by Callie Rose
RIVER: Dax and Chase are on their way.
I can almost hear his low voice in my head as I read the text, can almost smell his comforting oak moss scent and see the entrancing gray color of his eyes. I clutch my phone like a lifeline, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve stopped shaking.
As I texted with River, the adrenaline and nerves buzzing through my system faded a little, leaving me feeling weak and nauseated but more clearheaded. He has that effect on me, even from a distance.
ME: Thank you.
RIVER: I hate this.
ME: I love you.
My thumb hovers over the SEND button for several seconds as I stare at the words on the screen, a jolt of shock radiating through me. I typed them without thought, my honest reaction to the pain and longing in his text, but as I gaze at them, unblinking, certainty settles into my soul.
Oh. Fuck.
They’re true.
I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I don’t know how it happened so suddenly and completely, but I’ve fallen hard for the four boys who rampaged into my life, tore it apart, and then dedicated themselves to helping me rebuild it.
I love River for his sweetness and his strength, his intelligence and his ability to see right through me, always.
But I can’t tell him that now. Not over text, and not when everything is so fucked up. Not when my head is throbbing and I feel like I’m about to barf.
Not until I allow myself to fully believe this thing between all of us is real.
My thumb moves up to the ERASE button, and I delete the message, tapping out a new one instead.
ME: I know. I do too. But still, thank you.
“Is someone coming for you, Miss? Do you need a tow truck?”
The old man is still standing by my open passenger door. He’s popped his collar against the gusts of wind, and there’s a thin dusting of snow covering his hat. It matches the hair sticking out from underneath the dark wool.
I look up at him, finally able to take in his appearance now that my mind is less hazy.
“Someone’s coming,” I say. “Thank you for stopping, but I’m okay now. I’ll call a tow truck and wait.”
He squints, scrunching up his whole face as he does. His wrinkles are deep, and his cheeks are flushed pink from the cold.
“Well, I don’t feel right about just leaving you. I’ll tell you what. I’ll wait with you until they get here, okay?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him no, that I don’t need him to babysit me—but then I remember why I wrecked the car in the first place. I don’t think Judge Hollowell followed me at all, but just in case he does, having a witness nearby could save my life.
“Sure. Thank you.”
I try to muster up a smile, but it’s shaky and uneven. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and dab at the blood trickling down the side of my face. It was a small cut, and it’s already starting to clot, but the bruise throbs in time to my heartbeat, an angry, pulsing lump.
“No problem, Miss. That was quite an accident. I’m glad you’re all right.”
I nod, glancing back down at my phone. There are a couple more texts from River, one each from Chase and Dax, and several from Linc. Emotion tightens my throat, and I have to work to push words out.
“Thanks. You can get in if you want.”
“Oh!” He jerks in surprise. “Of course. Here I am letting all that cold air in.”
He slides into the passenger seat. The door on his side works fine, but I have a feeling neither of the doors on my side will open like they used to. As he settles into the seat beside me, I glance down at my messages.
Chase and Dax both tell me they’re on their way. River tells me the same thing, adding that they should reach me in about twenty minutes. The tone of Linc’s messages is curt, almost angry, and I know all four of the guys are kicking themselves for letting me go to the prison by myself today.
But I’m not a damn princess in a tower. They can’t watch out for me all the time.
I love them for trying though.
The old man, whose name turns out to be Walt, speaks softly from time to time, commenting on the weather as the snowfall begins to lighten. But he never presses me to talk, and I’m grateful as fuck for it. I don’t have the energy or emotional capacity to make small talk with a stranger right now.
The clock on the dashboard still works, and I watch the numbers change one by one, counting up from 3:24 p.m. When it’s nearly 3:50, I catch sight of movement in the rearview mirror. A car pulls onto Monroe Avenue, and I straighten in my seat, my breath catching.
As the car moves closer, I catch sight of the boy in the driver’s seat and the one beside him in the passenger seat. Coppery brown hair and features so similar they’re nearly identical draw my gaze as something in my chest unwinds, the tension finally leaving me.
Dax and Chase.
They’re here.
3
I fumble for the door handle before realizing that I was right earlier—this door definitely isn’t going to open. It’s not too horribly banged up, but the metal bent just enough to keep the door wedged closed.
“Ah, having a little trouble. That’s all right.”
Walt clucks his tongue and opens his door, heaving himself out of the car. He’s not a big man, but his joints don’t seem to work as well as they probably once did.
Once out, he turns back to face me, holding out a hand. “Come on, now. This way.”
I pull my legs up from under the steering wheel and crawl over the center console, fighting off a slight wave of dizziness as I do. The car is in worse shape than I am, but that’s not to say I feel great. I’ll be sore as hell tomorrow.
Walt wraps an arm around me and helps me to my feet as I clamber awkwardly out of the car. Two heavy thuds fill the quiet, snow muffled street as the twins slam their car doors, and then Dax’s voice cuts across the space.
“Hey!”
There’s something vaguely threatening in his tone, and I’m obviously not the only one who hears it, because Walt blushes, holding me steady as he steps back. Once he’s sure I won’t fall over, he removes his hands from me entirely.
