Chapter 10
Scrambled: A defense or attack that’s disorganized, could hint at being thrown off-balance socially or emotionally.
Translation: Fish out of water.
Wolf
“I hope you’re ready to see Mount Millie Rescue Center in all its glory,” Trista exclaims as she drives me, Everly, and Stevie
down the gravel road in her ATV.
I’m crammed in the back seat with the child who won’t stop calling me Nana. It’s weird as shite, but I don’t know how to make
it stop.
But it’s probably better than being seated next to the girl who occupied way too many of my thoughts yesterday.
Saturday with Everly’s family was a lot. Maybe too much too soon and part of the reason why I got my nose all bent out of
shape with the presence of that guy from Everly’s past. But it doesn’t mean anything. I worry over Everly the same way I worry
over my sister. It’s innocent in nature. At least that’s what I tell myself. I just need to keep my distance and focus on
my job and not Everly’s life.
But my curiosity about why she was so weird around her ex is piqued. I’m fighting the urge to pry but know I shouldn’t because
I don’t like when she pries into my shit. So instead, I’m fighting a war within myself to back off or dig deeper. At least
if I’m friends with her, I can be everywhere she is.
Fuck. That sounds creepy as shite.
I’m overthinking all of this. But it’s strange to be trapped on a mountain with the girl I’ve been avoiding for the better
part of four years. Especially when I’ve suddenly found myself immersed in her world, her family, her work, her friends. How
the hell did I get here?
As I stare at the back of her head in the ATV, a memory from first year at Trinity floods my mind. A memory I try not to think
about when it comes to Everly Fletcher.
Trinity College | Dublin, Ireland
Four Years Ago
There’s the American, Everly Fletcher, again, I think to myself as I down half my pint in one big gulp and shift on the pub
stool at Mulligans.
It’s my first year at Trinity, and my teammates and I finished training an hour ago and decided to stop at our favorite pub
for a quick team meal. Most have buggered off back to the rugby house to ice their knees because we have lifting early, but
I’m staying exactly where I am because of one girl.
Everly Fletcher.
She’s always fucking here. I’d hoped after we finished our class together, maybe I’d forget about her. She’s occupied more
of my thoughts than I care to admit, considering I only had a handful of classes with the girl. But I swear, every time I
see long blonde hair on campus, my neck snaps, trying to see if it’s her.
Something about this girl draws me in like a sunset that’s impossible to look away from.
Tonight, Everly is running another one of her dating clinics that have quickly become somewhat infamous amongst the student body. How she got the pub owners to agree to this event is beyond my comprehension. The girl is determined.
She stands in the middle of the pub like she owns the place, dressed in her usual Trinity tee and baggy jeans as she clutches
a furry notebook to her chest and passes out notecards to each of the couples positioned on various pub tables. It looks miserable,
but her clients, if that’s even what she calls them, seem to be enjoying themselves.
I, on the other hand, am not enjoying myself because there’s a fucking arsehole who won’t stop pestering Everly, and it’s
getting right up my shirt. He looks like a finance lad trolling the campus pub for young college girls. His shirt likely costs
more than I make a week working my parents’ shop, but the faded black eye he’s sporting makes it clear as day he’s a wanker.
He keeps offering Everly a drink that she refuses, and when his hands reach out and graze her hip, I clench my fists and fight
the urge to walk over there and grab him by the throat.
Everly laughs at him, and that reaction stirs something low in my gut. Possessive. Primal. And completely irrational. I don’t
know if I’m concerned for her because I know her or concerned on behalf of all womankind.
All I know is I sip my pint and don’t taste any of it because I’m too busy watching this interaction play out.
When she finally pushes him back, making it clear she’s not interested, he laughs and leans in to whisper something in her
ear.
“Take a fucking hint, pal,” I growl under my breath as I set my pint down and crack my neck. I lean back on the bar like I’m
a hired bodyguard for the annoying American.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see my teammates get up from their stools, and one of them calls out, “We have curfew, Wolf.”
“Go on without me,” I say, still watching Everly and the finance prat.
“Coach will have your arse if you’re late.”
“I said go without me,” I snarl, breaking my eye contact for a moment to tell my team captain to kindly fuck off.
He gives me a pointed look, and I sigh heavily, knowing this will get the guys talking about me again in the locker room.
