Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
Bow
“The fuck’s wrong with you, Squeak?” Wells asked me, and I blinked. He shook his head. “I called your name like three times.”
Had he?
He sighed from across the dining room table. I was helping him with his math homework. He was in a junior class, and, though I was a sophomore, I’d learned many of the concepts in his class already. All my classes in high school had been accelerated.
Wells eyed me with a heat that hadn’t let up since I came over to his house.
He shared one with my brother. Everyone on campus called it Legacy House since all my brother’s friends—Wells, Dorian, Ares, and Bru—lived there.
It was always the hotspot for parties. I gripped Wells’s math book thinking about Bru.
Wells angled back in his chair. He was getting increasingly frustrated as the night went on, and I think only part of that had to do with the fact that he was locked into studying with me.
The school stuff wasn’t easy for him, and that clearly annoyed him.
He stamped out his big legs. “You’re supposed to be helping me, and you’re not even fucking here right now. ”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, my face hot, when my brother came into the dining room.
I jumped when my brother smacked the back of Wells’s head. Wells shot forward and jumped out of his seat.
Wells growled. “What the fuck?”
“Don’t talk to my sister like that, you fucker,” Thatcher said, and Wells lifted his eyes.
I knew the dynamic my brother had with his friends for a long time, so, honestly, them hitting each other wasn’t exactly foreign to me.
They were like two colossi, and, even though Wells was lankier than my brother, he was faster.
I’d also seen him clock my brother to the ground enough times to know he could hold his own with him.
Apparently, Wells chose not to today, and, as he rubbed his blond head, his white tee lifted. It exposed the first section of his abs, and when he caught me looking, he smirked.
My gaze darted away. Wells always liked to tease me and probably did that on purpose. Obviously I’d look, because he put them in front of me.
Feeling dumb, I put my head down but looked up when Thatcher nudged Wells. Wells shot up a fist, like he would hit my brother, but he didn’t. That was just a part of their dynamic.
Chuckling, Thatcher shook his head at Wells before facing me. My brother looked a lot like our dad and was a similar size as well. Thatcher frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you? You did kind of look weird in the face when I let you in the house earlier.”
I did? In what way?
Gosh.
My face shot up a million degrees. I didn’t know what Thatcher meant. And suddenly, the dining room was filled with half the house. The dining and living rooms were connected, and my best friend Noa Sloane-Mallick—Sloane, to me—and her boyfriend, Dorian Prinze, entered the living room.
Sloane and Dorian had been on the couch watching TV with Ares Mallick and his fiancée, Fawn Greenfield, only seconds ago. Ares was also Sloane’s twin brother.
“Leave her alone, you ass,” Sloane said, her lips turned down.
She was always on my team, and we’d been best friends since high school.
She was also gorgeous, with dark hair and a natural tan, and was easily a foot taller than me.
Most people were taller than me, but I never felt small around Sloane.
She always lifted me up and bolstered my confidence with hers.
Thatcher looked like he might say something back to Sloane. She never stepped down from anyone, even though my brother and his friends could be crazy intimating. Hands on her hips, Sloane looked ready to take whatever my brother shot back at her, but then Dorian got between them.
He was kind of the leader of my brother’s friend group. A tall blond, Dorian shot Thatcher a look like he dared my brother to say something to Sloane. Dorian and Sloane had been dating for forever, and we all knew they’d get married someday.
Thatcher put his hands up in front of Dorian. They were both huge football players, and, though my brother was also bigger than Dorian, he respected him. Thatcher laughed. “Chill out, man,” he said before facing Sloane. “And my sister did look weird earlier. Like all spacey-eyed.”
Oh my God.
I had no idea I’d looked that way, but I also knew I hadn’t been completely paying attention during my study session with Wells.
I’d been thinking about that kiss.
I felt sick after I kissed Bru. He called me beautiful but obviously hadn’t meant what I thought he meant.
“Bow, I’m so sorry.”
He’d actually apologized to me, and I probably looked so pathetic. I felt pathetic.
My fingers curling on Wells’s book, I sat there with it in my hands.
My tutoring session with Wells had been surprisingly easy, considering the circumstances in which we were working together.
