“One for your thumb and one for your pinkie. I’ll always have your side. Both of them. No matter which way you turn your hand, it’s flanked by my rings. I’ll protect you with everything I have,” War said with a promise in his smile.
She let him take her hand and he slid the thumb ring on.
“Red, red…” he said.
He reached back into the box and grabbed the smaller ring that had been hidden behind the bigger thumb one.
“Rose,” he added as he placed the pinkie ring.
“Robert Burns?” Tess guessed.
“There’s a book of his poems and songs in your bedroom library,” War answered. “The words are engraved on the inside of the rings, shared between them.”
“It’s a beautiful sentiment,” Tess said, feeling herself tear up.
“My heart is in full bloom, Tess-girl,” War said, bringing his hand up to wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes before they could fall. “I’m not embarrassed to admit my love.”
She held onto his shoulders and lowered herself to sit sideways on his bent knee. They kissed, letting the romance War had flowered upon her bloom between them. He was so thoughtful and deep. It felt like a moment from a perfect dream.
“Stay on War’s knee,” Kier said as they finally broke apart at the lips for a shared breath.
Both twins kneeled down in front of her. Bastion came up behind her, sitting on the floor, so he could lean back on his left hand and look up at her and War from the side. They all formed a cozy little circle around her.
Basiton had the four boxes of the guys rings with him. He let them sit on his lap. “Your rings first,” he insisted. “I’m learning that I should have given you mine with a little more ceremony involved.”
“The meaning counts,” Tess said. “And you were brave to go first. I... I’ll never forget that moment.”
“We’re going to do ours together,” Kade said, drawing attention away from Bastion.
As Tess saw Bastion blink, eyes suspiciously wet, she figured Kade had done it strategically. The twins really were good friends with Bastion. She focused on the twins to give Bastion the privacy his emotions deserved.
The twins opened their boxes with a ring each for her. Kade’s had a pearl design with either silver or platinum. Keir’s ring was gold and sparkly with a raised circle of tiny diamonds around a ruby centre.
“It’s like Anne’s ring from Anne of Green Gables,” Kade explained.
“Oh, a circle of pearls!” Tess said, getting the reference.
The twins had said Haunani loved the Green Gables books as well. Kade’s selection of pearls was clearly a tie-in to his mother, and perhaps, even to Maddy as well.
“Fidget spinner,” Keir explained and gave the little raised circle of jewels a flick.
“A big upgrade from elastic bands,” Tess said, admittedly drawn by the flashing jewels spinning around.
“Thank you, both of you. These were both so thoughtful,” she told the twins.
They put the rings on her index and middle fingers, side-by-side.
More kisses.
The cars were probably running on fumes waiting for them but Tess didn’t rush any of her guys, no matter if the twins had already taken more than her share of kisses. She also was greedy for more.
“Ready for us to open ours?” Bastion asked once she was free to talk again.
“Do you know whose ring is in each box or should we check them all?” Tess asked, admittedly eager.
“First names,” Bastion said, flashing one box at her with Sebastian emblazoned on the top.
The boxes were quickly distributed. The guys didn’t take turns, all opening their boxes together. Keir saw the phoenix first.
“Oh, I wish I’d thought of that, Pumpkin. It’s perfect!” Keir said.
Bastion slipped the ring on his left ring finger to match where she wore his mom’s ring on her hand. He looked up at her with a rare, bright smile that she could almost feel touching her across the short distance separating them.
“We have the rings now,” Basiton said, wiggling the fingers of his ring hand in front of her to display the gift. “Phoenix club is now official. Thank you for giving us this, reconfirming our friendships. Things had changed between us before you came into our lives. I’m going to be forever grateful that you gave us new cause to stay together.”
Hiding behind an official speech. It was nice. Bastion was happy he and his friends had finally broken through the barriers that came between them after Haunani’s death.
Phoenix club was personal to him too, though, and Tess wanted him to know it was okay to crow that she’d picked his tattoo as their symbol.
Taking Bastion by surprise, she twisted around on War’s knee and threw herself at Bastion. Her hands reached out to his chest to shove him down. He went over like a log going timber, too busy catching her to stop himself.
“You’re the original phoenix, Bossy,” she said once she had him on his back. “Showed us how to come out forged stronger from the flames. So do you like it? You. Boss man.”
“Yes, Kitten,” he answered and then he kissed her.
Bastion was putty in her hands, as unbelievable as it seemed, but it didn’t last. Ashley came into the room and said, “Wow.”
Jason hissed something at her.
Ashley wasn’t moving.
Tess looked up. “Just saying goodbye.”
“Aren’t they coming in the van with us?” Ashley asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Tess said.
Sorry, not sorry.
This was exactly what that saying meant.
“Don’t be embarrassed. We plan on this being a regular thing at school too,” Keir said, helping Tess up. “And before school, tutoring, Saturday walks at the doggie park, uh, and second breakfast.”
Surprisingly, Jason got that one. He laughed and whispered something in his twin’s ear. Ashley rolled her eyes.
