It also reminded me of what I had to do…
She scratched at her hair and yawned and let out a groan that almost sounded like a goat’s cry.
When she realized I was there, she gasped and covered her mouth and her chest.
“Just wanted to say good morning, doll,” I said. “I have to leave.”
“Then leave,” she said.
“Damn. You’re a grump in the morning.”
“Next time you’re going to scare me like that, have coffee,” she said.
“I’ll make a note of that,” I said. I moved down the hallway toward her. “Just had to see you quick.”
“Uly…”
“What?”
“I can see your mind ticking away,” she said. “All the thoughts you have right now.”
“Oh, you can’t imagine my thoughts, Mara.”
“Oh, I can,” she said.
“Well, fine, there are some of those thoughts… but the last time I saw you sleeping you were fully dressed. I really like these PJs.”
“Stop it,” she said.
I was close enough to touch her face. I got even closer.
She covered her mouth. “Please…”
“What? You think a little morning breath is going to chase me away?”
“What if it’s mustard breath?” she teased.
“If it’s you, I’ll deal with it,” I said.
I used my other hand to peel her hand from her mouth.
I pressed my lips to hers for a quick good morning kiss.
My eyes looked to the open bedroom door.
Mara looked back for a quick second too.
Oh, doll, not yet…
I had to get away from her.
I couldn’t fuck up my plans for today.
Mara was either going to fall in love with me or hate me.
* * *
“Hil got the name and you have us siting in a parking lot,” Ash said.
“No choice,” I said. “This is personal.”
“Then why are we here?” Hil asked.
“Because we’re Them,” I said.
“I don’t like being away from Belle,” Ash said.
“We know,” Hil said. “She’s fine. I mean… damn fine. Swimming in that pool of hers. That bikini she wears… all that water on her body…”
Both Ash and I looked back at Hil.
He showed his hands. “Too far?”
“A little,” I said.
“Can we talk about the name?” Ash asked.
I looked at Ash. “We’ll handle it later. We know who it is though. Which means we can ask around. Get info. Figure out who his crew is, if he has one. Make sure whoever he’s getting the pills from won’t come after us. Use your head, Ash. This isn’t a war. It’s a problem that we’re going to solve.”
“Jasmine doesn’t even want the pills anymore,” Hil said. “She’s afraid of what the guy will do.”
“All words?” I asked.
“Basically,” Hil said. “He says shit to her. Scares her that way.”
“And Aaron can’t take some baseball bats and end this prick?” I asked.
“Do we want him to do that?” Ash asked. “You want those jocks to look tough?”
“He asked us for help first,” I said. “Maybe we should use them. We stand there and order those assholes to do the dirty work.”
“That’s a nice visual,” Hil said. “But I love getting in the mix of things. Kind of like this shit. What the fuck are we doing here, Uly?”
I looked forward and waited.
Adam was dumb enough to reply to my texts about Mara. I told him I had some information about her. That I knew about him and her and that I was going to help him get her for good. And he played right into it. Excited to meet me. And when he asked who I was, I told him she did the same thing to me that she had done to him.
What that was, I didn’t know.
But it worked.
He told me to meet him in the parking lot of a grocery store that was shut down.
I asked which one and he gave me directions.
And as I watched him walk along the side of the building, I cracked my knuckles.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
Ash grabbed my sleeve. “What is this?”
“This is me making some wrong shit right,” I said. “You’d do the same for Belle.”
Ash let me go.
I got out of his truck and stuck my hands into my pockets and hurried toward Adam.
I whistled and he looked at me.
He nodded.
“Uly?” he called out.
I didn’t say a word back to him.
I just kept rushing toward him.
And he stood there waiting for me.
When I was maybe a foot away from him, he finally looked a little confused. But by then, I lunged forward, throwing my shoulder into his body.
He flew back against the building.
“What the fuck?” he yelled.
I jumped at him again and hit my shoulder to his again.
He made a fist and swung at me, but he had no aim.
I took my hands out of my pockets and pushed my sleeves up.
I punched him twice in the face before he turned to his side and protected his face.
So I got him in the ribs.
He lowered his hands to protect his ribs.
So I went for his face again.
He grunted and groaned with each punch I delivered.
I could have just done that for a few minutes and walked away.
But I had a bigger message to send.
I stopped punching him and grabbed his shoulder, putting his back against the building again.
Blood leaked from his nose and bottom lip.
“You never talk to her again,” I said. “Ever. That includes texts. I find out you text her again and I’ll break your fucking hands.”
Adam gasped for a breath. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Uly,” I said. I pulled him away from the building and smashed him against it. “Got that? Uly. Never forget that either. Mara is mine.”
