“Did it ever stop?”
“Guess not.” I hugged myself and watched as the janitor—who was in full grump mode, not that I could blame him—removed the things from the flagpole. Whoever had put them there had done a hell of a job attaching them. So much so that he couldn’t get them down with solely the strength of his muscles. He had to freakin’ cut them off.
“I wonder where my shoes are,” I said, suddenly realizing that they weren’t with the rest of my things. “Any ideas?”
“Probably in the dumpster,” Rudy said apologetically. “If this is Chris’ work, anyway. I don’t know.” Something about the way he exaggerated the ‘if’ before mentioning Chris made me believe he wasn’t really convinced his brother was the culprit.
“You don’t think he would have done this?”
Rudy shrugged. “I don’t think he would have thought of it. Or, if he did, I don’t think he’s creative enough to pull it off. Even if he was, tampons still gross him out. Maybe Gary—but he doesn’t really come up with things to do.”
“He’s more of a follower,” I agreed. “Bradley?”
Rudy snorted. “The only way Bradley reacts anymore is when one of us gets upset or hurt. He doesn’t give a shit about Julianne anymore. She overplayed her hand with him a long damn time ago. No effect. Not until she goes after us, anyway.” He shot me a worried look. “He’s really pissed off about the cupcake, though. Gary was not okay for a while.”
A shiver of ice ran down my spine. “What—what sorts of things does Bradley do when he’s upset?”
Rudy shrugged. “I’ve never seen him like this. I don’t know what he’s going to do. Just—you didn’t do that, right?” He didn’t look like he really wanted to ask the question or listen to the answer.
“No,” I said firmly. “I draw the line at making people eat nasty things. Okay that’s not entirely true, I kind of draw the line way before that, but I’ve got my own Gary-type issues and Julianne is really good at sucking me into things, but I had nothing to do with this. At all. I promise. Julianne was with me when I opened my locker, so she saw what your brothers did first-hand.”
Rudy got a funny look on his face. “They said they didn’t do that,” he said. “They were kind of pissed off that I even accused them of it.”
I frowned and opened my mouth to ask if he believed them, but I was interrupted by Ms. Roach’s whistle. “Show’s over everybody! Get out here, where are my pacers?”
“That’s us,” Rudy said, flashing me a small grin. He jogged over and I followed a few paces behind, wishing I hadn’t worn cute sandals that day.
I was in pain before we even started. By the time I completed my last lap, I was limping in dead last with blisters on my heels and a rash on my thighs. Fantastic.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Literally all I wanted to do was go home, get in the tub, and stay there for the rest of my natural life.
I limped out to the parking lot, keeping myself going in spite of the blisters and stares and chuckles, my entire being focused on nothing more than my car. I made a beeline for it, ignoring sidewalks and crosswalks and crowds, until a broad chest dressed in a blue jersey blocked my path.
“That was low, Kennedy,” Gary said, his voice shaking. “That fuckin’ hurt. And now I gotta wear this piece of crap until I get home.” He tugged on the jersey, which didn’t look bad on him. I figured it must be from the wrong sports ball team or something.
“I’m sorry you got hurt,” I said. “I didn’t do it, though.”
He tensed up so fast he started shaking. I thought he was going to hit me, and fear froze my feet to the asphalt. No sudden moves.
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he growled. “Chris heard those two blonde bitches talking about how you did it.”
“Leave her alone!” Speak of the devil, Julianne to the rescue. “Come on, Kennedy,” she said, slipping her arm through mine. “Let the orphan have his tantrum in peace.”
I let her drag me to her car, even though, honestly, I probably shouldn’t have. Julianne was playing games and even though she might not have been the one to hang my underwear from a fucking flagpole, she was part of the reason it got hung there in the first damn place. But I was exhausted and no match for Gary, so I caved, though my guards tried to keep themselves all the way up.
As we walked away, Rudy went up to Gary, his footsteps heavy and quick. It didn’t take all of two seconds before the two of them started arguing, but I was too far away to hear what was being said.
“I got something for you,” Julianne said cheerfully. “A present for your little garden project.”
She opened her trunk and pulled out four big pinwheels, each with a different adorably charismatic insect in the center; a ladybug, a butterfly, a grasshopper, and a bee.
“To match our costumes,” she said, handing them to me. “And, of course, to immortalize our friendship in your backyard.”
“Thanks,” I said. After the day I’d had, the gift and the thought behind it made me choke up a little bit. It even made me doubt how much she really deserved to be on my shitlist. Embarrassed, I spun one of the pinwheels. “These will look great in the garden.”
“Oh good!” She clapped her hands, then scanned the parking lot. Gary and Rudy had moved away from my car, but were still somewhat in my line of sight. “Coast is clear,” she said. I decided that even though that clear wasn’t crystal, it was still clear enough.
“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I moved like an old woman over to my car, stashed the pinwheels in the back seat, and climbed in.
Julianne’s car revved to life and, in the blink of an eye, she was no longer there to save me or play witness if the Seymores decided to rush in my direction. But at least I had Rudy and I was pretty darn certain that no matter how much he and his brothers disagreed on whether or not I should be punished, he wouldn’t have it happen while he was watching.
