Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Bru
I’d never seen Wells in such a way…
He was shoving people over the banisters.
Wells was literally tossing people off the stairwell, and I was helping him. Someone mentioned Bow. She was jumping off something?
That didn’t make sense.
It didn’t, and, what also didn’t make sense was Wells’s reaction. He seemed to be blind as he plowed through people. I supposed this was Thatcher’s sister, and all of us protected her. Wells did too, whether he liked it or not. He would on Thatcher’s behalf, so I guess that made sense.
Wells grabbed a dude. “Get the fuck out of the way or I’ll literally end you.” Wells tossed the guy before growling to the crowd. “That goes the same for all of you motherfuckers. Get. Out. Of. The. Way!”
The response was immediate. People started flooding off the stairwell and those who were going too slow both Wells and I handled.
We were a tag team, and soon, I found myself as his wingman.
I was clearing people out of the way so he could go faster.
We played football together in high school, so I knew he was quicker than me. He could get to her sooner, faster…
I didn’t know what was going on, but so much fear hit me. Whoever yelled Bow was jumping off something had to have been mistaken.
“Where’s Bow Reed?” Wells asked a girl at the top of the stairs, and she pointed ahead.
The hall was still packed with people trying to get to wherever the alleged action was taking place but, with one bark from Wells, they cleared again.
The whole hallway of partiers literally parted, and, when people started to follow us, I made my own threats.
I didn’t know what was going on up ahead, but no one else needed to be privy to it.
Especially if it involved Bow.
My last conversation with her played over in my head. I hadn’t wanted to leave her. I only wanted to hold her, kiss her, and that didn’t make sense for many reasons. I was still trying to figure out this shit with Wells, and there was still the fact that Bow was Thatcher’s little sister.
None of that seemed to matter in the moment when I talked to her. I forgot about everything else, but I also rejected her. I did because I was fucked up, and she didn’t deserve that.
No one was ahead of Wells and me anymore, or behind us. Between the two of us, we got the job of a cleared path done. Folks had been attempting to get into a room that appeared to be locked.
“She’s in there. On the balcony,” someone said, pointing toward the door. It was a girl with flushed cheeks. I didn’t know if that was from panic or booze. She flailed. “People can see her from the street.”
What. The. Fuck.
Again, Wells and I made eye contact but only briefly before we both kicked in the door. It was quick, easy. The door shot open with a snap, and, right away, people started to flood inside with us.
“Stay back, or you’ll regret it,” I gritted out. I wasn’t typically a violent person, but I had my moments. I could definitely be fucking violent, and I was sure everyone on this campus knew that. Everyone knew everything about my friends and me, and I had a rep. I could hurt someone.
And I would.
The threats worked when people stayed back, and I realized right away that I was by myself.
Wells was already inside the room. It was dark in there, and he stood frozen at the entryway.
He stared off toward the sliding door of a balcony.
The door was opened, and we both appeared to be in a bedroom in the house.
I froze too, staring in the direction of the balcony. It was Bow out there.
She was dancing.
Her small feet glided along the thin banister of the balcony. It was one of those wooden ones connected to the house, and she was out there in her jacket and bare feet, her heels kicked off to the floor of the balcony.
I couldn’t breathe, noticing a drink in her hand. Bow didn’t drink, and she was dancing on that banister with her eyes closed. There also wasn’t any music, like she was moving to her own internal beat.
Wells was already moving. He did so slowly, carefully, and I did the same after closing the door from the prying eyes I knew were behind us.
What is she doing?
Wells and I moved as one toward her, and that wasn’t the first time we operated together. I didn’t want to think about that, our history right now because, currently, our best friend’s little sister was out on a balcony. She was out there dancing barely even a day after I rejected her.
I swallowed. “Bow?”
I made it to her first, Wells in the back of my mind. I couldn’t focus on him right now, and that went double when Bow whipped around so fast that she nearly stumbled.
I rushed toward her. I did so to catch her, but I barely made two steps before her hand shot up.
“No,” she said, her mouth turned down, sad. She shook her head. “No, Bru.”
No.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do and could only watch when Bow took the beer she had to her lips. She was too young to drink, and, though that had never stopped any of my friends in the past, Bow Reed was a rule follower. She was a good girl who never got into rowdy shit.
