Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
The phone buzzing silently in my pocket doesn’t mean much to me. It’s only when I see that everyone in my history class has received a text at the same time that I know there is trouble at Hannaford.
Harley frowns as he looks around then raises an eyebrow at me. I nod as he slips his phone out of his pocket discreetly. I don’t attempt to look at his screen because that will definitely attract the teacher’s attention, but I shouldn’t have worried about discretion.
“Fuck!” Harley shouts and leaps out of his chair. When the teacher scowls at him, he grabs his bag and snaps at him, “Lips and I have to go. Family emergency.”
He waves a hand at me and I shove my books away too.
The teacher stutters out, “You’re not related.” But Harley ignores him, throws my bag over his shoulder with his, and then shoves me out of the room.
“I can’t just leave my classes, I’m not invincible here like you are,” I grumble as he takes my hand to drag me out.
“Avery will square it, come on.”
I follow him, though I have to run to keep up with his ridiculously long legs, and he propels us back to the girls’ dorm.
He taps his foot, clearly agitated as I unlock the door, then drops our bags just inside.
The room is empty and quiet, no sign of Avery.
I grab my phone to try and figure out what the fuck is going on.
There’s a text of a link from an unknown number. Harley starts to pace, scrubbing his hands over his face like he can wipe away whatever is eating him, and I click the link. I find myself on that stupid gossip website and I glance up at Harley.
“Is it you or the twins?” I say, and he stops to stare at me.
“Neither. It’s Morrison.”
I frown at him and put my phone down. “What about him? I thought his family was clean.”
I hear a key slot into the door and Avery bursts in, Ash hobbling behind her carrying an absolutely trashed Blaise.
“Sit him on the couch! I’ll pull the spare bed out and then I’ll deal with this,” Avery snaps, and I wave her off, rolling the trundle bed out from under hers and setting it up myself. Avery collapses on her mattress and starts furiously texting.
I last another minute before my patience snaps. “Can someone please explain to me what the fuck is going on?”
Harley shoves a bucket under Blaise’s face as he starts to heave and Ash sits beside him, an arm slung around his shoulders casually.
“Didn’t you read it? See the photos?” Ash snaps, and I glare at him.
“Obviously not. If it’s personal then I’m not fucking looking.”
Blaise groans and vomits. Avery gags and stalks over to hide in the bathroom while she furiously sends text messages. Harley grabs a bottle of water out of the fridge and presses it into the back of Blaise’s neck.
“It’s Annabelle, right? It has to be; she’s the only one who’s been in our room. Dammit, Morrison, I told you not to let her in there! She’s a fucking snake,” Harley says as he starts to pace again.
Ash throws a savage glare at him and snaps, “Drop it. It’s out now; all we can do is deal with the fallout.”
A shrill ringing starts and everyone stops to look at Blaise. He loses the little color he had in his face and begins to resemble a corpse instead.
“Just leave it; you can speak to him tomorrow,” Ash says in a tone he usually only uses with Avery.
A knot forms in my stomach until I’m feeling queasy, too.
“I’ll get it out of the way now. No use putting it off,” mumbles Blaise, and he answers the call.
To give him some privacy I grab the bucket from him to empty and Harley follows me to the kitchen.
“Annabelle found a stash of letters from Blaise’s dad.
He writes to him weekly and for some stupid fucking reason, Blaise keeps them.
She took photos and now the dumb bitch has posted all of them on the gossip site.
” Harley clears his throat and continues, “She also had photos of him and she’s posted those as well.
The letters… aren’t good. He’s drinking and smoking in the photos, which, to his parents, is worse than nudes. His dad is going to fucking kill him.”
I stop scrubbing and cut him a look. “As in, be very angry or are we talking actual murder? We need to start being way clearer about this shit. Do I need to adopt him, too?”
Harley smirks and shakes his head. The smirk slowly slides off his face as he watches Blaise over my shoulder.
“He shouldn’t go home. His parents are fucking awful.
Not like the Beaumonts, but just fucking shitty humans who shouldn’t be trusted with a kid.