“Is that your way of telling us you have hairy feet?” Ashley teased.
Jason yanked his twin out of the room before there could be any more Tolkien references bandied between them.
“Let’s go,” Bastion said, accepting a hand up from War. “It’s time to let Tess and the kids have back some routine.”
He gave her a look that said everything was going to be fine.
She followed his back out the door, wondering if she ought to poke at it.
Yep.
“By routine, do you mean the rules you—?”
There was an entryway full of bodyguards. All standing much too quiet to be doing anything but listening.
“You were asking me something, Tess? I didn’t quite—”
She kicked the back of one of his legs.
Probably all they had overheard was when Ashley had walked in the room with Jason earlier. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Bodyguards were supposed to watch.
“New routine,” War brightly announced behind her.
Keir and Kade kept glued to her sides so that she didn’t have to look any of the bodyguards in the eyes right now.
“Divide up into as many cars as you’ll need. Only the guards for the Sinclairs need to follow us in their own vehicle. The rest can go to their housing close to their particular client. Thank you,” War said, directing everyone.
Carl clapped his hands once. “Excellent. We’ll meet up here with the second guards starting at 9 a.m. once all the school-attending clients are at their school. Debriefing on your particular client’s protection considerations after you’ve scouted their housing risks will carry out through the day, then we’ll have a meeting with all the clients once school is over. Is that going to be okay, War?”
“Should be. Tess might want to visit with her mom first,” War replied.
“Yes, please,” Tess softly answered.
“Let’s make it a little later after school. Give us two hours. Meeting will be held here,” War decided.
They walked outside toward the waiting van. Tess felt so man
y emotions swirling around it almost made her dizzy.
She squeezed her left hand into a gentle fist. All of her new rings touched. The simple reminder grounded her.
Many things had changed. One of the best was that she was no longer alone.
19
Tess
Parental Control
School was different.
Tess noticed. She looked at all of her guys twice this morning when she met with them at her locker before classes started.
It wasn’t anything physical, although she knew the twins were planning on ditching their yin-yang appearance soon. One of them was going to choose, either Kade’s punk or Keir’s clean, pretty-boy looks.
The twins had talked about it on the flight home. Kade had only gotten punked up for his role in playing Jensen’s gang.
Neither of the twins had time last night for a trip to the salon or a piercing place by the time they’d all got driven home.
Tess knew the twins wanted her opinion. Whose style she’d pick. Her opinion wasn’t the one the twins should want.
It was their bodies, their choice.
“Do you think I would look good with a lip ring?” Keir asked.
Tess’s turned from her open locker and gave Keir a sideways glance. Then she peered over at Kade.
“I think you’ll look like Bluebell, except your hair won’t be blue. Guess we’ll just call you Bell then?” Tess replied.
“I like Trouble,” Keir said, declining her nickname change.
“Oh, believe me, I know,” Tess said, turning back to her locker. “Why the sudden urge to get pierced?”
She was second-guessing Keir with his competitive side. Did he really want the piercing or was he only doing it to one-up Kade?
“No need for disguises anymore, Pumpkin,” Kade answered for his twin. “Keir wants to play twin guessing-games with you. One of us has to conform.”
That’s not what the twins had said on the jet. The motivation to play tricks on her was all Keir, no doubt.
“More like nonconformity, as the case may be,” Keir retorted. “Tell us the truth, which of us makes your engine rev the best?”
Pushy troublemaker.
Tess closed her locker, having unpacked her lunch and retrieved the textbooks she’d need for her morning classes. Kade insisted on carrying her Chem books.
“I would say it’s situational,” she answered non-committedly.
Bastion laughed.
“Like who’s kissing you at the moment?” Bastion suggested.
“I’m not choosing,” Tess said, heading towards Chemistry.
“Or explaining well,” Keir mocked.
He came around her to stop her in her march down the hallway by stepping into her path. She tried to go around him first right and then left, but he figured her direction out each time and shifted enough to get in her way.
Tess made a growly noise.
War must have decided he’d better intervene before Trouble got himself in the doghouse this early in the morning. Tess shared two classes with Keir. If they were fighting, the classes were going to be long and miserable.
“Keir, just go get pierced and Smurfed. Unlike Kade, you would have done it for fun. Tess says she liked the feel of Kade’s lip ring a few times, didn’t she?” War asked, mediating by making the choice himself.
Yes, she had said that about Kade’s lip ring. Having it pointed out wasn’t so good, though. It might be interpreted as her choice when she was trying not to vote.
“But isn’t it cooler if my girlfriend asks me to do it and then I change myself to make her happy?” Keir asked, almost puppy-dog whining it.
War shook his head.
Tess sighed.
“Keir, you’ll never change you, no matter how much you make yourself look different on the outside.”
“Don’t you want to play twin guessing-games?” Keir asked.
“She already said she could tell us apart blindfolded,” Bastion reminded him.
Kade finally elbowed his brother out of Tess’s path, grabbed one of her hands and pulled her along.