Her cheeks shot up in color, the red reaching to her hairline. She had her hair up in one of her tight buns but some of her curls had escaped. They swept across her eyes but also across her flushed lips. Her throat moved. “I don’t want you here.”
She didn’t… want me.
My chest did something I didn’t expect. It caved, hollowed out, and I’d felt something similar before.
It was the way I felt after I expressed my feelings to someone else.
That someone else was somewhere in the room but Bow had obviously not seen him yet.
Her focus was on me, but only briefly before she stole another swig of her beer.
I couldn’t look for Wells. I was too focused on Bow. I could imagine he was doing the same thing as me right now. I couldn’t move in that moment, scared to. My mouth parted. “Bow—”
“And nobody wants me,” she said, a crowd forming on the street below her, though she didn’t appear to notice. I could see them in the distance behind her. They were calling out, and some had their cellphones out.
Bow wiped under her eyes. There was a shine to them, tears. She sniffed. “No one likes me, and I guess I don’t blame them. I suck.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, and though it did sting, her telling me not to come closer, I would if it kept her safe. I put my hands up. “I’ll stay put. I just need you to come down.”
“No, Bruno,” she said, wincing. Her voice actually screeched and that reminded me of what Wells called her. I always thought that was so cruel. Her voice was high, but it wasn’t squeaky. “You shouldn’t want to be around me either. I don’t deserve it.”
Deserve it?
Her lips quivered. “No one likes me, and I don’t blame them. It still hurts, though.” She rubbed her chest like there was pain there, an ache. “No one wanted to be around me tonight when I came to this party. No one likes me.”
She kept saying that, but that wasn’t true. She had my sister, Sloane, and the rest of our friend group. She had me, but, before I could emphasize that, Wells stepped forward.
He lifted a hand. “Bow.”
Right away, she pivoted in Wells’s direction, and she went so fast, too fast. She even backed up on that thin ledge and absolute terror twisted Wells’s expression.
I never saw Wells scared. The guys in our friend group were pumped to shit with so much testosterone and rarely shed emotion. They didn’t give it freely, but, in that moment, Wells didn’t hold back how he felt seeing Bow get closer to that ledge. I saw it all over his face.
The expression had to match mine, the horror, the fear. Bow obviously hadn’t known Wells came with me. More of that sadness touched her pretty face upon seeing Wells there. The sadness nearly turned to anguish. She winced. “Archer?”
Archer?
I watched Wells’s expression change yet again. Something flashed across his face, but then he went stoic. His features went incredibly hard, and I had seen that before. He used that shit with me all the time. He liked to pretend he didn’t feel anything. But he did. I’d seen it. I’d felt it.
His jaw moved. “Yeah, it’s me.”
I had no idea what was going on here, but his acknowledgement of her name for him caused her to waver on the ledge again.
I saw that something flash on Wells’s chiseled features again, and my heart felt too big for my chest with its rapid beat.
I physically squeezed my fists not to run, grab. If I spooked her, and she fell…
That same conflict Wells was obviously feeling as well, because his fists also tightened. It was like he was doing everything he could to stay in place. He wet his lips. “It is me, and I need you to come down from there,” he said, then eyed me. “I need you to let the kid help you.”
I was closer.
All my friends called me the kid. It was a nickname my brother, Ares, gave me, but Wells stopped acknowledging me at all when things started happening between us.
He stopped being my friend.
A lot had changed between us recently, but, when it counted, we had each other’s backs, and the asshole and I needed each other right now. We needed to get Bow down, and she apparently needed Wells’s words.
I knew that because she let me help her off the edge.
Bow allowed me to come closer, nodding at me, and I didn’t hesitate before approaching and taking her hand.
Bow squatted in her pleated skirt and tights, and I slid my arms beneath her.
I took her off that ledge damsel-style and didn’t return her to the ground.
I didn’t trust she’d stay there on her own, but, also, I was selfish.
It was Bow’s heat, and her remarkable ability to smell like an entire bakery.
I brought my best friend’s sister close, and, when I passed Wells, I studied him.
He didn’t say another word before pivoting and leading us all out of the room, then out of the party.
I didn’t put Bow down, even after we all left.
I guess I couldn’t.