How fucked is it when I’m the only one with good parents and they’re mobsters?
Decent and loving, dead or fucking gone. ”
I swallow roughly at the emotion in his voice and then whisper, “I’m not going to look at the site. He didn’t look at my naked photos and I’m not looking at… whatever this is, except—is there anything I need to know? To keep him safe?”
Harley hesitates for a second longer than I’m comfortable with before he shakes his head. Avery stomps out of the bathroom before I can grill him about it, steam still practically pouring from her ears. When she spots Blaise on the phone, she moves toward us instead.
“I got the photos taken down and a trace on who posted them. It’s Annabelle, which we know, but the dumb slut is saying she was hacked. I pointed out to her that she didn’t just trip over the letters and they certainly didn’t take selfies!”
Harley snorts, sharing a look with her before Avery continues, “Blaise is officially moving in here until we’re sure he’s not going to try and kill himself over this.”
My stomach drops.
Jerking away from the sink, I turn on my heel and ignore the water dripping everywhere. “Is that a real concern?”
Avery grimaces, sharing another look with Harley.
“I wouldn’t… rule it out. He’s ‘fallen’ off a bridge while drunk and morose before.
And the last scandal his dad caught wind of ended with him having his stomach pumped because he tried to drink himself to death.
The boys’ dorm isn’t as secure as ours and everyone has extracurriculars except you.
If you can get out of your tutoring session with the Mounty boy then you can make sure he’s safe here. ”
There’s a sharp crack noise and I find myself shoved against the sink by Avery’s body as Harley pushes us both behind him. Avery squeals and shoves him out of the way. “It’s his phone! He’s thrown it against the wall, it’s not a terrorist attack, for God’s sake!”
I meet Harley’s eyes and see the shadows there before leaning in to whisper to Avery, “Some things are ingrained. Some things are unavoidable.”
I let Blaise spend all of Thursday drunk because I’m a fucking saint like that. Friday, he wakes up so unbelievably hungover that I hide every drop of alcohol in our room. When he breaks into Avery’s closet to find it while I’m in the bathroom, I call Harley to come pick the rest of it up.
By Saturday, he’s climbing the walls and I consider killing him to get some peace.
“Fuck this. Let’s go out,” he snaps while I cook something to distract me from murder.
“No. Drink your coffee.”
He snaps back at me. “Fuck coffee, haven’t you ever heard of hair of the dog? I need tequila.”
I shake my head, biting my tongue so hard I might do real damage, and Blaise rewards my efforts of restraint by flicking a pen at me like the spoiled brat he is. When the others get back from their extracurriculars I’m ready to throw him out of the room.
Ash smirks when he sees the look on my face, never one to read the room and act accordingly. “How is suicide watch going? Have you hidden the bed sheets from him yet? Why are you still using real forks? You should switch out to plastic until he comes down from the ledge.”
I refuse to engage with his bullshit and I’m saved as Harley walks in, arms full of Blaise’s crap. I asked for help keeping him busy and apparently, that means he’s moving in.
Harley drops his horde onto the rollout bed then waves me over to him, ignoring the bitching happening around us but I can’t block it out.
“He spent all morning whining before I left so progress is being made,” snipes Avery.
Blaise rolls his eyes at them both and slumps back on the couch. “I wouldn’t be whining if you let me fucking drink. The Mounty is practically a fucking AA sponsor and she needs to lighten the hell up. Let’s go to the bar in Haven; they do the best cheese fries.”
I glare at him as Harley hands over the notes he made me for our classes.
I rummage around in my bag and give him all of my assignments.
“Drinking is making it worse. Harley brought your guitar, write a song and chill the fuck out. Eat ice cream. Watch your shitty movies. Do homework. Do not drink and do not get high.”
Blaise kicks the coffee table and Avery cusses him out.
He’ll be dead by dawn if he keeps it up.
She marches over to him and jabs him in the chest sharply.
“Just so you know, you ungrateful little shit, I’ve had the posts taken down and I’ve contacted your agent to release a statement on your behalf claiming the entire thing was a slanderous hoax concocted by a jilted ex.
