by E. M. Moore
I blush. He won’t stop looking at me, and I’m used to being a shadow. Matt and I went to high school together. I was no one then. Well, I was there to be made fun of, that was it. I’m surprised he didn’t call me Blue’s Clues like Todd. “So, you’re working at a pizza place?”
He shakes his head. “Yeah, it’s not much, but you have to find something to do around here.” He rubs his face, his smile growing wide. “You know, we should catch up sometime. I haven’t seen you since high school.”
My brows furrow. Catch up? In order to catch up, we’d have to be caught up at some point in our lives and that never happened. I can’t remember any definitive memories where Matt made fun of me, but he certainly wasn’t a friend either. When I say I was a no one, I fucking mean it. I’m not just being dramatic. No one ever looked at me to see me.
Stone breaks our staring contest by stepping into our line of sight. He dwarfs Matt. They all do. It’s like the Jacobs and their cronies are from different stock than the rest of the population. It’s not just that they were born from an asshole tree and hit every branch on the way down, they’re out of place in other ways too. “Wilder’s going to have to pass.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, man.” Matt says. “I didn’t realize she had a boyfriend.”
“She doesn’t,” Lucas says, moving to stand next to his friend.
I clench my jaw and step forward, but Wyatt stops me. He grins down. “Ours, remember?”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“Mmm. I love it when you talk dirty. I think I’m going to have to make you my pet project, Tits.”
I growl at him, and he just laughs.
Behind us, Stone is telling Matt to get fucked. He throws money at him. It hits his chest and falls to the floor. Several twenty-dollar bills that Stone just pulled from his wallet stare at him from the ground. I cringe when Matt falls to his knees, grabbing it up. I don’t blame Matt. I’d be doing the same thing if I didn’t think I’d ever hear the end of it between these guys, and right now, our lives are irrevocably stuck together.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Lucas says, charging to the door and throwing it open.
Matt doesn’t look at me again. He stuffs the twenties in his pocket and takes off. As soon as he’s stepped over the threshold, Lucas kicks the door shut and the guys return to normal as if they didn’t just act like giant dicks. They head toward the pizza, Stone getting plates out for everybody, not even discussing what just happened.
My mouth drops open. “You guys are insane, you know that, right?”
They all gaze around at each other and just shrug. They give zero fucks about this. Zero fucks about whose lives they interfere with or who they make act like a fucking animal, scrambling around on the floor for the scraps they deem to throw like he’s a peasant and they sit in a gold tower. Actually, they kind of do. Jacobs Manor might not be made of real gold, but it feels like it is. Everywhere you look, they’re showing off their wealth. The house. The cars. Their clothes. No wonder why everyone is drawn to them at Saint Clary’s. They’re shiny, dressed up like new toys every single day. People say being wealthy doesn’t matter, but that’s all a crock of shit. Beauty always attracts the eye, and it doesn’t even have to be from the person itself. It’s from the expensive shit they surround themselves with.
Lucas hands me a plate with what I assume is my calzone. It looks like what Wyatt described earlier. Suddenly, I don’t have an appetite though. Am I just being one of the adoring masses, falling to my feet with the scraps they decide to give me? Good food. A nice bed. An orgasm to pass the time, even if it was the most daring thing I’d ever done. For a few minutes, I wasn’t Dakota Wilder, and that was nice.
But I am, aren’t I? I’m just like Matt, picking up twenty-dollar bills from the floor.
I’ll never be one of them.
“You okay?” Lucas asks, reaching out to touch my cheek.
I pull out of his reach. “Why did you guys just do that?”
A smirk starts to pull Lucas’s lips up. “Because you’re ours, Wild Girl. We’re not going to sit back and listen when some asshole tries to hit on you. He was practically tenting his pants.”
“Not that,” I say through clenched teeth. “Treating him like a dog. Throwing money at him like he’s no one. Practically making him bow at your feet. It’s disgusting.”
