Tame: A High School Bully Romance (Savannah Heirs Book 2)

by Coralee June

  The man grumbled something under his breath but turned the car on and threw it into reverse, backing out of the driveway. I buckled my seat belt in victory and told him the address.

  The whole ride there, I went over what I could possibly say to Godfrey, but I came up with shit. You want to know why I ran off last night? Funny story. Making you bleed disgusted me. Oh, and sorry about my not-boyfriend beating you up.

  I shook my head at myself and felt my phone ring again. I stared at Beau’s name for a good three seconds before deciding to answer it. I wanted to hear his side of the story, even if it pissed me off.

  “Rachel,” he answered, his voice groggy, likely from a sleepless night. “Did you get home safely last night?” he asked, and I had to hold back a snort. Beau sure was good at pretending to be the knight in shining armor when he wasn’t sticking his tongue down a pretty girl’s throat or beating the hell out of my...my…my friend? That didn’t feel right, but I had no idea how to classify Godfrey.

  “Yes, Beau. I got home just fine. I thought you’d go home with Stephanie. Saw you sucking her face at the party last night. Too bad you ended up in the county jail instead.”

  He was silent on the other end of the line, probably trying to come up with some bullshit excuse for why he punched Godfrey. He was probably also trying to think of a way he could explain why Stephanie had her nimble fingers down his pants. I wasn’t jealous, not really. Just...disappointed.

  “It wasn’t like that, baby. You know you’re all there is for me,” he whispered. I frowned. Maybe I’d started things more than I’d meant to when I’d kissed him that day. It had been a stupid thing to do. Ah, so he was just going to ignore the fact that he got into a fight? “I’m just trying to give you time to process everything.”

  If I were a rubber band, Beau just pulled me back and snapped me against his wrist. “Beau, you don’t like me. You like the idea of taking over my dad’s empire. But please don’t pretend like you fucking other women is some chivalrous way of giving me time to process the shit that happened to me. ’Cause I sure as hell didn’t have you on my mind when I was fucking Godfrey Taylor last night.”

  The line went eerily silent. Not because he hung up, but because he wasn’t even breathing on the other end. I got some sick satisfaction out of lying about having sex with Godfrey. I didn’t know why, exactly, except that I wanted Beau to know that I wasn’t going to choose him.

  “He took advantage of you,” Beau said, his voice solid with fury.

  I snorted. “Is that what you have to tell yourself?”

  “Rachel, you’re not ready for that after what happened to you.”

  That made me boiling mad. Who the fuck was he to decide what I needed? Who the fuck was he to put a timeline on my recovery, on my happiness? If I were to go by everyone else's expectations of how to get past this, then I never would. Even if he was right, he didn’t get to make that call. I did. “You don’t get to tell me what I’m ready for.”

  “But him? Really? You kissed me!”

  “Kisses don’t mean shit, Beau. You and I both know the girl you used to have a crush on is long gone. Pull your head out of your ass and maybe we can go back to being friends. Until then, leave my...leave Godfrey alone.”

  I hung up the phone with a curse before tossing it in the seat beside me. Looking at Dad’s man in the front seat, I growled in frustration and turned my attention out the window. He pressed his boot down on the accelerator, pushing the car harder towards my destination, likely recognizing my grumpy mood and deciding to get there faster. Talking with Beau had solidified things for me. The crazy Savannah Heir might not be what I should want right now, but he was what I needed.

  When we pulled up to Rogue Kelly’s house, Godfrey was sitting on the front steps, like he was waiting for me. Seeing the bruising on his jaw made me shiver. I was no stranger to violence. I knew the threshold a body could handle. I’d seen enough women get tossed around in Johnny Jack’s basement to know that the body could be easily broken. But seeing it on Godfrey sparked something different within me. I got out of the car, and the driver was smart enough to keep his ass firmly in his seat. His eyes were on me though. Eyes were always on me. It was suffocating.

  “I knew you’d show up,” he said before arching his back and scratching behind his neck. I watched as the black henley he wore crept up, revealing a bruised side and sexy set of six pack abs. “Come here to finish what you started last night? Or am I going to have to find someone else to go home with again?”