He doesn’t give a shit about the photos and the press is lapping it up.
You’ve even had a spike in sales! I’ve also burned the letters and sent your father a gift basket with a lovely note telling him to choke on the fucking pretzels.
Ash and Harley will now be opening, reading, and destroying any correspondence from that man before you see it.
So get up. Eat something substantial, take a shower, do your homework.
No one fucking cares that your dear old daddy is scum.
I don’t, Ash and Harley don’t, and, if she’s honest, Lips would tell you to tuck your vagina back into your jeans and get over it. ”
On Sunday morning, Avery leaves for ballet practice and I force Blaise into the shower.
I threaten to drag him in there myself to scrub him down, but I’m lying through my teeth because there is no way I’d survive a shower with him.
No way. My panties would disintegrate. Eventually we come to an agreement where I’ll let him smoke a joint if he takes the damn shower.
While he’s busy, I open every window to get our room to stop smelling like a bar.
I cook him pancakes and when he’s finished eating, I hand him a coffee and a bowl of ice cream. He pulls a face like he wants to refuse but I stare him down until he finally takes them. I sit with him at the kitchen counter and enjoy my own cup quietly until he breaks the silence.
“What’s your earliest memory, Mounty? No, wait, don’t answer that. It’s probably really fucking bad and I’ll feel like a pussy for comparing.”
Chuckling, I shove the bowl of ice cream at him. He lights his joint and inhales like it’s the answer to all his problems, blowing the smoke out the window. The smell of it sparks the memory he’s asking for.
“My mom rolling joints on the back steps to our house. It was too hot to move and I kept crying and pissing her off, so she filled a bucket with water and dumped me in it. I think she was trying to be cruel but it was the best feeling ever.”
Blaise smiles and huffs out a breath. “My father’s office.
A modernist nightmare of cold steel and crisp white boxes.
I’d fallen asleep on his weird couch, that doesn’t even have cushions, under his suit jacket.
I woke up but kept my eyes shut because, even at five years old, I knew that when my parents spoke in that hushed secret way…
they were talking about me. My mom was telling my dad that ‘normal’ children can’t read by age five and to lower his expectations.
My father said he’s sure I’m actually retarded.
His ethics board would shit themselves if they knew how he spoke to me.
He has a whole list of words he likes to use in my direction because he was born with an IQ of 190 and I’m…
so fucking average. I remember I cried and he looked so disgusted by me.
Said I’d probably turn out to be a queer too.
Imagine every derogatory word in the book, and that man has thrown it at me.
But the worst part… the fucking stupidest thing is…
I still care. I still hate that I don’t measure up. ”
I finally see the damage. I always knew he was a lonely sort of guy, his lyrics make your chest ache in a way that can only come from heartbreak, but I didn’t understand how he fit in with Harley and the twins until now.
His life may not have been in danger but his soul is.
I want to add his dad to the planner. I want to hunt that man down and say hi with my knife, but the longing in Blaise’s voice is an echo of my own.
It’s the echo of a little kid praying that, someday, their parents will love them enough to stop hurting them.
My mom didn’t stop hurting me until she stopped breathing. I have a feeling his dad will be the same.
“Eat your fucking ice cream, Morrison. Do we need to hug? It’s not really my thing but I'll give it a go for you.”
He bursts out laughing, finally lifting his spoon, and I can breathe again because I have a feeling he’s finally taken a step away from the ledge.
When he finishes his ice cream, he slings an arm around my shoulder and whispers in my ear, “How about a song, Mounty?
Sing me something with that voice of yours that's so good you can beat me in choir.”
Ain’t that a bucket of ice over my head? I gulp. “Ah, sorry. I have severe stage fright. Avery and I are working on it.”
He groans, pulling away from me, and I try not to crawl after him pathetically. When he grabs his guitar and his lyric book, I stop breathing altogether.
“I’ll have to give you a private concert then, Mounty. I’ve been working on some songs, tell me what you think.”
Be still my fucking heart.