Chapter 13
June
“You should’ve stayed in class,” Jackson said under his breath.
He always wanted to act like the tough guy around everyone, but his lips were trembling.
“You guys had something do with the attack on the principal, didn’t you? I can’t believe you . . . and I always defended you,” I murmured. James must’ve heard me, because he looked at me in the mirror with narrowed eyes.
“You still don’t fucking understand how the world works, do you, princess?”
Listen to wise old James, who knows everything about life.
I would’ve talked back, but for once I bit my tongue. The front of the car was brimming with tension, and to be honest, I was a little scared too. I stayed quiet for the whole ride, and when we reached a neighborhood full of modern houses instead of the club, I was scared out of my mind.
“We’re going to his house? Seriously?” I asked.
Jackson nodded, while James parked in front of the Hollywood-style homes.
And here I was wondering why those shady characters resorted to violence and crime. The answer was simple. Money. A lot of money. The guys got out of the car, and even though it would’ve been wise of me to stay in the car . . .
Knowing I was seeing Will act so off the rails overruled my common sense. The scene he’d just made with James made me realize how much I didn’t know him.
“June, stay close to me,” Will said when he caught me following them. The automatic gate opened and we entered the huge yard surrounding the house.
We were walking side by side when William took my hand.
A tall girl with mahogany-colored hair met us at the door.
We walked into a large, well-lit living room with seats and decorations still wrapped in cellophane.
It looked like no one lived there. The immense glass windows reflected our silhouettes, and I quickly noticed that one of us wasn’t there. James had vanished.
Jackson and I exchanged a worried look. Meanwhile, Will squeezed my hand even tighter. Sure, his grip was firm, but I had the feeling that I wasn’t really safe with him.
Hadn’t he just thrown a fit of jealousy a little while ago? Or was he just nervous because of the situation?
What if Will was just as violent James?
William seemed to notice my anxious state. He looked at me carefully, then pushed a lock of hair behind my ear.
“Stay here, June,” he whispered in his usual soothing voice.
“Ethan’s coming. He said that he doesn’t want to see Hunter, just you,” announced the girl, showing William the way.
“Where are you going, Will?” I tried to call him, but he turned to Jackson.
“I have to talk to Austin. Jax, stay with her.”
“Absolutely not,” complained the blond, shaking his head.
“If something happens to her, Jackson . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s always the same story. I hate you, June White.” I heard him grumble as his phone started ringing.
“Oh no, my grandma.”
Under other circumstances, I would’ve cracked up.
“Then why don’t you answer her?”
“I just hope the principal didn’t fucking call her. She’d have a heart attack. Stay here, okay?”
I looked at him, hoping that he’d go to the backyard ASAP.
“Answer me, White. You’re always talking. Cat got your tongue?”
“Okay, I’ll stay here,” I answered quickly to get rid of him, looking innocently at him. But Jackson seemed to understand what kind of person I was.
“Try not to drag me into my friends’ messes.”
“Sure.”
“Fuck, I don’t even understand them,” he spat irritatedly, before walking through French doors.
I took in the morning silence surrounding me. The house was so empty that our voices echoed unnaturally between the walls.
The scent of new furniture mixed with bleach made me a little nauseated.
Why had Will insisted on coming here?
Ignoring Jackson’s suggestion, I went up the marble stairs that I’d seen Will walk up a moment before.
The Austins must’ve been rich. Very rich. Not just well-off or upper middle class—this house looked like it was out of a big, modern movie set.
I wondered how private school students like them could end up tangled up with people like this.
“Will.”
My whisper landed on the floor that Will was staring at. I caught him waiting in the hall, sitting on a rounded leather couch.
He was fiddling with something between his hands.
“What is that?” I asked pointing at the phone he grasped nervously between his fingers. “Whose phone is that?”
“June—”
“Did you hurt someone, Will? Just tell me this. I won’t ask you anything else.” I needed to know if I could trust him or not.
“Yeah.”
His answer made me tremble.
“Did you—”
“I . . . not exactly.”
A small sigh of relief.
“I hate violence, and I could never be with someone who—” I said.
“What? You mean like James?” he pushed, looking me right in the eye.
“Why’d you do it? What’d the principal arrange?” I changed the subject hoping to get an answer.
“We didn’t have any other choice,” he said, getting up.
I watched him reach a big solid wood door and knock on it.
“You better get back in the car now.”