Stone drops his plate to the island, and it clatters. The sound makes me jump. Haven’t they ever heard of paper plates for crying out loud? Within a moment, I’m not thinking of that anymore because Stone Jacobs is once again breathing my air, taking it all up for himself because that’s what he does. He’s selfish and greedy. He steps into my space, taking more and more from me without a care in the world. “No one told him he had to lower himself to pick up the money. He did that on his own. You want a tip?”
“From someone like you? No fucking thank you.”
He grins evilly. “If you don’t want to be seen as a low-life subservient, don’t cower at my feet.”
“God, you think so much of yourself, don’t you?”
“If I don’t, who will?”
I open my mouth with another cutting barb at the tip of my tongue, but his response wasn’t what I expected.
His smile smooths out, lingering somewhere between ringing so completely false that it almost tugs at my inner heart strings and holding so much truth that it’s hard to decipher who he really is. “There you go, Dakota Wilder. That’s the secret.” His gray-blue eyes hook into mine, keeping me there for much longer than I want. He’s giving me a window into his soul. When I peek inside, it’s not all bad. It’s fucked up, yes, but it isn’t laced with cruelty like I imagined. “Now,” he says, making sure his polo is sitting right across his shoulders. “We’re going to eat and discuss. I will act civilized, and I’m asking you to do the same. I think there’s something we can agree on. It’s in both of our best interests to get the treasure. Working together is the only way we’re going to do that, so...can we start?”
I breathe out a breath I’d been holding captive. If I was in a book, this would be the moment I could tell them all to go to hell…or finally put our differences aside. The thing is, that’s assuming this whole thing is going to end up as a happy ending, and in real life, there are just no guarantees that’s ever going to happen. My life isn’t destined for that prize at the end. No matter how much I’ve tried to make it happen, I’ve come to grips with the outcome. The only thing I can hope for is getting my father back, so that’s what I’m going to focus on. “Let’s do it.”
22
The guys and I settle down in the pristine living room to eat our pizza. It seems wrong to eat in such a beautiful room. I’m almost afraid to touch the fabric for fear of getting stains on it.
However, the guys are less worried. They dig into the pizza like rabid animals. Even though Stone seems firmly like a knife and fork type of pizza eater, he eats it with his hands like a regular person. I’m almost impressed. It’s like he’s thrown caution to the wind.
Me? I steady my calzone on my lap. The first piece is delectable. I almost moan. So much cheese. So. Much. It’s like heaven in my mouth.
As we eat, Lucas decides he’s going to be the mediator, starting the conversation where we need to. I gaze at him while he eyes all of us and wonder if he’s used to this role he’s filling. I thought him silent before, and he kind of is. He doesn’t speak much when one, he doesn’t care about you, and two, when he doesn’t have anything to say. It’s refreshing after listening to the idiots in Clary talk all their lives. They never cared what kind of ignorance came out of their mouths.
“So,” Lucas starts. “We need to plan our first trip into the mountains.” Each of the guys eye me. If they’re wondering if I know where to start, the answer is yes. I think. Though I could kick myself for keeping my distance from Dad in the last few weeks before he took his last trek into the mountains. If he was on a hot trail, I’m not sure I would actually know about it. The key in my pocket burns
. I have to get to the safe sooner rather than later, and I still don’t trust these guys to show them where it is or what’s in there. “What do you need, Dakota?”
I swallow. When my dad went missing, I made trips into the mountains, but without the right gear. It was always tough. Whatever my dad had was with him. “I need the works,” I tell them, shame heating my face. “Backpack. Tent. Boots. You name it, I need it. My dad’s stuff went with him.”
It’s one of the reasons why I was never able to find him right after. I didn’t have the proper equipment, and I sure as fuck didn’t have the money to go buy it. I had to make do with Dickie’s old stuff, but it was ancient and worn. Not really suitable for my needs. I couldn’t even spend the night up in the mountains, which I know hindered my progress.
“We have most of the stuff you need, but we’ll get you some boots,” Stone promises. He even sounds decent about it. Not a hint of annoyance that he has to buy the poor girl things in order to take her into the mountains. “Also, I’ll have someone go into your father’s house and pack up all of his research. If it’s okay with you,” he tacks on. “I don’t think it’s safe there anymore.”