I wasn’t Wells’s favorite person, and definitely not after I basically manipulated a situation to get him to do what I wanted.
“What would make you think I’d ever help you?”
I tried to ignore his voice in my head. He always had a way of making me feel like the worst piece of scum on the planet, and I knew he believed that I was. He thought I was lower than scum, probably.
I caught Wells’s eyes on me after what Thatcher said, like he was trying to analyze me and figure me out. He was so good at that, great at that.
Wells had his thick arms crossed in his tight, white tee.
I refused to look at how the fit hugged his biceps and made him look more intimidating than he already did.
He was probably doing that on purpose, too.
He liked making me uncomfortable. He liked reminding me of the power he had over me and my life, but he didn’t have to do that.
I was well aware of it on my own.
“I need a break,” he mumbled before dropping his arms from across his chest. I may have been distracted tonight, but I was also aware he’d taken a lot of breaks during our session. Wells pushed back his dyed locks. “I’m going outside to smoke.”
I cringed. It was like he couldn’t stand being around me more than fifteen minutes before he went off to smoke weed. Like it was all he could do to stomach being around me.
My stomach tossed, tightened. I didn’t want to work with Wells either. He was so mean to me, but I got it.
I got it.
There was a history there, and it made me just as sick as what I was doing now with this whole blackmailing-him-into-letting-me-tutor-him thing. I was sure Wells thought I was an excellent manipulator, and I hated that I was proving him right.
Wells grabbed his Pembroke Football hoodie off his chair before exiting the room, and, once he had, Sloane shook her head.
“How is he being toward you?” she asked, taking his seat. Dorian and Thatcher headed back into the living room and plopped on the couch across from Ares and Fawn. It looked like they were all watching a Japanese anime.
“Not bad,” I said, watching their small group.
Ares and Fawn were hugged up on the couch watching TV, and Dorian would be too if Sloane was over there.
If Thatcher’s girlfriend, Aspen, was in town, they probably wouldn’t even be in the room at all.
They didn’t see each other a lot since Aspen was on tour.
She was a professional cellist, so, when she was in town, they basically took every opportunity they could to be together alone.
My brother and his friend group were my whole world, which was a big reason I lived in a dorm by myself. I also didn’t have a choice, since no one would room with me. Sloane would have of course, but she and Fawn were with the guys all the time. I probably deserved to be alone anyway.
“I have no idea why you’re doing him a favor,” Sloane said.
I just smiled at Sloane. She sounded so much like her brother Bru. He wasn’t her biological brother, but they were still so similar, kind. I hugged my arms. “He’s not that bad.”
“You’re being nice, little rabbit,” she said.
She called me little rabbit because I always talked and moved a mile a minute.
I blamed it on my ADHD and always loved that I had a friend to give me a nickname.
Sloane wasn’t scared of Wells, and, even if she found out about my history with him, I knew she’d still be my friend. Even if I probably didn’t deserve it.
I hadn’t gone out of my way to talk about my past with Sloane. We became friends in high school, but that was after everything happened with Wells. It was something none of us involved liked talking about.
It was something I didn’t like talking about.
Maybe a part of me was as terrible as Wells believed I was. I was selfish when it came to Sloane. I wanted her friendship. I wanted a friend, and, even though I knew that wouldn’t change if the past came out, she may look at me differently.
Sloane hugged me. “I swear you’re just too much of a sweetheart for your own good.”
But I wasn’t though, not really.
I eased my arms away from her, knowing I was in this situation with Wells because of something else I’d done. Maybe I was just as bad as he believed, evil and manipulative. I bit my lip. “Where’s your brother?”
I obviously meant Bru since Ares was in the other room and another wave of shame hit me that I hadn’t told her about what happened with him in his car. I doubted Sloane would care I kissed her brother. She wasn’t like that. But I didn’t tell her what happened because I was embarrassed.
I had a feeling Bru hadn’t told Sloane what happened either, but that didn’t surprise me. Bru was such a good guy, and he saw how embarrassed I was in the car.
I thought I was going to be sick all over again. Especially when the front door opened, and Bru entered the room. He consumed it, since he was so big and all-encompassing.
He was also gorgeous.