn’t matter. I’ll make good on the promise. We won’t be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies, and the rest of campus will know it.

  Sergeant Sourface’s case is out at sea and taking on water. When Headmistress DuMonte calls from the stage, “Get your hands off my student and off this property now!” I know he’s done for. He unlocks the cuff, removing the hard, cold metal from my wrist. I want to beat the shit out of Berkshire for what he’s put me through. Then I want to kill him for what he did to Harlow, but when I look over at him, his dumbstruck face red with fury, unshed tears glistening in his eyes, I know what’s coming to him is much worse than that.

  It’s the end of him and his family.

  And the redemption of me and mine.

  32

  Harlow

  Headmistress thrusts her spindly index finger at the sets of double doors at the back of the hall. Fury reddens her pore-less face, and even her hair seems angry, gray flyaways poking everywhere like tiny lightening bolts shooting from her head. Her tortoiseshell glasses hang onto her face by the crook of her nose, and her icy glare threatens to rain a maelstrom down onto everyone. She points at the back door and yells, her lips disappearing with her words, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.

  Hell has broken loose in these hallowed halls.

  Guests shout commands up at the stage, across the aisles at each other, and into their cellphones. Some stand to grab the hands of their wide-eyed sons and daughters and hurriedly lead them out of the exhibition hall. Officers shout over the commotion at each other and at guests. Some of them look to the man who cuffed Ian, carefully watching and waiting for his next move. Others shout into their phones, demanding to speak to higher-ups.

  It’s so loud in here, everything blurring together with only a few words discernible in the clamor.

  Out!

  Arrested!

  Disgrace!

  Shouts and yells blend with the click of camera shutters and the opening and closing of the doors as people leave. It’s like the exhibition hall has become a train station, and there’s the rumble of a locomotive coming in around the corner.

  A tuxedo clad man barrels down the aisle and jerks to a stop at the end of our row. He grabs what I assume to be his son by the kid’s lapels and yanks him up out of his seat. The seat bounces against the back rest with a violent snap as it folds in on itself. Then the kid is gone, disappearing into the crowd with the rest of the departing attendees.

  Finn Berkshire stands down the row from me, at least a dozen people between us. He screams red-faced, spittle flying into the air, at a police officer a few feet front of him. The officer sneers back at Finn and shouts something back, his hands s
winging wide. Phones point at the stage, at the police officers, at other students, before turning around for selfie videos certainly to be uploaded to TikTok within the hour.

  The place is one audience stampede away from complete chaos, and I feel the familiar darkness itching inside my brain, desperate to be scratched. It’s hot and stuffy and there are too many people.

  Ian leans down so that we are at eye-level, blocking my vision of anything else but him, and calls loudly to me, “You want to get out of here, Weathersby?”

  I nod at him quickly, though I’m not sure we can leave. Then again, he’s no longer in cuffs and the arresting officer seems to be standing on shaky ground. Some of his fellow policemen look to the middle-aged man behind Ian for answers, and by the gobsmacked expressions on their faces, they are definitely thinking what everyone else in this building is, that this isn’t adding up. They brought an army and for what? No one here is pointing a gun or threatening to detonate a bomb.

  One officer stands, his broad back pressed against the stage, his hands hanging loosely at his sides as he surveys the scene like he’s decided to do nothing until someone explains to him what is going on. Two of his brothers join him.

  I find Ian’s hand blindly and stand, my fingers wrapping around his and holding tight. Nausea rolls inside my stomach, but it’s not the darkness breaking free. It’s the ups and downs, the high of reuniting and then the devastation of being torn apart again. It’s my worry for him, for the both of us.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the officer who cuffed Ian barks, scowling at us.

  “That’s none of your goddamn concern,” Ian bites back in an instant, and I flinch at the harsh grate of his tone.

  He starts toward the exit, leading me with him, but we’ve only taken a few steps before he turns around and shouts over the commotion, “Talk to my lawyer, or better yet, why don’t you call yours instead because you’re going to need one.”