Chapter Nineteen #2
Ripping the door open, ready to snarl at them to get the fuck off my property, Clayton leads the parade, barging past me with a stack of pizzas in his arms. There’s no hiding his smirk, the bastard.
Streams of nerds shove their way into my house, marveling at the height of the ceilings and size of the room as they scuff the floorboards with their muddy shoes.
Through the shitshow that has become my evening, Harper catches my eye and blows a kiss.
I storm upstairs and throw a spoiled tantrum in my room.
Once I’ve calmed down, and the growling in my stomach will no longer be denied, I leave the smashed lamp on my bedroom floor behind and slump back into the hallways, each step hollow like my damn soul. I hate this academy. I hate these people. I hate my plans backfiring.
The chatter below is louder, and none of it is interesting. Clayton climbs the stairs, pretending I’m not lurking around like a hostile shadow as he enters the bathroom. I wait outside like some crazed stalker until he reappears.
“You’re walking on thin ice, Scum,” I growl.
I expect his shoulders to tense in his white t-shirt, but instead he looks amused.
With his blonde waves free from the god-awful beanies he usually wears, he almost looks like a regular college jock.
Not the convict scraping by on the last of his luck I know him to be.
“What did I do?” he chuckles. Chuckles. The audacity is treading on my last nerve.
Without breaking eye contact, I gesture over the banister to the room below where the mumbling and giggling is emanating from.
His eyebrow cocks over black eyes that are enjoying my distress far too much.
“You know as much as I do, Harper won’t be bossed around. Besides, have you seen her?”
After a moment, I follow his eye line and spot Harper.
Not that I’ve been looking at much else, but now I see how wide her smile is.
She’s crossing the lounge, handing out steaming mugs and leaning over to answer a question.
Her ass looks fantastically plump, but then her laughter rings out.
She’s interacting with people. Students that have judged and scorned her for months are finally smiling, shifting books aside to make room for her beside them. She’s actually making friends.
“Harper needs this,” Clayton says from behind me, moving toward the staircase. I stalk after him, fisting my hands by my side.
“She doesn’t need anyone except me,” I glower.
I’m not sure where that comes from, but I won’t deny it either.
The way she tames my beast, pushes me beyond boundaries I didn’t know where holding me back.
I sure know all I need is her, so why can’t it work both ways?
Why can’t I be the center of her world too?
“Then what am I doing here?” Clayton mutters with the hint of a smirk, not stopping his descent. I slap a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to face me on the bottom step.
“Harper and I connected whilst you were having your shit-life crisis. She belongs to me and any kindness she’s showing you is out of pity.
” My fingers twitch for the fight he isn’t going to give me.
If I can’t get a rise out of Clayton, I’ve either lost my touch or I’m not hitting the right nerves.
Prying my hand away, he dusts his shoulder off before shrugging.
“I don’t really give a shit about your connection.
You wanna know why?” I want to shout fuck no and punch his face inside out, but curiosity gets the better of me, so I remain standing there and grit my teeth.
“Because I’m biding my time, waiting for you fuck up or grow bored.
Everyone knows nothing you do is long term, especially her.
” Clayton walks away, returning to his borrowed laptop on the kitchen island whilst I stand there seething. I’m losing my fucking touch.
Harper spots me lingering and rises to make her way to me, but I hold up my hand.
With every fiber of my being, I hate that Clayton’s right.
She needs the chance to make friends, to realize what a waste of time and energy they are.
But when it comes to her sex life and the focus of her affections, I’ll take the baton.
Like a fragile, little bird I need to capture and hold close until she sees that being with me is the best option. The only option.
Unlike Clayton, I do not have the love and nurturing of a mother to fall back on. No experience to pull from. Despite all that, Harper wants me the way I am, a notion that’s never happened before and may not again. I can’t lose that, no matter the cost.
I hover at the base of the stairs, feeling out of place as nerds litter every available space.
Three girls are sitting on my cashmere blanket on the floor, another pair are sharing a pizza on my throne and the four at the kitchen island with their laptops each have a perfectly brewed coffee.
It’s anarchy. To make matters worse, Dickerson has his head stuck in my fridge, fingering every fucking beer bottle before picking one from the back.
He beams at me, far too comfortably for a little buttmunch I’ve spent all year bullying.
“Hey Rhys, do you have a coaster?” he asks from behind his freckles. His cheery tone offends me so much, I punch the bottle clear out of his hand. It flies toward the window, smashing against the glass and falling into the basin.
“Do I look like I own fucking coasters?!” I bellow, raising my fist until he’s running anywhere I am not.
He doesn’t leave though, but instead takes refuge behind Harper who is now offering out the last slice of pepperoni pizza in the box.
I snatch it from her with a glare. Her smile doesn’t slip, clearly self-satisfied with her handy work.
That smile threatens to melt away the anger I’m clinging to.
I consume my pizza, turning away before she sees my expression soften and ask me to do something ludicrous, like study alongside her again.
I don’t need to study. I had only the best private tutors my whole damn life, sat my SAT test at fourteen and was considered a mathematic prodigy at one point. A fact that Harper will never know.