  That hurt. But I knew damn well he was lying. The video last night showed him passed out. So unless he was magically able to get a girl off while sleeping, I doubted he had time to find a conquest and rock her world. “Actually, I’m here to yell at you,” I lied. I wasn’t, but Godfrey didn’t like the expected, nor did he appreciate the type of girl that crawled on her hands and knees, begging for attention. He wanted a bit of a fight, and I had enough pent up rage to give him one.

  He cocked a brow. “Yeah? Let’s hear it then.”

  I marched up to him but decided to keep my feet planted on the ground instead of taking the steps. Our positions meant that we were eye to eye from where he sat at the top. It was ironic, since we didn’t see eye to eye on anything else.

  “Why’d you let him beat you up?” I asked, running my eyes over his swollen face and bloodied lip.

  He shrugged like he didn’t have a care in the world. “I like feeling a bit of pain.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He stretched out his leg and draped his arm over it. Even bruised and bloody, he still looked good. My eyes kept darting down to his lip, remembering that I had made him bleed there first. I knew that under his t-shirt, he probably still had scratch marks from my nails.

  “Why’d you take the hits, Godfrey?”

  “Why’d you bail on me, princess?” he shot back.

  Sighing in frustration, I sat on the gravel with my knees bent and looked up at him. We watched each other for a few moments, neither of us saying anything, but our eyes never strayed. “If my dad hadn’t asked you, would you have ever talked to me again after the hospital?” I asked. I was surprised at my own question, but now that it was out, I found that I really did want to know.

  “No,” he answered levelly, and damn if that wasn’t like a kick to the shin.

  “So you ditched me in the hospital just because I bored you with my cliche daddy and drug problems. Then you hung around me because my dad asked you to.”

  “That pretty much sums it up.”

  I picked up the pieces of white gravel at my feet and started tossing them across the driveway, one by one. Finally, I asked, “What else did he want from you? It’s not adding up. I get the cash and the babysitting, but there’s more, isn’t there?”

  After a few minutes of watching me silently, he spoke. “He wanted names. Wanted me to figure out who hurt you so he could get revenge.”

  I laughed, a good, solid belly laugh that was as dark as my emotions. “So the game was to find out who hurt me? Typical.” I shouldn’t really be mad, I knew Dad just wanted what I wanted. But I was feeling selfish, clinging to my vengeance like it was the only thing I had left. I realized then that I was so lost in Godfrey that I was losing sight of the end goal. I hadn’t once started looking for Pick.

  “What do you want, Rachel?” he asked.

  It was a good question. One I’d been asking myself ever since I got discharged from the hospital. The thing was, I didn’t know. I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill Pick. I wanted to find myself in Godfrey but lose myself to the pain. “I’m broken. Johnny Jack’s guys...Pick...he ripped pieces from me that I can’t get back.”

  Godfrey slipped off his aviators, and a hiss of breath escaped me at just how swollen and bruised he was. I could only see one of his eyes, since the other was swollen shut, but the intensity was still there. “So, what, you want me to put you back together again? I’m not that guy, princess.”

  “No, I just…” I p
ulled at my short hair in frustration. “I feel like my jagged pieces fit with yours.”

  Godfrey walked towards me, and I saw in his swagger that things were going downhill fast. I stood up to meet his stare head on when he stopped at my feet. “Look, you’re a fun chick. You’re hot. We had fun, Rachel,” he said. I heard the silent but on the edge of his tongue. “But...I’m not someone that’s going to save you. Hell, I’m not even your friend. I’m some guy your dad hired to keep an eye on you so you don’t shoot up again.”

  I knew this. I knew that he wasn’t here for anything more. It’s why I had to promise myself last night that this was a one time thing—that this wasn’t going to last forever. I just had no idea that it would have to end before we ever even got started. “I think in your current condition, you get attached easily. It’s completely normal. But maybe you need to take a step back and just focus on yourself for a little while.”