“I agree,” I say. “I can do it though.”
Stone shakes his head. “We have more important things to do.” He swallows thickly, eyeing his pizza. He sets his plate down on the coffee table and leans back, clutching his stomach. Wyatt glances over at him. “You feeling off?”
“No, I’m fine.”
I eye my calzone and wonder if the heavy head I’m feeling isn’t a headache coming on like I thought. The plate doubles then triples. There are three calzones which then merge back into one. I shut my eyes, and the world starts to tilt. “Guys, there’s definitely...” My tongue thickens in my mouth. I press it against my teeth, trying to get it to work correctly.
Wyatt, who’s been focusing more on eating than on the treasure conversation, slumps forward. He bangs his head on the coffee table and falls to the floor.
Shit. From the corner of my eye, I see Stone and Lucas attempt to go to him. Lucas stands, but he tumbles to the floor like he can’t hold his weight. A haze filters over the room like heat waves distorting the landscape.
The last thing I remember is the calzone slipping to the floor. I don’t even hear it hit because I’m out.
I wake with a pounding headache. I don’t even want to open my eyes because when I do, it feels like someone is trying to shove a screwdriver into the back of my skull. I groan, trying to turn over, to stop whatever the hell is doing this to me. “Hey,” a soft voice says. “It’s okay. I’ve got something for you to take right here.”
A hand caresses my head and pulls away.
“It’s Lucas,” he says. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I mumble, thinking about what the fuck happened. We were drugged. We had to have been.
“You’re right, it’s not. But we’re okay now. Can you sit up? You need to drink this water, and I’ve got something for you to take for the pain.”
I push my hands against the mattress, realizing I am in fact on a bed for the first time. They must have moved me. I don’t get anywhere though. My limbs are still too weak.
“I got you,” Lucas says. He hooks his hands under my arms and hauls me against the headboard. The quicksand feeling drags away from my head, filtering down through my body. I can open my eyes now and find Lucas sitting on a chair next to my bed. He picks up his phone. “I’m just going to text the guys to tell them you’re awake.”
“Am I the last one awake?”
He nods as his fingers fly over the keyboard. “We think it’s because you weigh a lot less than the rest of us. Wyatt came out of it first.”
I can see why. He’s big and bulky. Not in a negative way, obviously. Most definitely in a hunky man sort of way.
Lucas smirks at me. “Pretty sure you didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“Fuck. Did I?”
He nods.
“Let’s just pretend that never happened.”
He finally puts his phone down and grabs the water, holding it to my lips. I take a few swallows before having the strength to actually hold my own cup. I down it, my mouth suddenly as dry as the desert, the water only quenching it so much. Lucas takes the empty glass from me. “I’m going to go grab you some more so you can take that pain reliever, okay? Just hold on.”
He passes Wyatt in the hallway who waits for him to leave before he waltzes in. It’s one of the only times I’ve seen him without his cowboy hat on. “You look like shit, Tits.”
“I feel like shit,” I grumble. It feels like I have the hangover from hell yet also still drunk at the same time. It’s taking way too long for things to compute inside my head. Like I can see the words coming in, but I have to disseminate them one by one before drawing conclusions about what’s being said. “What happened?”
Wyatt leans against the glass wall, dropping his head to the glass. He shakes his head. “It’s my fault. I didn’t fucking lock back up after the pizza guy came.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “I don’t—”
Lucas comes back in. “We’ll get to that,” he snaps, glaring at Wyatt who sighs, shoulders drooping.
“She asked, dude.”
“Just let her wake up for a second because she’s not going to understand anything until she does.”
He’s got a point there.
“Thanks,” Lucas says smiling.
“Jesus. Fuck me,” I say, wishing I could tell the difference between saying things out loud and saying them in my head.
Wyatt winks. “Just tell me when you’re down, Tits. I’ll rock your world.”