The Seymores were still arguing—all four of them now, from the looks of it—standing around Rudy’s Mustang. I caught several glares in my direction. If I’d had any energy left, I’d have been worried about what they were planning to do to me the next day.
As it turned out, I had more immediate things to worry about. I turned the key in the ignition and—nothing. Frowning, I tried again. There were some impotent clicks and the radio came on, but the engine didn’t even try to turn over.
Sighing, I leaned my head against the hot steering wheel and popped the hood.
Damn this day.
Damn this car.
Damn everything.
My car was nothing like the Ford we’d all been working on. Where the old Ford had all of its innards on display, mine were tucked away discreetly, hidden under metal plates, all of which were screwed in place. It would take me ages to find the problem, assuming I could even recognize it when I saw it.
I heard the Mustang pull up beside me. The boys must have worked out their issues.
“Car trouble?” Rudy asked as he put the car in park.
I nodded as he climbed out. “It won’t start,” I said. “And I don’t have the tools to figure out why. I’m going to have to call a shop or something—it was running fine this morning and it’s never done anything like this before. I think—” I cut my suspicion off before it could leave my mouth.
Rudy’s brothers were close enough to hear me, and if I accused them of something they didn’t do—or even something they had done—they would very likely lose their tempers. The tension in the car was palpable even from where I stood.
“Well crap,” he said, glancing at the hot, cloudless sky. “Need a ride home?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when a flash of bright pink screeched to a stop beside me, on the opposite side from the blue Mustang. I could feel, rather than see the tension rising.
“I thought I told you guys to leave her the hell alone,” Julianne snapped, looking past me to shoot daggers at the guys with her eyes.
Rudy gave her an even loo
k. “Her car won’t start,” he said.
“Why? What did you do to it?” she demanded.
Rudy’s expression didn’t change but I could feel his hackles go all the way up. “I didn’t—”
“No, not you. The twerps who take auto shop. Which one of them sabotaged the damn car?”
A chorus of angry denials exploded from the car and were slowly morphing into threats when Rudy held a hand up. “It probably wasn’t sabotage,” he said. “It’s probably just a coincidence. Either way, she needs a ride home.”
Chris and Gary started shouting again and Julianne blasted her horn, shutting them up. “So, what the hell are you waiting around here for? I’ll give her a ride. Get your stuff, Kennedy. Get lost, Seymores.”
I shot Rudy an apologetic look and avoided looking at his brothers entirely as I grabbed my bag and the pinwheels from the back seat of my car. Rudy burned rubber on the parking lot, disappearing onto the road faster than lightning.
“Can you believe those guys?” Julianne asked irritably. “Picking on you all day, then have the nerve to say that your car breaking down is coincidence. Ugh. Did Rudy really offer you a ride home?”
“Yeah,” I said tiredly.
“The nerve! You know you never would have made it back to your house, right? They would have disappeared you the same way they disappeared all the other girls.”
I gave her a sideways look. “All the other girls?”
She waved my skepticism away. “You know, there’s always stories going around, and all of them have Seymore attached. This town is just barely big enough for them to get away with it, but you know they’re always going out of town for something or other, and more often than not they come back with an extra person.”
“Mr. Seymore is a foster parent,” I reminded her. “That’s kind of his entire deal. He probably goes out of town to pick up foster kids.”
She snorted. “Kidnap foster kids, you mean. Don’t get me wrong, I get it—if I was going to go into the human trafficking business, which I would never do, of course, I would use foster kids too. Who’s going to come looking for them?”
“I’m pretty sure the kids have social workers and stuff who keep an eye on them.” I didn’t say the words like a challenge, but the tightness in Julianne’s jaw told me that’s exactly what she was taking them as. That, or me protecting the Seymore boys. The latter was even worse, in her opinion.
“Yeah, sure, but all Mr. Seymore has to do is convince the social worker that he’s a good dude long enough for them to lose interest or get caught up with more important cases and then he can get down to the business of making them disappear for good. You notice how he only keeps surly boys? Never girls or good-natured boys. There’s a reason for that. Girls sell for way more on the black market, and the criminally-minded boys make natural business associates.” She gave me a knowing look.
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s—a lot of really heavy accusations, Julianne. How do you know any of that is true?”
She blew out a breath impatiently. “It’s all circumstantial, of course. But, let’s be honest here, if someone would investigate the family for longer than like five minutes they’d put the pieces together just like I have. Remember, Kennedy, I’ve been watching this family for years. Years! I know what I’m talking about.”
Maybe she did. Maybe I was the one being stupid for believing Rudy over Julianne—but her story seemed so far-fetched now that I knew the truth about Kitty May. There was no way in hell the state would keep giving kids to Mr. Seymore if the kids kept disappearing, and I could think of a whole lot of legitimate reasons why a widowed man would only take surly boys.
“I don’t doubt that you’ve been watching them,” I said carefully. “But do you think maybe your conclusions might be a little—comic bookish?”