I was already top news after my yellow card last week for fighting with the ref. My temper has been on another level these
days, and I’m on thin ice with the team.
But tonight, I don’t have time to worry about what they all think of me, so I wave them off and turn back to see that Everly
is on the move, heading toward the toilets. The guy sits down at her table, making himself at home near her coat, so I take
this as my chance to give him a stronger hint than she did.
I cross the room in as few steps as possible, weaving through the crowded pub full of students out on a Thursday night. Mulligans
is always packed on Thursdays.
I stop behind his seat, close enough to smell his overpriced cologne, and he must sense my presence because he turns around
and stands up when he sees me glaring at him.
“Leave her the fuck alone,” I grit, my nostrils flaring with barely concealed anger as I clench my jaw. The one perk of my
height is moments like these, when I can put pricks in their place just by looming over them.
“Who the fuck are you?” the prat asks, poking me in the chest. “Her big brother?”
My fingers flex at my sides. I know this kind of guy. This is the kind of guy that would call a kid gay in secondary school
for wearing pink. Like casual homophobia is just acceptable. Or he’d be the prat who’d toss a smaller kid’s schoolbag on top
of the lockers where he couldn’t reach it and threaten anyone who dared help him.
Those arseholes were a dime a dozen in my school.
But what they don’t realize is that sometimes, the little guys grow up.
I take a step closer to him, and his chin juts up to look at me. “If you don’t piss off, I’m going to give you a matching
set.”
It takes him a moment to realize what I’m talking about, and then his fingers touch his black eye anxiously. He ponders it for a moment, and then he buzzes his lips. “She’s not hot enough for this bullshit,” he scoffs and turns to walk away, but not before I pull him back by his collar.
“What the fuck did you say?” I give him a shove on his back.
“Nothing,” he stammers.
“Exactly.”
Arsehole.
He stumbles into a group of lads, his eyes narrowing on me. “You’re fucking crazy, man.”
“You have five seconds,” I grind out, and then he hurries over to a booth and grabs his suit coat before hauling arse out
of the pub.
Present Day
I shift nervously as that haunting memory floods my mind. I ended up missing curfew that night and had to do a solo bronco
test at training the next day as punishment from my coach. But I didn’t give a fuck because I couldn’t leave until I knew
Everly got home safe. I didn’t want to outright tell her I was worried about her because the less I talk to Everly Fletcher,
the better.
But it was that night that started something much bigger than running sprints for my coach. It started something I’ve never
said out loud. Not to my teammates, my sister, not even to myself.
For the past four years at Trinity College, I would sometimes stalk Everly Fletcher.
I didn’t really know I was doing it until I started noticing a pattern. That first night I just followed her home to make
sure she was safe from that prat who looked like the type of bloke that would wait for her in an alley.
And if anything happened to Everly—to any girl—I could never forgive myself.
It felt like a noble quest.
But then I worried about her on other nights too. I wondered how often clients messed with her. I wondered if she was good
at sticking up for herself. Eventually I found myself back at Mulligans, looking up the schedule for her matchmaking events
so I could be there to keep an eye out from the back of the pub. At first, I tried to leave early when it was clear that guy
from before didn’t return. But I couldn’t get the image of him out of my head, the way he leered at her like a creep.
So, at some point, I decided to follow her home again to ensure she was safe.
It was easy to watch from a distance, in the shadows, tucked into the darkness a half block behind so she didn’t see me. And
yeah, the way I learned the rhythm of her walk and matched her quiet, careful steps was a tad odd. Honestly, I could see how
some might interpret that as creepy behavior too. But I was looking out for her. Someone clearly had to.
Everly Fletcher trots around like she’s untouchable. Headphones on, bag bouncing on her hip, eyes glued to her mobile without
a care in the world. The girl is a walking advertisement for blokes with bad intentions.
My intentions were pure. I wanted to protect her. Dublin at night is not as safe as it pretends to be. And she always took
the same route home, so it made following her pretty simple.
That’s always where it ended. She’d reach the Rubrics, and I’d stop at the corner, heart hammering in my chest over the rush
of it all. She’d disappear inside, and I’d wait for the light in her room to turn on. It always did. And then I’d turn around,
shoulders tight, jaw clenched, and walk back to the rugby house so full of adrenaline from trailing after her that it would