And the truth.
We stood together and watched the SUV drive away until it was out of sight.
I turned to face Claire.
She was already walking toward the door.
“Meet me at the pool,” she said. “I need a drink first. You want one?”
“Something hard?” I asked.
“Why not?” she replied. “I had no idea your mother was going to show up like that.”
“I believe you.”
“I hope she really does go get that help. It’s a big step to admit it and go seek it yourself. You should… nothing. Doesn’t matter what you should do, think, or feel. That’s up to you.”
Claire stopped at the kitchen and I kept walking.
I went to the pool and stood there like I had done so many times already. I thought about Barr. Pushing me into the pool. Throwing my phone into the pool. Or Kip. Just walking into the pool with his clothes on. Or myself, Gi, and Iris. Pushing each other in and swimming and having fun.
It was home.
And I had to stay.
Not just for now either.
But for good.
I heard the door behind me and I turned.
Claire had a large glass of wine.
“You know what?” I said to her. “I don’t want to know. I just want to know I’m safe. That’s it. I want to know someone’s not going to show up and try to kill you. Or try to kidnap me for ransom because I’m tied to you. Or that someone I know is going to die because of what you’re… dealing…”
Claire drank the wine like water and put the glass down.
“I’m sure you’ve heard a lot,” Claire said. “And where to start… I guess at the beginning here. You’re safe, Tinsley. Completely safe. No doubt in my mind and heart. That’s the whole point of this place. This town. Of what happens here. Of why I have things set up the way I do.”
“Set up?” I asked.
“It’s all designed,” Claire said. “I watched a lot of people go through what your mother did. I thought putting her and your father together would work. They’d fix each other. They didn’t. They both fucked it up beyond belief. I lost Kait. I refused to lose you. Then I did anyway. I was left with nothing. But money. And time. And the want to make this stop. So I did. I made it stop. Bay Falls High is clean. Because of me.”
“Clean…”
“The street you grew up on, Tinsley. It was busy. Dirty. There were problems all the time. Right?”
I nodded.
“And all the streets around there. Crime. Shootings. Robberies. Probably worse.”
I nodded again. “So?”
“Now imagine if I came in and bought all the houses. I bought the entire street out. I turned it into something more expensive and chased away all that stuff.”
I curled my lip. “You mean force all the poor people out.”
“Yeah. Exactly.” Claire showed her hands. “And fair enough, hate me for it. But what if I made it so it was only wealthy, quiet families living there. The street would be quiet. Clean. Relaxed. Happy.”
“You just insulted everyone I ever knew. And me.”
“I know,” Claire said. “But I saw it all the time. So I finally decided to settle here and fix it.”
“How?”
“By making sure it never comes here again,” Claire said. “What I do and what I have to do is outside of this town. For good reason.”
I sucked in a shaky breath. “So it’s true. You… do that stuff…”
“Don’t worry about me,” Claire said. “I’m in real estate. Development. I find things that are broken and I find a way to make them what they should have been all along.”
“Like me?” I asked.
Claire smiled. “No. You were never broken. You were perfect. It was no wonder your mother kept you and demanded to keep you. I offered her a lot of money to walk away and she always refused.”
“You did?”
“Yes. That’s the truth. She loved you more than money.”
“But not more than drugs.”
“That’s a lie. She loved you. The drugs loved her. And why do you think I keep that out of this town? You’re the reason why. And I won’t stop. And I brought Tucker here to help. He’s been clean long enough that I trust him. He’s able to do the dirty work for me. And whether you believe it or not, he does care about you. And he did care about Kait. He gave her the distance she wanted and he lost her for good. So I don’t blame him for not wanting to give you the same distance.”
“Kait died,” I said.
“Not in this town,” Claire said.
“So that makes it okay?” I asked.
“No. It makes it fucking tragic. And it’s why your three guy friends push back when they need to.”
“Tell me they work for you.”
“Not even close,” Claire said. “I want nothing to do with them. The Richter family is nothing but fake charm. I entertain them for my own benefit. The Unser’s? They are a waste. I’m sorry, but even Kipton… he’s a few fingers short of a hand. And the Levilitz family…”
“Oh, I know your take on that,” I said.
Claire nodded. “I take all judgement on it. But you know why it happens.”
“Business and pleasure,” I said. “You know Will is weak. So you use him.”
“I use him the way a surfer uses a wave. And I don’t care.”
I nodded. “And my place here, Claire?”
“To be Tinsley Ditkiss. Nothing else. I did not bring you here for anything other than what I’ve told you. It pained me to know you were out there lost like you were. And after Kait passed, I tracked down your mother and tried to help again. She insisted you were strong and okay. So I stayed back. But when this happened… she tried to kill herself, Tinsley. I couldn’t just stay away. I had to see you. And I truthfully had no intentions of bringing you here. But the second I saw you…” Claire wiped her eyes. She grabbed her wineglass and chugged again.