Being book smart doesn’t count for anything when your dad can unleash an attack on you for no good reason.
Knowledge didn’t attend to my wounds or hold me close at night.
I picked forensic science purely because it’s an area my father knows nothing about and hence, can’t take an interest in my education.
Not that I ever planned on actually attending a lesson.
Shooing the couple out of my throne, I drop down and lace my fingers over my stomach.
The surrounding conversation dies suddenly at my arrival.
A guy with dark hair I’ve seen on the front row of every class hides behind his book to avoid my narrowed stare.
Dickerson drops his pen between the stacks and as he crawls by on his hands and knees, I lift my legs and cross my ankles across his back.
Harper instantly barks at me and I sigh, letting the little fucker scurry away.
It grates on me to be seen as weak, but when it comes to her, I can’t help it.
At least the people in this house are probably the closest to Harper and therefore, key suspects of whoever is fucking with her.
With all of us. So, I’ve resorted to waiting and watching.
Watching every person who interacts with her with such scrutiny, they’ll have nightmares about my eyes fixated on them.
It’s all I can do, since I’m no longer in charge of what happens under this roof.
Before Harper arrived on campus, life was predictable in its irregularity.
No two days were the same. Students I didn’t know were crashing on my sofas, fights were erupting in the front yard.
Girls would get so drunk, they’d start sucking cocks while the guys chugged on beer kegs.
Pure academy insanity I became so accustomed with, that nothing shocked me anymore.
Then a pair of green eyes and deaf ears walked into my life, flipping my world on its axis.
She sees me in a way no else has cared to, and calls me out on my shit when no one else would dare.
Her mind intrigues me as much as her body.
Even now, in her leggings and baggy sweatshirt, all I want to do is feel her skin against mine.
The sound of chairs scraping and increased movement drag my eyes across the room once more.
Banding together, the nerds help Harper to clear away.
Bottles clink as they’re dropped in the trash, my cashmere blanket folded and put back neatly, pizza boxes disposed of.
Grouping together, they each take a stack of textbooks, but instead of scurrying away to return them to the library like I’d expected, they create a neat stack beneath the window.
I watch the spectacle curiously, so unused to the civilized nature.
Mutual respect fills the air, laughter fighting against the animosity that lingers here.
Something is changing. In the house, in me, and I’m not sure I like it.
Harper takes a sweeping glance at my brooding posture, and her resulting smile knocks me off kilter.
“Same time tomorrow night?” asks a blonde I believe to be called Felicia, or at least she looks like one. My body jolts into action, propelling me from the throne to where people are starting to filter out of the front door.
“No, no, no, no!”
“Yeah sure,” Harper replies cheerily, guiding them out. “See you back here from seven.” I plant myself at her side, glaring furiously.
“My house, my rules. No freaking way are we doing this again.”
“Great, see you then,” the group wave back to Harper before heading out. Clay hangs back long enough to stroke the back of Harper’s hair.
“I’ll wait at the footpath to walk you home. Don’t be long.” He places a kiss on her temple, though his eyes are locked on me. Taunting me. Once he’s finally left, I sigh dramatically and slump against the wall.
“What the fuck is happening right now?! Am I invisible?”
Harper turns, her head angled upwards with a glazed look to her eyes, whilst reaching up to smush my face in her hands.
“Who’s there? Uncle Henry, is that you?” I can’t help but laugh, all the angst of the evening washing away in an instant.
“Why don’t you feel lower and find out?” I drag her hands down my body until she lurches back on a giggle.
“Ew, Uncle Henry never would have said that.” Her nose scrunches up but she’s smiling. Dragging her closer, I pull her arms around my waist like I’ve been wanting to all night. My chin rests upon her head, the breath sawing out of me.
“Thank you for tonight,” Harper says against my chest. I snort, since I didn’t have a choice in anything that’s happened here, but I’m happy to take credit for it.
Especially if Harper expresses her gratitude through sexual favors.
“I’ve never had friends before Rhys. And I don’t think you have either, not really. This could be good for both of us.”
My chest warms at the way she says us, but she’s wrong. Friends are distractions, and distractions are never good news. They complicate matters with their whining and drama, expecting you to care and perform selfless tasks to keep their meaningless friendship. Exhausting.
But if that’s what Harper thinks she needs, I can humor her. It won’t be long before they become a drain on the precious little time she has.
“Fine, you can have your little geek sessions here. As long as you’ll stay with me tonight?
” I hate the desperation in my voice, hoping her receivers don’t pick up on it.
Breaking away, she shoulders her backpack instead of answering.
With a brief kiss to my neck, she saunters out of the door and leaves.
Fucking leaves. After everything I’ve done and put up with tonight, I’m not even going to get my dick wet.
There’s never been anything in this world I’ve ever wanted so badly, it physically aches.
Harper is the exception. Every time she turns away from me, another piece out of my chest is carved free, hollowing me out one heartbeat at a time.
I know it’s irrational, obsessive even, but logic ceases to exist when she’s near.
I’d lock every door and bar every window if it meant keeping her here.
She can hate me, despise me, punish me if that’s what she decides.
All I know is, I don’t want to be alone anymore.