  Ouch. My current condition? What the hell was that supposed to mean? “I’m not attached, Godfrey,” I said, though my tone felt far too weak for the steel intent behind my words. I wasn’t attached, was I?

  “Says the girl at my house at nine a.m. on a Sunday,” Godfrey replied, deadpan. “Look. I’m trying to be nice here. I just don’t think I’m equipped to handle what’s going on. Maybe your therapist was right and you need to consider something more extensive. It’s okay to need help, princess.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I know my mind, Godfrey. I know what I can handle.” I was screaming so loud that I was certain the neighbors could hear. Spit had collected on my lips from the fury. “I’ve been to hell and back, so this isn’t my mind’s fucked up way of making this...connection up. I know there’s something between us. It isn’t just me being clingy or damaged.”

  Each fucking word felt like a punch to the gut. I was tired of everyone putting me in a box. Tired of everyone dictating every fucking action and speculating what fucked up thing led me to this point. “Fuck you, Godfrey Taylor. Fuck you and your pretentious bullshit. It’s easier for you to make me feel like this is wrong than it is for you to accept the fact that you like me. Out of the two of us, you’re the one with attachment issues. And the only thing you’re attached to is yourself.”

  At the end of my speech, I was breathing hard and my cheeks were burning. Godfrey just watched me in that infuriatingly calm way of his. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to kiss him. God, maybe I did need help.

  “You done?” he asked dryly.

  “You know, I just wanted to come over and make sure you were okay. But I should’ve known better.”

  Godfrey put his hands in his pockets and looked over as a car pulled into the drive. I immediately recognized Scarlett when she parked and got out. She looked between the two of us, and when she saw the expression on my face, her lips thinned.

  Godfrey looked over at her, and I saw his expression soften. My gut roiled as my eyes darted between them. He loved her. I could see it. How could I have been so stupid?

  “Y’all okay?” Scarlett asked, wincing slightly when she took in all the mottled colors on his face.

  “Yep,” Godfrey answered. “Rachel here was just leaving.”

  Tears burned in the backs of my eyes. “Just like that?”

  He sighed like I was boring him. “I’ll tell your dad that this fucked up babysitting thing is over. You turned down the drugs all on your own, anyway. Besides, you don’t have a name for him. You don’t need me. And like I said before, I’m not going to fix you. You have to deal with your shit, Rachel. Me and you were never going to be a real thing.”

  I heard Scarlett hiss something at him under her breath, but I was already walking, my feet moving as fast as they could without full-out running. When I was safely behind the glass and metal of my car, I chanced a glance out the window and saw Scarlett and Godfrey clearly arguing, his hands balled into fists and her arms flailing around as she gestured wildly.

  “Just go,” I spit out at the driver.

  So he put the car into drive, and off we went, past the mansions and the trimmed hedges, past the elaborate gates and the swept sidewalks. We drove as far away from Godfrey Taylor as I could get, but it still didn’t feel far enough because I left my heart right there at his feet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rachel

  At my request, my dad’s guy dropped me off in front of the Savannah Mall. He wasn’t supposed to leave me alone, but my red-rimmed eyes had him fleeing fromt he emotion. It was a normal busy Sunday morning, and people were already flooding the doors to go swipe their plastic cards and buy shit they didn’t need for prices that weren’t fair. I wasn’t sure why I picked this place to go to. I didn’t want to go home and let Dad see my red eyes and snotty nose. I hated that Godfrey’s mean words had affected me so much. Out of everything I’d survived, this should be nothing, but instead, it felt like a perpetual kick to the gut. Over and over and over again.

  It felt like I was sleepwalking as I made my way through the lot and inside where the air conditioning swept around my already frozen limbs. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but my feet walked anyway. I took the escalator and went into the first store I saw, realizing when I saw the edgy attire that it was time for a change. It was time to start looking like the girl I felt like on the inside.