I nodded. This time he was right. I was an idiot for wanting to get in the middle of something that was so much bigger than me.
I went down the stairs and was rushing toward the door when Jackson stopped me.
“Can you come here for a moment?”
I frowned. “What now?”
I became worried when I noticed some concern in his aquamarine eyes.
“Grandma, I’m coming.” Jackson brought his iPhone to his chest then turned to me. “Can you talk to him?”
I crossed my arms. “Now you need my help?”
“Look, I’d never stoop so low as to admit something like that, but I get the feeling that he’ll listen to you,” he murmured, flinging a bathroom door open.
Calling it a bathroom seemed like an understatement. Its mammoth dimensions made it look like a presidential suite. The shower and whirlpool bath only took up a little bit of the otherwise empty giant space surrounded by marble walls. I’d hadn’t expected to find James. I’d thought he’d left.
I froze at the threshold and met his cutting stare in the big mirror on the wall.
“You know something, James?”
“Nobody asked you,” he quickly shot back as I closed the door behind me.
He was hunched over the sink.
“They trust you. Your friends.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So what?”
“You’re the one who doesn’t trust them.”
“You go from meddler to shrink in one second flat,” James said with a sneer.
I kept my dig at him to myself and ignored his defiant stare.
“And you should. You should trust them, because this weight’s too heavy for you to carry all alone and it’ll break you sooner or later.”
He turned to give me a sharp glare.
“Leave me the fuck alone.”
But I must’ve hit the nail on the head, because James punched the mirror so hard that it broke into a million pieces. The fragments scattered all around the sink, and his hand started bleeding.
My stomach dropped, but I kept calm.
“James, can you please—” Not do that?
The words got stuck in my throat. I had to repress the impulse to turn around and leave.
James pressed the palm of his other hand on the wound then leaned against the wall and looked up.
I felt the hiss of the air conditioning in the background of our silence.
“Are you done?” I asked, irritated.
“What the fuck are you still doing here? I thought Will brought you home.”
“You’re the one who asked me to come. Do you have gaps in your memory?”
I took two steps closer to him, clearly intriguing him because he lowered his head and aligned his gaze with mine. We were close and facing each other, and when he looked at me like that, I was at a loss for words.
“I was just pissed off at him.”
“Why did you want me here?”
“Get out if you don’t want to stay,” he whispered, looking down on me.
“Maybe you have, um—”
I met his angry face, and it made it hard to continue.
“What? Go on, say it,” he urged.
“No, it’s dumb.”
“Say it,” he demanded, pursing his full lips.
I gulped loudly because his defiant tone seemed like a shield that didn’t match his gestures. I couldn’t say a word when I felt him press his forehead to mine.
I struggled to look up because my gaze was stuck on his mouth.
“Maybe you need me and don’t even realize it, James.”
The distance between us was too short, and I wanted to collapse.
Why hadn’t I learned to wise up for once and quit saying everything that came to my head?
“I have other important things to think about, and you’re not one of them, White,” he shot back, without taking his forehead off mine.
Fine, go to hell, asshole.
“Then I better go,” I hissed, bowing my head.
“I screwed up big-time.”
His gruff voice was a rope tied to my ankles, preventing me from moving.
“I’m sure that it isn’t anything that can’t be solved,” I retorted coldly.
“No, you don’t understand. Everyone is in deep shit, and it’s my fault.”
“I’m not judging you, James.”
“Yeah, but you’re right. Maybe you should go.” He jerked his head at the door.
“Maybe we better all go,” I insisted, seeing the anguished look on his face.
“Tell Jackson and Will I’m staying here.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I’m not going without you.”
We stared at each other for a few moments.
“Do you know why I asked you to come, White?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, there isn’t any reason.”
This time, I looked up. James came closer, bringing his face to the loose locks of hair falling on my shoulders. He whispered something, making me shiver.
“You think I use people. Maybe I felt like using you today.” His gruff voice made me jump. With my cheeks on fire, I shook my head.
“I don’t think that at all, James.”
And without saying anything else, his gaze turned to my lips, then my neck. A rush of adrenaline went down my spine when his eyes slowly drifted to my white uniform shirt. It lasted a brief moment, enough time to make my stomach twist in knots, then he looked away.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of. And you’d be smart to believe me, princess.” I craned my neck when he slid his thumb under my ear, moving it until he caressed my jaw.
“Well, look who’s here.”