Chapter 27 Bash
BASH
My body reacts before my brain finishes processing what I’m seeing. My arm shoots back automatically, my hand landing against Livy’s waist because I want to make sure there’s no way in hell anyone can get close to her.
“Bash—”
“Stay behind me,” I say quietly.
She listens to me and doesn’t fight me on it, and I know that’s because she’s aware that her safety is my only concern. I take a few slow steps forward, my eyes scanning the room.
The living room is in disarray.
Couch cushions are scattered across the floor like someone threw them aside while searching for something. One of the armchairs is tipped halfway onto its side, and the lamp on the coffee table has been knocked over, its shade dented against the wood.
Livy and I heard nothing the entire night. When we came in from the library, I didn’t turn the lights on. I also had my girl in my arms, her legs around me and my mouth against hers the whole way to my room.
When did this fucking happen? Was it before or after we came back?
I walk toward the front door, studying the frame as I move. The wood is intact. No cracks, no splintering, no sign that anyone forced their way inside.
Which means whoever came in didn’t need to. I crouch slightly and examine the lock. It’s still perfectly intact, and the lock on this door isn’t simple. It’s one of the more intricate ones the school installs in the upper dorms.
Whoever got through it knew exactly what they were doing. I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Jeremy because I know Kalen is with Juniper.
The call starts, and behind me, Livy shifts slightly. I hear the soft sound of her steps moving across the floor and instantly reach back, grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer to me again.
“Stay with me, please,” I murmur.
She complies, but then she leans around my shoulder and points down the hallway.
I follow the direction of her finger.
Jeremy’s door is open, just barely.
Then I hear it.
A faint buzzing sound echoing down the hall.
I end the call immediately, and the noise stops.
“Go into my bedroom,” I say quietly. “Lock the door.”
She shakes her head and her hand wraps around my bicep instead, her fingers curling into the fabric of my sleeve as she looks up at me.
“I’m the safest I’ll ever be with you.” I lean down and press a quick kiss to her mouth before pulling her with me. Two fast strides take me back into my room. I open the drawer beside my bed and pull out my gun, checking it out of habit before turning back toward the hallway.
I hold my girl’s face in my hands, brushing my thumb lightly across her cheek before leaning down to kiss her again.
“Stay behind me,” I murmur softly. “I don’t know what we’re going to find.”
When I step into the hallway, she follows exactly where I told her to, just behind my shoulder. Jeremy’s door hangs open in front of us, and I pause there for a moment, listening.
I take a slow breath, lift my foot, and kick the door all the way open.
It slams hard against the wall.
I step inside immediately, my gun raised as my eyes sweep the room.
Empty.
Jeremy’s phone is lying in the middle of his bed, vibrating against the rumpled sheets. The blankets are twisted like he’d been sleeping there, but the bed is otherwise untouched.
No Jeremy, but there’s three of his neckties tossed on the floor.
My jaw tightens as I lower the gun slightly, and then I hear voices echo from the front door. I spin around instantly, grabbing Livy and pulling her behind me again as I raise the gun back up.
Three figures step into the doorway.
I see Kalen first, then Juniper, and finally Sprinkles who lets out a yawn. I can only assume Kalen slept at Juniper’s last night, and the dog is annoyed that they woke her up to come over here this early.
My shoulders relax just enough for me to lower the gun, but my eyes keep moving between them and the wrecked living room behind us.
“What the hell happened here?” Kalen asks, and I hold my hands up as if to say I don’t fucking know, man.
Livy shifts again behind me, and I move her to stand at my side after I put the safety on my gun.
“Where’s Jeremy?” Kalen asks.
I run a hand through my hair, glancing toward the hallway again.
“When we got up this morning,” I say, “the front door was open. Doesn’t look tampered with, by the way. Jeremy’s door was open too, and his phone was still in his room.”
Kalen’s eyebrows lift.
“Looks like he left in a hurry,” I continue. “Livy and I were here late into the early morning. Awake for most of it. We didn’t hear a damn thing.”
Kalen throws his head back.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters and drags a hand down his face. “What the fuck is happening now?” It’s rhetorical, but I get it. It’s been one thing after another.
“No chance it was two people stalking Livy, right?” Juniper says, and I want to say no. All signs point to Nathan being behind everything that happened.
I don’t get to articulate that because a figure appears in the doorway.
Jeremy Bennett, the infamous number nine.
He looks like he hasn’t slept much. His hair is completely wrecked, his shirt is wrinkled, and there’s dirt on the knees and shins of his jeans like he’s been outside.