  For some fucked up reason, I felt the need to call Dr. Taffy. She’d challenged me to dress up, but I wanted to take things a step further. Cutting my hair was just the first step. Now I wanted to change everything about myself. I was going to reinvent myself, sans Godfrey Taylor. I was going to mark a transition; show an outward change of myself in order to show that I had been internally changed, and that I was a different person because of it. I wasn’t the old me anymore, and it was time that I embraced who I was now in my own stage of healing.

  When I walked inside the store, the saleswoman took one look at me and didn’t bother to help. The price tags here were well out of range for a girl wearing wrinkled jeans and an old, holey shirt. It made knowing that I was going to pay for the clothes with counterfeit cash easier to swallow. I never much liked assuming people.

  I started looking through some shirts, trying to keep my breathing steady, when I heard, “I love shopping.”

  I spun around and stared at a man wearing worn jeans, a cowboy hat, and a wife-beater. He looked authentically Southern, even down to the dip collected in his cheek. There was mud on his brown cowboy boots and a strategic tear at the knee of his jeans that showed off his skin. His belt was brass and large but not ostentatious. At first, I was worried he would hit on me. I wasn’t in the mood to navigate whether or not I’d trigger. But when my eyes took in his face, recognition crashed over me, and I opened my mouth in shock.

  “Forty-One?” I asked, my voice stuttering as the words clipped out.

  He looked completely different than before, and I wondered if he was undercover. Looking around, I lowered my voice while stepping closer. “What on earth are you wearing?” Last time we’d spoken, he’d been in a suit and makeup. Now he looked about ready to wrangle a horse.

  He strutted over to me, boots slapping against the floor of the mall as he gave me a lazy smile. “Clothes,” he replied with a shrug before perusing through the racks, picking up a pair of skinny jeans and draping it over his arm. “You shopping for anything in particular?” he asked with a smile before holding up a red shirt against my body. Tilting his head to the side, he openly observed me before putting it back on the rack. His voice was deeper this time, but it had a forced quality about it that didn’t feel authentic.

  “I’m reinventing myself,” I answered honestly before picking the red shirt back up and putting it in my arm, mostly because he didn’t like it. Forty-One’s eyes brimmed with excitement at my answer, like this was his wheelhouse of expertise—aside from murdering people, of course.

  “Nice, little lady. I find it’s best to reinvent yourself daily. Keeps the soul fresh,” he replied before walking over to a clearance rack an
d pulling a sequined tube top out. “This is perfection!” He waved it in the air before slipping it over his arm. The flashy material was way too much for my usual tastes, but the new me kind of liked it.

  I looked him up and down once more. Long gone was the makeup from before, and his face even had a five o’clock shadow covering his jaw. Forty-One definitely seemed like he reinvented himself daily. “Is that why you look completely different from the last time I saw you?” I asked.

  I was still raw from my confrontation with Godfrey, and this random meeting with Forty-One was a welcomed distraction. I was clinging to the challenge of figuring him out because it was easier than dealing with the stormy emotions that plagued me.

  “Something like that,” he replied cryptically. I watched as his eyes closed for a moment, like he was trying to figure out how much he wanted to say. He motioned at his outfit. “This look here? This is from number Seventeen.”

  My eyes widened in shock at that revelation. “You...you dress up like your kills?” I whispered.

  “Seventeen liked chewing tobacco, Miller Lite, and beating his wife within an inch of her life.”

  “I see,” I said with a gulp, not really knowing what else to say. Was this some sort of penance? Was he dealing with the guilt of killing people by taking on their personalities? It seemed like he would be in danger of losing himself if he kept dressing up like other people, not to mention the fact that he’d always be reminded of the people he killed. The thought of him one day dressing up like Pick had my stomach rolling.

  “You look like number Two. Sexy and sweet. She kept demons in her soul and her heart on her sleeve. Just like you. She wore black jeans like they were a second skin.”

  I was touching the soft fabric of a black shirt, wincing at his description because it was dead-on. But I didn’t want to have my heart on my sleeve. Not anymore. I was done being the victim. I wanted to have knives in my grip and blood on my hands. “How did number Two die?” I asked, keeping my voice even and nonchalant.