I walked toward her. “What?”
“I messed around with the stuff when I was younger,” Claire said. “I was eighteen and my boyfriend was twenty-seven. He was a dealer. With money. I blinked my eyes and I was twenty. He was dead. I was on my way there. I cleaned myself up and started from nothing. But those two years I lost I ruined my body.”
“You got clean.”
“Tinsley, I ruined myself…” Claire touched my face. “I couldn’t have kids. And nobody wanted that. Why do you think I’m in love with Jeff? We’re so fucking busy we can’t talk about the future. But the second we do and the second he brings up kids, it’ll end. But my point… when I saw you outside the hospital I saw you as a little girl. And when we would be together it was perfect. I wanted you so bad, Tinsley. I wanted to become your mother and raise you. And spoil you. And that was taken from me. By your mother. Who was doing bad things to herself. Yet she was able to get pregnant with you. My mind spiraled.”
Claire let out a breath and tears fell from her eyes.
I hugged her.
I started to cry.
I cried for everything between us. The past and present. And the future. Knowing that what she was doing was so wrong, even if it had a purpose.
I always knew living there with her wasn’t going to work.
There was no way my home was going to be with someone like her.
I could visit.
That was it.
“You were never in a car accident,” I said.
“No. There was a shipment issue and things got out of hand.”
“Someone attacked you.”
“I survived.”
“You said I was safe here,” I said.
“It wasn’t here that it happened,” Claire said. She broke the hug and looked at me. “Just stay here and you’ll be fine.”
“You damaged your own car to make your lie believable.”
“I didn’t want to lose you again,” she said. “That’s crazy. But so is everything else in life.”
Claire k
issed my cheek and grabbed her wineglass.
She cleared her throat and her tears were instantly gone.
Swallowing down even more emotion.
Because that’s what Claire did.
I finally had her figured out.
She was the ultimate protector and caregiver. A woman who could never be a mother in the biological sense but she found a way to mother so many others. Trying to fill a void that could never be filled.
Claire went inside and got her phone off the counter and was back to work.
Or back to texting Pres’s father for some comfort.
I stood outside and slowly looked up to my bedroom window.
I couldn’t stay in the house forever.
But I could stay for now.
And if there was one thing I knew…
… the dirty girl with the junkie for a mother…
a little bit of something was better than nothing at all.
Epilogue
(one month later)
My locker was empty.
I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that it kind of let me down each day it was empty. There were plenty of things the Rulz could put in there for me. Love letters from Pres. Or love letters from Kip. Barr… he’d probably put in a driver’s manual, just to be a dick because of my accident.
We concluded I swerved to miss an animal and that was that.
I had a new SUV.
Yeah, Claire bought it.
I drove it.
Oh fucking well.
I was in the process of finding my own place. Which wasn’t easy or cheap to do. Barr got me a secret gig at the underground club he played at. Waitressing there was easy, fun, and paid great. And anyone that dared to get out of line would have to face Barr. And then face Pres and Kip because they’d be waiting outside.
I got to watch Barr play piano and watch him as a rock star each time he did it.
It was fun. Really fun.
But getting out of Claire’s house was going to be tricky. Unless I just let Pres take care of me. Spoil me. Which he wanted to do. He knew I was too stubborn to let it happen that easily though. No way in hell my world was going to revolve around some guy’s money. I had grown up poor. I could continue to live poor.
Even though I did not live poor at all.
I looked at the locker next to me and grinned.
I watched as Megan walked up to it and opened it.
“How’s your day?” I asked her.
“Fine,” she said. “Yours?”
“Not bad,” I said. “Not bad at all. Heading to a private beach with Pres.”
“Sounds good. Enjoy.”
Megan tried to walk away and I grabbed her arm. “Hey. Don’t walk away until I say so.”
“Sorry,” she said.
I stared her down.
Pretty little thing.
A new girl.
How about that…
Beth wanted her locker moved. She was closer to Denny. The two of them were off in their own land of lies and deceit and bullshit. Whenever I saw her I would point to my nose as a reminder of what I had done to her. She needed surgery. Thanks to me she got a fresh nose. I liked her old one better.
“Remember who you are here,” I said to Megan. “And who I am.”
“I said I was sorry,” she whispered.
“Good. Now go.”
Bitch much?
Yeah.
There were times when I had to draw the line very fucking clear for people.
Take Blair and Vicky.
Those two moronic bitches were walking down the hall. Minding their own business. Shoulder to shoulder. Talking.
I side stepped and got into their path and waited.
They froze when they saw me.
They stopped talking.
