Chapter 14 Bash #2
I chuckle under my breath because I didn’t expect her to be funny. I’m not sure why, but I’m fucking grinning because I know this means she trusts me at least a little bit. I quickly switch my phone camera on and snap a quick selfie. My hood is pulled up, and the green glowing mask covers my face.
I send it before I think it through. I watch on the camera feed as Livy freezes. For a second I wonder if she’s afraid, and I fucked up by not warning her that we wear these masks when we ride around at night.
She doesn’t know me the way I know her. To her I’m just the slightly unhinged rugby player who kissed her in her bathtub and now texts her like I have some claim over her. But much to my surprise, I zoom the camera in on her face.
Her lips part and I see her suck in a small but sharp breath.
Understanding slides through me slowly.
Oh.
She likes the mask.
The thought sends a pulse of heat through my body that I immediately try to ignore.
The last thing I need right now is to start imagining crawling on top of her in our bed and pinning her beneath me while she looks up at me with those wide green eyes.
It’s going to happen, I just don’t know how soon I can convince her to move in with me.
I shift slightly on the bike, forcing my brain somewhere else before I embarrass myself again by cumming in my pants.
On the screen, Livy types and sends me a message just as headlights cut through the darkness.
No helmet?
That’s all she sends, but she can’t recover from what I saw. There was curiosity and desire written all over her face.
I’ll ride safe
A black car rolls slowly toward us, so I have to pause my conversation with my girl. My hand instinctively moves to the handgun tucked into my waistband, but Kalen is already stepping forward before I have to do anything.
The driver lowers the window.
Kalen hands him the envelope without a word.
The man glances inside briefly before nodding and reading off a code that will send money back to Caiden.
That rich bastard.
People in Castlebrook Falls always joke that Caiden Grey thinks he owns the damn mountain the town sits on.
The funny thing is that it isn’t really a joke.
He owns everyone and everything connected to that mountain, and some things surrounding it.
Kalen double checks that the number is valid and then steps back as the car pulls away down the winding road.
A moment later he’s already dialing Caiden to confirm the delivery.
While he does that, I pull my phone back out and send Livy another message.
Come to my game tomorrow and wear my number since you have it memorized.
Across the camera feed, Livy glances down at her phone again.
Her fingers move quickly.
I’m not really a super fan kind of girl.
I frown at the thought of having girls wearing my jersey like they do Jeremy’s. Noone else better be wearing my number.
Then I type back.
You’re my girl. I want everyone to know it.
I realize that this isn’t the most romantic way to ask someone to be my girlfriend, but I can’t wait. I don’t want to wait, and to be fair, I’m not really asking. I’m telling her because even if it takes her a while to warm up, it doesn’t matter. Finder’s keepers. Livingston is mine.
On the camera, she bites her lip while she reads the message, clearly unsure what to make of me coming on this strong.
If she knew that I’m already mentally planning the day I give her my last name and find the perfect ring she’ll never take off, she’d probably be grateful all I asked was that she wear my jersey.
I don’t even fucking care about rugby, I just want to see my name plastered across her back.
Her reply comes a moment later.
Sebastian…
I grin beneath my mask and I realize that Kalen is threatening Jeremy to get back on his bike and stop fucking around because we’re leaving. I’ve been tuned out this entire time.
That’s my name, baby. I’ll have a jersey waiting for you. The guys and I are heading back to campus now.
She doesn’t answer the first part.
Instead, another message pops up with a little pink heart emoji
Ride safe
The emoji means she loves me too, clearly. I can’t resist sending her one more.
Drink the rest of your water.
On my screen, Livy rolls her eyes before flipping her phone face down on her desk.
Only a few seconds pass before she looks back down at her phone and then over at her pink water bottle.
She snatches it up in a cute little huff and takes a swig before she sets it back down on her desk and turns her attention back to her computer.
If I could grab her and kiss her right now, I would. I’m going to annoy the hell out of her by taking care of her for the rest of our lives.
Jeremy revs his engine beside me, and Kalen waves him on to lead us back to St. Killian.
He knows the roads to so many random places like the back of his hand.
Apparently, when he was in high school, he would skip entire days of school, fill his tank and just cruise all over the place.