A few seconds later, Dax and Chase reach us, and I’m pulled into their embrace and wrapped up in two strong sets of arms. Lips brush my hair, and they squeeze me so tight it’s hard to breathe.
“Jesus, Low. What the fuck happened?” Dax mutters, his breath warm on my chilled skin.
“Well, I… I can see you’re taken care of here, Miss.”
I glance over Chase’s shoulder to see Walt staring at the three of us with a bemused expression. He’s probably trying to figure out which one of these boys I’m with, or whether we’re all just friends, or if they’re my brothers or something—not that we look anything alike.
Despite his curious look, it doesn’t seem worth it to try to explain anything to him. He’s not really of a generation that would probably understand or be open to whatever this relationship is that’s developing between me and the kings of Linwood Academy. I barely understand it myself, and I don’t want to be constantly justifying my choice to strangers.
“I am.” I nod to the older man as the twins loosen their hold on me, both of them turning to face him with somewhat threatening scowls. “Thanks for stopping to make sure I was okay. And for waiting with me.”
“It was my pleasure. You take care now. Ahh…” He gestures vaguely to his own forehead, then to mine. “You might want to get that checked out. Just to be on the safe side. Head injuries are nothing to take lightly.”
I can feel Dax and Chase’s posture shift as they take in the cut and growing bruise on my forehead. Dax steps forward and shakes Walt’s hand, his expression much less threatening this time.
“Thank you.”
Walt murmurs something about no thanks being necessary, and then he nods and heads back to his own car, shooting one last glance over his shoulder as he goes. As he drives slowly away, the twins both turn to me and pull me close again
, worry burning in their blue-green eyes.
“Shit,” Chase breathes, reaching up to brush his fingers over the swell of my bruise. “You shouldn’t have been out driving in this mess. It’s a shit show out here.”
“That’s not why I crashed.”
I shake my head, feeling like I’m a visitor in someone else’s body, in someone else’s life. All the bullshit that’s piling up around me like the snowbanks alongside the road can’t be real. It’s too fucking much.
How was it only this morning that I went to visit Mom at the prison so we could spend a little bit of Christmas together?
It seems like a fucking lifetime ago.
“What do you mean?” Dax’s brows pull together, his usually cheerful face dark with worry.
“I went to see Judge Hollowell after I left Mom.”
“Yeah?” His eyes—a little greener than his brother’s—light up with hope. “What did he have to say? Can he help you? Help her?”
“No.” My stomach drops out like I’m on a rollercoaster, and my voice is scratchy as I say, “He killed Iris.”
“What?”
I can feel the shock resonating from Chase, and I hope like fuck I kept my shit together better than he is right now when I found out. If my face looked anything like his, Judge Hollowell definitely knows I’m onto him.
“Are you sure? How do you know?” Dax shakes his head, not so much in denial as like he’s trying to clear it. To make room for this insane new piece of information.
“I’m sure.”
I tell them everything, starting with Mom’s revelation this morning about what a monumental fuck-up Scott Parsons is and ending with the moment I wrapped River’s car around a pole. When I finish, they’re both quiet for a moment. They wrapped their arms around me again as I spoke, enfolding me in the space between them, warming me with the heat of their bodies.
“Holy hell,” Chase breathes at last. “It makes sense. It all makes such perfect fucking sense now. But I can still hardly believe it. What the actual fuck?”
Before I can answer, the tow truck I called while I was waiting for the guys to arrive trundles around the corner. I found a receipt from a mechanic in the glove box, and I told him to take it there.
We don’t speak as we wait for the guy to hook the bashed-up car to his truck and haul it away, but I can tell Dax and Chase are still trying to wrap their heads around what I told them.
When all that’s left at the scene of the accident is some broken glass and pieces of a busted taillight, we all pile into Dax’s car. Chase gives me the front seat, then sits in the middle of the back so he can poke his head forward between the two seats.
“We gotta tell Linc and River about this,” he mutters, chewing on his lip.
“Not over text. Nothing in writing.” I turn to face him too quickly, and the sudden movement makes my head pound.
“Right.” He nods. “I’ll tell them to meet us at our place. After we take you to the ER.”
“What? No, I don’t need to—”
“Fuck yeah, you do. You’re bleeding from the head, Low. You were just in an accident. I don’t care if you found out the damn Easter Bunny killed Iris; you’re getting checked out before we do anything else.”
I sputter uselessly, glancing at Dax to see if he’ll back me up—but the look on his face tells me I’m shit outta luck on that count. I’ve never been to the Lauder boys’ house before, but when he puts on his turn signal and takes a left onto a recently plowed street, I’m certain he’s not taking me to their place just yet.
Deciding it’s not worth putting up a huge fight about it, I lean back against the headrest, letting my eyes drift closed.
“He set my mom up,” I mutter. “He wants her to go to jail, maybe for the rest of her life, so he can get away with murdering the teenage girl he knocked up.”
“It’s not over, Low.” Dax’s voice is low in my ear, filling my senses as I block the rest of the world out. “We won’t let him get away with it. We’ll find a way to stop him.”