“I already know your type, Wyatt. You’d tap it once then convince yourself you don’t need it again, and then we’d be like lost little puppies in a cardboard box, never finding a way out.”
Wyatt frowns. “Some of that made sense. Some of it didn’t.”
Lucas hands me two pills and the glass of water again. I take the pain reliever, then continue to drink until the glass is empty again.
After a couple of minutes, I sit up in bed. The swimming through quicksand feeling has rescinded, and I’m fairly sure I can talk without thinking I’m saying things in my head but saying them out loud instead.
“You should take a shower,” Wyatt suggests. “It’ll make you feel better. Let me know if you want to be lost little puppies.” He lifts his brows seductively.
I smirk. “I can already tell I’m not going to live that one down.”
“‘Fraid not, Tits.”
I shrug and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Lucas is right there. He helps me to my feet and stands right next to me to make sure I don’t fall over. “Good?”
“Good,” I tell him, thankful he’s here to help. That they both are. I can’t imagine what I would’ve done if I’d woken up all alone after something like that. I would’ve freaked the fuck out, I know that. “I think I can handle it from here.”
Lucas’s face pinches. “I’ll check on you but come out to the living room when you’re done.”
I nod in agreement, and then the two of them leave. My feet feel like sledgehammers as I make my way into the bathroom. I start the shower and then strip. The rain showerhead thrums across my scalp in nice, even drops. It’s divine. While standing there, I dissect what happened. Someone knocked us out. They put something in our food. The dorm room. My father’s house. Now this. There’s something more going on that those three assholes need to come clean about.
The simmering anger over the intrusion into our lives spurs me to move faster. I shut the showerhead off and ring out my hair. Stepping out of the shower, I quickly dry off before going into the room to find clothes to throw on. I settle for a pair of my pajamas. The dark night full of stars I spy through the glass ceiling in the bathroom tells me it’s some time in the middle of the night. We must’ve been passed out for hours.
I walk out of my bedroom in a flimsy pair of cotton shorts and a tank
top. I threw a bra on under the shirt because I decided my nipples were too visible. I wouldn’t mind Lucas seeing that, but Wyatt’s too much of a manwhore and Stone is just...well...a dick.
I pass through the hallway, feeling much better. The throbbing pain in my head is still there, but my brain and muscle functionality has pretty much returned to normal the longer I’m awake. The shower helped a lot too, just as Wyatt said.
Before I even get to the living room, Stone’s raised voice carries toward me. It doesn’t take long to figure out that he’s not talking to Wyatt or Lucas, he’s on the phone. “It was a mistake,” he growls. When I emerge, his head snaps up to meet me. His irises are huge. His hair is disheveled like he’s run his fingers through it ever since he woke up from being drugged. His face is pale, and if I didn’t know the true Stone Jacobs, I’d feel sorry for the guy in front of me. He looks like he could use a hug.
Not from me. Definitely not from me.
“We’re taking care of it,” he snaps again. A beat of silence follows before he stands up straight, throwing his shoulders back like a soldier standing at attention. “No. No, of course not. Yes, Father.”
Lucas comes up behind me, entwining our fingers. Stone’s gaze drops to our joined hands, and his eyes flare with something like jealousy.
I must be really out of it because that can’t be it. His father must be saying something on the other end of the line to cause that reaction. As I’ve already been told, whatever Stone’s infatuation with me is can’t happen. Not that I truly believe there’s any sort of infatuation.
“We’ll take care of it,” Stone says, calmer now before hanging up the phone. He spins on his heel and throws the phone across the room. It crashes against the cupboards, glass splintering and denting the wood. He lets out an inhuman growl that makes me stiffen.
“Stone...” Wyatt starts.
“Give me a minute,” he says in a voice like sandpaper being dragged over jagged stone. He takes several deep breaths, his fingers lost in his hair as he stares at the ground. Like he promised, within a couple of minutes, he gazes up again. His calm facade back into place. It’s scary how quickly he can change his demeanor. It makes me wonder if I’m ever seeing the real Stone Jacobs, or if everything he wears is just a pretense.