Adam’s eyes went wide. “It was you?”
“It was me,” I said.
“She cheated on me with you…”
“What? No. She’s mine now.”
Cheated? What the hell…
I thought for a second and Adam tried to make his getaway move.
He pushed me back and took off.
And he took off with serious speed too.
So that was his gimmick.
Some guys were meant to fight. They’d hang around to fight. Others were good at running.
I took off after Adam.
I was out of sight of Ash and Hil, which I said I wasn’t going to do.
But I needed answers.
What did he mean by cheated?
I wasn’t sure I was going to catch up to Adam, but when I had a split-second chance to push at him, I jumped and did so.
He fell to the ground and I went with him.
The pavement was unforgiving, but I bounced right back up.
Adam skidded on his stomach and rolled to his back.
He started to kick at me, desperate to get rid of me.
I dropped my knee to his stomach and knocked the wind out of him.
He curled up and rolled to his side.
I fell to my knees and put my hand to the side of his head and pressed his skull into the ground.
“You’re never going to talk to her again, right?” I yelled.
“Never,” Adam said.
“You’re never going to say anything bad about her.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
“You ever make her feel like trash again and I’m going to put you in a dumpster and lock you in there. Leave you there to rot. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said.
I moved my hand and stood up. “You two were together?”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “Until she cheated on me. That’s why things blew up betwe
en us. That’s why I did what I did to her.”
“Mara wouldn’t do that,” I said.
“Fuck you, man,” Adam said. “Just wait and see.”
I kicked Adam in the gut.
He cried out in pain.
I brought my foot back to do it again when Ash and Hil showed up.
Hil blocked my path to Adam and Ash pulled me away.
“I don’t know what this is, but it’s done,” Ash said.
“Tell me what he did so I can hit him,” Hil said.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
I shook Ash away and got out of there before any attention came to us.
I kept my distance from Ash and Hil on the walk back to Ash’s truck.
I decided to sit in the backseat of the truck on the ride back to BFH.
My phone in my hand, thinking about how to handle this situation.
Ash and Hil weren’t going to let me really think about it though.
“So I have the name,” Hil said. “Goes by the name Charger. Real name is Chad. But we can run him down as Charger. He’s not big. He’s not strong. He just has the power of the addiction.”
“Slides into a place like ours and offers it up for free,” Ash said. “Quiet and calm, looking for girls like Jasmine.”
“Probably wants them to get high for other reasons too,” Hil said. “Aaron probably saved her ass.”
They continued to talk about what ifs and what to do while my mind raced.
“Are you here?” Ash asked me.
“I already said what we’ll do. Get all we can on the guy. I would even throw the name to Aaron. Why not? Let him swing his balls if he wants.”
“Bats,” Hil said. “He’ll swing his bats…”
“Whatever,” I said.
“Okay,” Ash said. “I guess we’ll let the pill guy go for a second. What the fuck was that about back there? Who was that guy?”
“Just someone who needed to learn to shut up.”
“You’re really feeling Mara, huh?” Hil asked.
“I’m not sure right now,” I said.
I looked down to my phone.
A text came through from Mara.
WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?!
And here I thought word traveled fast at BFH.
I swallowed hard.
I looked at my swollen knuckles.
Mara texted me again.
PLEASE TELL ME ITS NOT TRUE!!!
I replied with a question mark.
Mara replied.
YOU ATTACKED ADAM?!
Ash stopped his truck.
We were back at the BFH parking lot.
“What’s next?” Hil asked.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Uly,” Ash said.
I got out of the truck and Ash put his window down.
“Uly,” he said again.
I looked at him. “Don’t.”
“I’m just… be careful how far you fall. The drop can make you sick.”
My phone buzzed again with another text.
DON’T IGNORE ME ULY!
Ash drove away and I had to respond to the texts.
I was no longer interested in playing games.
So I replied back to Mara.
Did you cheat on Adam? That’s what he told me before I smashed his face with my fists.
I waited for a reply.
One came through.
A middle finger emoji.
I guess this means she hates me now.
Chapter 10
I walked outside the house and found Lake sitting at her favorite table, drinking coffee with a notebook open and a book light attached to a bottle of wine to give her light to see and write.
“You know what time it is?” I asked her.
“I could ask you the same,” she said.
“Did the muse hit you?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Working on something with Belle?”
“No,” Lake said. “This is for me.”
“Finally,” I said. “You eventually have to move out of here. It’s weird.”
She laughed. “It’s weird, huh? I’ve known you since you were a kid. I can tell some weird stories, Uly.”