“I’ve never read a comic book so I wouldn’t know,” she said pertly as she pulled into my driveway. “But I know what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, and I know that no girl is safe accepting a ride from a Seymore boy. Oh! Let me help you with those. We can decide on the best place to put them together. I have a natural talent for accessorizing, you know.” She grabbed two of the pinwheels out of the backseat and shook her hair back, revealing earrings the exact same color as her eyes.
Despite my exhaustion, I didn’t deny her entry into the house, not that we stayed inside for very long. On a mission, Julianne pushed her way right through, her feet carrying her in a sprint like walk. We tried four different spots in the backyard, plugging the pinwheels in and then yanking them out again. I liked three of the spots, Julianne liked none of them. It had to be perfect, she insisted, to enshrine our everlasting friendship—ironically wearing my patience for said friendship thin in the process. She was setting them up in front of the baby orange tree for the second time when my phone buzzed at me.
It was Rudy. I didn’t have him saved under his name in my phone on the off-chance that he would call or text me when my phone was in sight of the others. Instead, he was saved as a series of hash marks, the way an unknown, private number would sometimes appear.
Need to talk. Pick you up?
“What do you think of them right here?” Julianne asked.
I barely glanced up. “They look good,” I said.
Not a good time. Definitely need to talk. Will let you know.
Julianne moved the pinwheels again, this time over by the pond which still didn’t have any koi in it. Monday, I decided, I would fix that. My phone started buzzing wildly—Rudy and I had never really had a full text conversation before. Apparently he was a serial texter.
They didn’t touch your car.
Don’t let her get inside your head.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the car, but I can have my dad look at it.
Seriously, it wasn’t us.
I would never do that to you.
You know how I feel about you, right?
Let me know what time.
“Who’s so interesting?” Julianne said in my ear, making me jump. I hadn’t even heard her move around behind me. She snatched the phone out of my hand and raised her eyebrows at the messages. She could only see the last three without scrolling up.
“So you do have a secret boyfriend! What the heck, Kennedy? Who is he? Are you bringing him to the pool party? Does he go to our school? Oh my god, is he an older man?” While she was firing questions at me, I snatched my phone back from her.
“I think it’s a wrong number,” I said. “It’s private, I can’t even tell what area code it’s from.”
She deflated slightly and pouted. “Really?”
“Really,” I said. The lie stuck like oatmeal in my throat, but I pushed through. If she had any idea who my secret boyfriend really was, all hell would break loose. My phone started ringing and I answered it quickly, in a panic.
“Hello?”
“Kennedy? It’s Mr. Foster. I noticed your car is still here—did you want to make up that class today? I was about to head out, but if you’re still here I can stick around a while.” His voice was loud, like he hadn’t quite figured out that you can talk in a normal tone and still have the person at the other end hear you just fine.
I slapped my forehead. I’d completely forgotten about making up that class.
“Hey Mr. Foster, yeah, I’m not actually at school right now,” I said. “My car wouldn’t start after school and my parents aren’t home so I’m still trying to figure out what to do about it.”
“Well hey, why don’t you bring your keys with you to school tomorrow morning and let me get into it? I’ve got weekend shop privileges. I’ll diagnose it and if it’s something I think you can do, I’ll have you help me put it back together. Extra credit and a working car all in one!”
Julianne smiled, making it evident that she heard every ounce of what was being said on the other end of the line as well as who the speaker was.
I smiled, relieved to have a fix to this fucked up problem that had been so unnecessarily thrown at me
. “Thanks, that sounds great. I’ll bring you the keys first thing in the morning. Maybe around nine?”
“I’ll be there. Talk to you then.” He hung up.
“Looks like your luck is turning around,” Julianne said a little smugly. “And look! I found the best possible place for the pinwheels.” She gestured grandly, showing me how she’d stuck the pinwheels in flower pots around the two stone benches. “Now it’s like we all have our own seats,” she said. “Isn’t it great?”
“It’s great,” I said, more glad that she was finally satisfied than anything else. She clapped her hands, then pulled out her phone to check the time.
“I have to go,” she said. “Lots to do, and not a lot of time to do it. See you later girlie!”
Julianne didn’t quite pause for my reply. Spinning on her heels, she trotted off and let herself out. I waited until the sound of her engine faded away before I texted Rudy back.
Now’s good. Come over.
OMW. The reply came in less than a minute, which made me smile.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I had Rudy park his car in the garage. My parents had called in the time between Julianne leaving and Rudy arriving to tell me that they were in Oklahoma City and were extending their tour by a week or two. Not that I was worried about them popping in out of the blue. Since Julianne had already been and gone, now was the safest possible time for Rudy to come over and hang out with me in my house—assuming nobody saw his car. Hence, the garage.
He looked around as he swaggered with exaggerated relaxation into my big kitchen, nodding appraisingly.
“Nice place,” he said. “Very, um—big.”
“Very empty. Very basic. Very—whatever. You didn’t come here to listen to me bitch about my parents’ tastes.”
I opened my arms to him and he flashed me a quick, cocky grin before taking me in his arms and kissing me hard. His hands ran over my body slowly—a pleasant difference from the way he touched me under the bridge. Now it was like he had all the time in the world.
Them Seymore Boys: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 1) Page 21