“From what you said, it doesn’t seem like he figured out you made the connection between him and the man in the mask—hell, he might not even know you saw anything at all, since he didn’t hear what you said to Dunagan the night your mom got arrested,” Chase adds.
“Maybe.”
My thoughts start spiraling again, and I blink my eyes open as the world I was trying to block out comes crashing back in. I can’t keep it away for long, no matter what I do.
The three of us fall into a loaded silence that stretches out until we reach the hospital. There’s so much to say, but I get the feeling we’re each waiting until we join up with the other two boys. We all need to be together for this.
And besides, I have no fucking idea what to say. I agree with Dax’s sentiment wholeheartedly. We can’t let Judge Hollowell get away with this.
But how the hell do we stop him?
I don’t have the first damn clue.
Our stint in the ER waiting room isn’t long, and after about fifteen minutes, we’re ushered into a room. A man named Doctor Liley comes in and examines me, asking me questions about the accident as he shines a light in my eyes and tests my reflexes.
He gives the twins—who insisted on coming in and are flanking me on either side, each holding one of my hands—the same look Walt gave them, like he’s trying to figure out exactly what’s going on between all of us.
Jesus. I wonder what kind of look he’d give us if all four of the guys were here.
After running his diagnostics, cleaning the cut on my forehead, and examining my bruise, Doctor Liley steps back.
“Everything looks okay, Harlow. That bruise will take a few days to go down, and you’ve got very minor whiplash. No need for a brace, I don’t think. Just be mindful of your activity levels for the next couple weeks and don’t strain it. You can take Advil for the pain.”
Relief floods me. I can deal with some pain. I became a master at handling discomfort during my cancer treatments, which made me feel like shit most of the time.
What I can’t handle right now is slowing down. There’s too much to do, too much to fucking figure out. I can’t waste any time.
“Thanks.”
I move to slip off the table, but Dax and Chase both tighten their grips on me, refusing to let me go just yet.
“That’s it?” Chase questions. “Just Advil? Anything else we should be doing? Or not letting her do?”
Doctor Liley’s lips tilt up at the corners, as if he finds it mildly amusing that these boys think they could stop me from doing something if I set my mind to it.
Which, you know, it kind of is.
“Just make sure she doesn’t play any contact sports for a few weeks. And keep an eye out for any changes in mood, behavior, or sleeping patterns. As I said, everything looks good, but those would be the symptoms of a more severe brain trauma, and we’d want to address that right away.”
“You got it, doc.” Chase gives my hand a little tug, helping me off the table. He wraps his arms around me, his blue-green eyes glinting with humor that can’t quite disguise the worry lurking in their clear depths. “Hear that, Low? No more rugby for you.”
I roll my eyes and poke him in the ribs, and Dax throws an arm around my shoulder when his brother releases me. The doctor is still gazing at us curiously as the guys escort me out of the room, but I ignore the feel of his stare. I guess this is stuff I’ll have to get used to if this thing between me and the kings really does become something real.
People seem confused and curious about what our relationship is, and I don’t know quite how to handle that. What should I tell them?
What should I tell my mom?
That thought makes a sudden pain twist in my heart. There was a time when I told her everything, but that ended the night Iris died. Now, with Mom in prison, our talks aren’t the same no matter how often I manage to visit. There are still things I can’t tell her, and alongside that, there’s a growing list of thi
ngs I don’t know how to tell her.
Fuck. One thing at a time, Harlow. Get her out first. Then worry about the “Mom, I have four boyfriends” convo.
Thankfully, I still have insurance from Mom’s old job at the Black family residence, and after I check out, we slide into Dax’s car to head back to the twins’ house.
“Good fucking thing too.” Chase shakes his head. “Linc and River have been blowing up my phone. They’re on their way over now.”
“Yeah.” I glance down at my cell. “Mine too.”
I’ve been responding to their messages as quickly as I can, updating them on where we are and what’s going on, but I’ve felt their anxiety building slowly with each new text.
I know the feeling. They need to see me to be sure I’m truly okay. Nothing else will quite do.
The snow has stopped falling, and while we were in the ER, the plows must’ve all come out in droves, because the roads are a lot better. The blanket of white flakes covering lawns and buildings even looks sort of pretty, although I’ve decided by this point that I definitely hate winter.
It’s almost six o’clock by now, and I glance over at Dax as a thought occurs to me. “Were your parents mad you guys ditched out on Christmas to come get me?”
He snorts, the sound almost like a laugh but not quite. “Nah. They don’t give a shit. Didn’t we tell you that?”
“Um, yeah.” I run my hand over the back of my neck, massaging out the tight knots from my accident. “I just didn’t know that extended to things like this.”
“It extends to pretty much every fucking thing,” Chase puts in, and I can hear the eye roll in his voice.
“Yeah. Dad worked half the day.” Dax pulls onto a long driveway as he speaks. “We got up this morning and gave each other the presents we bought, then opened the stuff Dad’s assistant got for us while Mom was on the phone with a client overseas.”
“The only time they really care what we do is when they have friends over. Especially friends with kids. Then they trot us out to show us off and brag about whatever stupid awards or shit we’ve won.”