I’m uncomfortable every time we have to rely on Jeremy to get us somewhere safely, but it’s my only option right now.
All three engines hum as we take off down the dark road. The ride is a total blur, and thank fuck Jeremy is up for some speeding tonight. I want to get home to my girl, even if I’ll only be watching her on a screen.
By the time I get back to the Ruck House, everything is mostly quiet.
I notice that most of the lights in the neighboring accommodations have already gone dark as I park my bike in the garage. The engine rumbles beneath me for a second longer before I shut it off.
For a moment I just sit there, mask still on, staring at nothing. I don’t want to go up to my room. I want to go see my girl.
I pull my phone out to check the cameras on the off chance that she might still be awake. Instead, Livy’s name pops up on the screen, and my chest tightens instantly when I see there are two texts waiting for me. She sent them while I was driving.
Are you busy when you get back?
The words are simple, but something about them makes a slow, uneasy feeling settle in my chest.
I open the second message.
Never mind. I’m being silly. I just have a weird feeling.
That one came only a few minutes later, and I’m so annoyed that I made her second guess herself.
The fact that she wanted me to come over is a huge deal.
A knot tightens low in my chest as I swing off the bike and head inside.
As I’m walking up the stairs, before I even reach my bedroom door, I’m already pulling up the surveillance app on my phone.
Livy’s room fills the screen almost immediately.
She’s in bed, and I feel my jeans tighten at the sight of her.
My songbird is curled slightly onto her side and only halfway beneath her fluffy pink comforter, one arm tucked beneath her pillow while her hair fans across the sheets around her.
The camera catches the subtle shifts of her body every few seconds.
It's the restless kind of movement that tells me she didn’t fall asleep easily and won’t be asleep for long.
Her brow is faintly drawn even now, like whatever uneasy feeling she mentioned in her text never fully left her.
But she’s sleeping.
Fitfully, maybe, but sleeping nonetheless and that makes me happy
My shoulders loosen a little as I watch her breathe, the slow rise and fall of her chest calming something inside me that had already started spiraling after reading that message.
She’s safe.
That’s all that matters to me in this life.
The right thing to do would be to let my girl sleep. Waking her now would only startle her.
Still, the thought lingers.
She texted me. She wanted to know if I was busy. She wanted me to come over.
She. Wanted. Me.
I unlock my bedroom door and push it open, my attention still half on the small screen in my hand where Livy shifts again beneath the blankets.
It takes a second for my brain to register that something is wrong.
The soft hum of electronics that usually fills my room isn’t there, and the familiar glow from my desk doesn’t spill across the floor the way it normally does.
My eyes adjust slowly to the darker space as I step inside, my gaze drifting automatically toward the desk where the surveillance screens should be.
I flip on the main light and I’m pissed.
You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.
Both monitors are on the floor and are absolutely destroyed.
The screens are cracked straight through the center, spiderweb fractures stretching across the glass where someone clearly ripped them from the desk and threw them down hard enough to break them.
Loose wires trail across the floor beside them, the plastic casings split where the impact must have hit.
Cold adrenaline floods through my system as every instinct I have snaps into place.
I move through the room quickly, scanning every corner while my pulse starts hammering harder in my chest. The closet door is slightly open, the bathroom light still off, the space beneath the bed empty when I glance down.
Whoever broke in isn’t here anymore. As I straighten slowly, my gaze drifts back toward the desk. That’s when I notice the sticky note stuck to my desk.
It’s sitting right in the center of the wood surface, bright blue against the dark grain. I don’t have blue sticky notes, and I don’t know anyone who does.
The words are written across the paper in thick, uneven letters.
In lipstick.
Pink lipstick.
It looks exactly like the shade Livy wears.
My fingers close around the edge of the note as I lift it from the desk, my eyes scanning the message written across it.
Stay away.
I feel a psychotic grin spread across my face. Whoever left this thinks they really did something.
All they’ve done is put a target on their back, because I will call in every fucking favor I’m owed to find this fucker. If he thinks he’s going to put distance between Livy and me, he’s in for a fucking surprise.
I will never share what’s mine. In fact, I’m going to go get her right now.