I stood behind a chair and watched as Lake closed her notebook.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“All those rumors… how did you get through it?”
“You’re worried about rumors? About me?”
“I remember some of it,” I said. “Things people said. How mad it made my father. How much it hurt you. My mother… well, her opinion means shit to me. But it was a lot. And you never walked away.”
“I had no reason to walk away. Where is this coming from?”
“Just thinking about shit.”
“Uly, it’s a losing situation. If I left, I looked guilty. If I stayed, I looked guilty. Staying was what I wanted. I loved your father. But as a father. Same for you. You know I care about you. But as a little, pain in the ass brother.”
“Yeah. Makes sense.”
“A lot’s been going on, huh?” Lake asked.
“When is it ever calm?”
“You can be real with me,” she said. “I know you were hot on Belle and that didn’t work out. Then this accident with your mother. She’s your mother whether you like it or not. A lot to manage.”
“Fuck that. I’m not worried about that.”
“Ah, so it’s something else. Someone else. Does Ulysses have his eyes set on someone new?”
“No,” I said.
Lake laughed.
She knew I was lying.
I pushed from the chair. “You have class in the morning.”
“So do you.”
“I’m not getting paid to go to class.”
Lake coughed. “I’ll call in sick. I feel under the weather.”
“And everyone thinks I’m the bad influence around here,” I said.
“Uly… some questions just don’t make sense in life. And when it comes to the heart, forget about it. There’s no winning. I don’t care what anyone says. There is no fucking winning at that.”
“So maybe I should just cut my heart out, huh?”
Lake showed me her notebook. “Right here, Uly. Right here.”
“I prefer lyrics,” I said.
“Same thing.”
I went back inside.
I wasn’t sure what I expected talking to Lake. She wasn’t going to hug me and tell me life was going to be okay. That wasn’t her style and that was okay.
And the night had nothing to do with Lake.
This was about Mara.
I gave her space and that was the worst thing I could do.
Pacing the halls of BFH during the day, looking for a fight, waiting to get out of there so I could waste time with Them or writing songs with Hil, only to come back home and wander around the house, down to the beach and back, giving Mara the chance to come to me for once.
But she wasn’t going to do that.
And what did that mean?
Was she guilty or not?
Just like Lake said… sometimes any decision made someone look guilty.
I walked to the bedroom where Belle had stayed when she crashed at my place. I remembered that night clearly. The wild tension between her and us.
Belle and Them.
Never knowing what her wild heart truly wanted or what she was going to do.
And that’s where all of this came from.
A bunch of fucked up hearts tossed around, stepped on, and then we tried to clean them up and put them back together.
I looked at my phone.
It was the goddamn middle of the night.
Only a handful of hours away until I was supposed to be back at BFH.
“Fuck that,” I whispered.
I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Mara with Adam.
The shit Adam had texted her.
The look in his eyes when I was hitting h
im…
That she cheated on him. That’s why he said what he said about her.
If it was true.
Why did it matter to me?
Fuck, maybe Ash was right…
This whole falling thing was really hard to figure out.
* * *
I showed up to the beach house when it was still dark out.
But it wouldn’t be for long.
I stood at the front door and smiled.
I still couldn’t get in.
My mother’s fucking beach house and I was locked out.
Which was my own fault.
I still didn’t have or remember the code to get in.
So I sat on the top step and waited and smoked a cigarette.
Gathering my thoughts and words for Mara.
I heard a noise from the side of the house and I looked up to see Calvin hurrying toward the front of the house.
I stood up and whistled.
He grabbed his chest and punched at the air.
He spun around and his thinned hair danced on his head.
“Fuck,” he said. He looked at me. “Ulysses?”
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he threw back at me.
“Having a smoke before I go inside,” I said.
Calvin rubbed his chest. “You almost killed me, kid.”
Kid? Who the fuck are you…
“What are you doing out here so late… or early?”
“I’m always an early riser,” Calvin said. “I’m up at three no matter what I do. Used to it. Your mother asked me to stay last night. She was in a lot of pain. So I stayed on the couch in the sunroom. Was just going out for a little jog.”
I eyed Calvin’s body.
I shook my head. “A jog?”
“A walk,” he said. “I used to run in college. Life took over. I tell myself I’m still actively fit. Do I have your permission to go for a walk?”
He was in exercise clothes.
I mean, it wasn’t a suit or jeans.
I didn’t say anything else to him.
He started to walk and then paused at my car.
He turned around. “You and I have to figure this out. Serious talk. Serious stuff.”
“What’s there to figure out?” I asked.
ULY (Bay Falls High - Them Book 1) Page 9