“We’re going to be late,” Kade explained. “Tess is a rule follower. Can’t be late.”
She couldn’t really argue that one, giving the guys a goodbye-glance back.
“It’s not fair that Kade has the first class with her,” Keir said. Still whining.
Bastion smacked him upside his head.
Tess stuck her tongue out at him and turned back around to watch where she was going. She had two left feet on the best of days with her attention difficulties.
They were all going in the same direction, although she wasn’t sure the other guys had classes that were near Chemistry with her and Kade. This escort business was starting to turn into more of a group effort than they had first discussed.
She damn well was still going to pee alone.
“Any trouble this morning picking Pumpkin up? Did the bodyguards catch any tails?” Bastion asked.
“Yeah, there’s cigarette butts around her place,” Keir answered.
He hadn’t mentioned that to her earlier.
Tess started dragging her feet.
“She lives in a housing complex. People smoke outside,” War pointed out.
Yeah, he was right. She wasn’t really seeing the correlation between the butts and Jensen’s guys. It wasn’t as if the motorcycle gang had a smoking-only membership.
“The butts were in the back, by the little windows looking into her basement room. At least nobody could squeeze through them. Too narrow. But I’m sure they could see inside fine, especially if they had a flashlight.”
The bell rang. They were all late for class.
Tess suddenly didn’t care.
Her feet had turned into lead. No longer was she purposefully trying to walk slower to listen. Her brain had stuttered to a stop at the thought of someone spying on her in her room. The shock cut off the signal from her brain to tell her body to do anything else, such as walking.
“I’ll talk to her bodyguard during break,” War said, obviously taking Keir’s concern more seriously now.
“Group text,” Kade said.
That had better be the group text that included her.
If not, she was going to insist Kade share his phone with her during Chemistry. It didn’t even matter if it broke the classroom rules. This took priority.
If Tess was in danger, that meant her mom and the kids were too!
They never got a chance to text. Class had barely started when there was a knock on the classroom door.
“Kade? Tess? You’re to go down to the principal’s office immediately,” their Chemistry teacher announced after talking to whoever was at the door.
Tess swallowed hard. She’d just been sent to the principal's office for the first time from this class last week. That wasn’t something she’d wanted to repeat.
“Me?” Tess squeaked out.
Kade was already packing up their books.
“Yes, you,” their teacher confirmed. “Read over chapter twelve tonight for homework.”
Sounded like whatever they were being summoned to the principal’s office for was going to take a while to sort out. Their teacher certainly was planning for them not to return to class.
“What do you think it is?” Tess asked as they exited the classroom.
Kade had pulled out his cell phone and started texting immediately.
“Dunno. Maybe it’s to follow up with what happened in class last week?” Kade answered, thumbing messages on his phone.
“Keir got called out, too,” Kade added as his phone dinged with a message.
“Well, then it can’t be related to last week. Does your dad know that you guys came for me at the motel? He’d be upset about that if he found out, wouldn’t he?” Tess asked.
“No, he accepted the excuse that we were with War.”
“It just doesn’t make sense. We haven’t done anything wrong at school since the first day,” Tess said.
<
br /> She started chewing on her lip, wondering if there was someone else in school that she and the twins had somehow offended. They didn’t share any classes together.
The twins had driven her back and forth to school, but how could that be a problem?
The only thing she could think of would be the motel. That had been outside of school hours. Nothing they had done was illegal. They were all eighteen.
Kade wasn’t supposed to drive. Even if he’d been caught, it shouldn’t involve her.
“Bastion and War got called out,” Kade told her just as they turned the corner of the hallway.
The rest of her guys were lined up outside the office, waiting.
“Oh crap, somebody knows something,” Tess said with dread.
If the social worker got a sniff of the trouble that had started with Jensen’s gang and Greg, then the kids were at risk of getting taken away for their own good. Tess knew that wasn’t what they wanted. War had hired professionals to keep them all safe.
It wasn’t fair!
“Don’t panic,” Kade said, grabbing for one of her hands while he pocketed his phone. “Let us do the talking.”
“You can’t let them take the kids away!” Tess said.
Bastion overheard her last, worried demand as they approached. “Nobody is going to take Ashley and Jason,” Bastion assured her.
“Tess, are you okay?” War asked.
“She’s panicking,” Kade said.
“Why?” Keir asked.
“We all got called in. They know, somebody knows!” Tess explained.
“Nobody knows. The best they have is a guess. You let us do the talking,” Keir said, sounding like his brother.
“War, you stay behind with Tess and come in last. The twins and I will go first and do most of the talking. This is about us more than either of you,” Bastion said, organizing their approach.
It was bossy, of course, but Tess appreciated Bastion’s command of the situation. His confidence settled her nerves a bit.
“Take a deep breath,” War said, reaching for her hand as Kade went in front of her with his brother.
Bastion opened the office door.
Box. Box. Box.
Duplicity (Victory Lap Book 2) Page 34