“Problem?” I asked them.
“No,” Blair said.
“No,” Vicky said.
Guess whose Daddy was on the board of the hotel that Pres owned. And someone else’s Daddy was desperate to get close to someone who ran a real estate development company.
If Blair and Vicky were guys I guess you could say I had them by the balls.
Hell, I had BFH by the balls.
“Walk the fuck around me,” I said to them. “Dumb bitches.”
Blair’s nostrils flared.
Vicky looked pissed.
They did nothing.
They simply walked around me and were gone.
I laughed to myself.
Gi and Iris were waiting for me outside.
“You could come with me,” I said.
“Nope,” Gi said.
“That’s your love spot,” Iris said.
“Love spot…,” I rolled my eyes.
“I think her love spot is between her legs,” Gi said.
“That’s Pres’s love spot,” Iris said.
“At least I’m getting love,” I said.
“So am I,” Iris said.
“Who?” Gi snapped.
“I don’t have to ask your permission,” Iris snapped back.
They started bickering like an old couple.
I shook my head and listened to them until I got to my SUV.
Then I was gone.
To drive to Pres’s house.
From there, I’d hop on his motorcycle and we’d be off.
To our love spot.
* * *
Pres had his arm around me and smelled like sweat and cologne.
I smelled the same way too.
My cheeks kept turning red when I thought about what the ocean had seen, but whatever.
“How was your day, sugar?” he asked.
“Woke up to roses again.”
“Tucker?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you send them back again?”
I grinned. “Just eleven this time.”
“Why’s that?”
“No reason,” I winked.
“Your mother okay?”
“Got one of her hippie postcards yesterday,” I said. “She’s all about breathing the trees and becoming one with the bees. Whatever it is she’s doing it’s working. She’s happy. She even has a crush on a guy there. It’s like she’s the teenager, writing me from summer camp.”
“That’s weird,” Pres said.
“Really weird.”
Pres kissed the top of my head. “Still need to get you out of that house.”
“Soon.”
“With me?”
“You?”
“We can get a place together.”
“What about your mom?”
“I’ll go back and forth,” Pres said. “You won’t let me get you a place. So what if I get a place and invite you there?”
“You found a loophole.”
“I guess so, sugar,” he said.
I thought about it for a second.
“I’m in,” I said. “But it better face the ocean.”
“Oh, you’re picky now?”
“Very picky, Pres. This lifestyle is something you could get addicted to.”
“Then I guess I better keep up,” he said.
“You damn well better,” I said.
We started to kiss.
Someone whistled and clapped.
I broke the kiss, wondering who the hell would bother us on our private beach.
It was Barr and Kip.
Barr clapping.
Kip whistling.
They closed in on us and Barr tossed his cigarette away.
Kip looked to the water for a second.
“How’s it going?” I asked them.
“It’s going, love,” Barr said. “Beach feels a little steamy right now.”
“You missed the show,” I said.
“Told you we were late,” Kip said.
“Hey… I never got a chance to really ask you guys something…”
“What’s that, girl?” Kip asked.
“Your stories.”
“How much do you really want to know, love?” Barr a
sked.
I looked down at my hand interlocked tight with Pres’s hand.
He was my safety. My love.
I trusted him.
“Everything,” I said. “I want to know everything.”
Barr and Kip nodded.
“Fair enough, girl,” Kip said. “First, I’m going to catch some of these waves. They’re getting to me.”
“I’m going to go catch another cigarette,” Barr said.
I looked up to Pres. “And you?”
“I have everything I could ever ask for in life, sugar,” he said.
He brought his lips down to mine.
Barr and Kip made ooh’s and aah’s and kissing sounds and pretended to cry.
I held up my middle finger.
And I kissed Pres.
And it felt good to have everything I ever wanted in life.
Want more #bfh?
BAY FALLS HIGH … is NOT OVER YET! If you want MORE, then be ready to experience ‘the Rulz’ like you never have before. Read the stories never told… the story of Pres. The story of Barr. The story of Kip. Their books. Through their eyes. What takes place after the trilogy you just read.
Just go to Amazon.com and type in ‘Jaxson Kidman Bay Falls High the Rulz’ to order your copy today!
READY TO READ THE RULZ GO HERE RIGHT NOW AND LOOK FOR THE TITLE:
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What is #bfh vs #hch?
Darlin’ … DO NOT STOP READING YET!
You may have about HCH in this book or read about #hch on social media… well, that’s the rival town for Bay Falls High. And I’m inviting you RIGHT NOW to start reading Hidden Creek High! Trust me, you’re going to want to know the story of Wes & Aira (and Nova & Elijah… and more). It’s simple. How? Check this out here: bit.ly/hch1-us
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UNTamed: a bay falls high novel Page 21