But despite all of that, he’s grinning. It’s a huge, ridiculous smile stretched across his face. He stands there in the doorway like he didn’t just walk into the middle of a crime scene.
Kalen doesn’t give Jeremy much time to process it because he’s already barking at him, “Where the fuck have you been?”
Jeremy looks over at him like the question caught him off guard. “What?”
“The door was open,” Kalen snaps, gesturing behind him toward the entryway. “And your room looks like a fucking tornado went through it.”
Jeremy glances down the hallway, then back at us.
“Oh.”
The word comes out slowly.
Then he shrugs.
“Yeah,” he says casually. “We had a break-in, and I think I forgot to pull the door shut when I was leaving.”
“No shit,” I say, my voice flat. “Who was it and where the hell did you go?”
Jeremy drags a hand through his hair like he’s trying to decide how much of the story he wants to tell us, and I just don’t have the patience for him right now.
“You know that girl Soph who works at the pub?” he says finally. “Really pretty black hair, wears it in two braids? Fine ass figure, I mean she–”
“You think she’s fucking pretty, we get it, Jeremy. Did she bring rabid dinosaurs in here last night? Because that’s the only thing that would make any of your babblings have a point at the end.”
“Anyway,” Jeremy continues. “I’d never seen her before last night.
I guess because I’m always hiding out when we go there.
Fuck, she’s something. Absolutely stunning.
I couldn’t stop watching her.” His eyeballs are literal fucking hearts.
If I thought Jeremy was annoying when he didn’t want a girlfriend, that’s nothing compared to what we’re dealing with now.
He can’t keep a coherent sentence without circling back to how much he likes this girl he saw one time.
I frown at my own thoughts because I don’t have any room to talk in that department.
But that was different. Livy is my soulmate, this Soph girl is some random girl.
Jeremy’s gaze flicks between all of us like he’s trying to make sure that we’re listening to what he’s saying.
“Her sister was the one Livy found down by the water, and she thought it might’ve been one of us guys that did it.” Jeremy grimaces. “She’s really worried about catching whoever did it.”
Kalen huffs and says, “We’ve got a lot to catch you up on, but long story short, it was Nathan. He also tried to kill Livy and might be her brother.”
Jeremy pulls a face like he thinks Kalen is pulling his leg.
I stare at him, but Kalen is the one who speaks, “Who the fuck broke in here?”
“I told you. Soph,” he says her name like a giddy schoolboy. “She was so cute, trying to tiptoe around and not wake anyone up.”
“What the fuck?” I say. “Did you kick her out? Why are you telling this fucking story like you’re leaving shit out?”
Jeremy waves a hand dismissively. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
Kalen looks like he might actually strangle him, but Juniper presses against his side, looking up at him. He looks down at her and lets his shoulders fall, bringing his hand up to cup the back of her head.
“Did you fight her? Is that why everything is all torn up? Is she okay? Like I know this is really bad she broke in here, but she’s such a nice person.
She’s genuinely just…?” Livy asks, and I can hear the panic in her voice.
“Ronan was being really weird with me the other day, asking to come in the bathroom while I showered and stuff, and she chased him off. I don’t think she would have come in here if she didn’t really think she was right. ”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” I snap, but Livy brings her hand up to my chest and looks at me pleadingly. She’s genuinely worried about her friend. I pull my lips into a thin line, but otherwise let it go.
But I am going to fucking kill him and bury him in those stupid boat shoes he wears all the time.
Jeremy looks around the room like he's trying to figure out what to say. “Soph didn’t find anything, obviously because we wouldn’t do something like that.
But she caught me watching her and freaked out.
I was trying to calm her down, which was just making it worse.
Girls don’t like when you pick them up in one arm, FYI.
No one told me that. Anyway, I let her tie me up so she could ‘escape’.
” He uses air quotes around the word escape.
Kalen’s head snaps toward me and then back to Jeremy. “Are you fucking with us?”
Jeremy shrugs.
“Relax, she got home fine. No one was hurt. She knows it wasn’t us, and now we can tell her it was what’s his face. He’s dead, I’m assuming, right? So problem solved.”
Kalen’s eyes widen. “Are you not at all concerned that some girl, presumably with no locksmithing skills, was able to just walk in here and none of us would have known?”
Jeremy leans one shoulder against the doorframe like he’s explaining something incredibly reasonable. “I mean that wasn’t really at the top of my list of things to care about once I saw her,” he says.
My patience snaps.
“Why the fuck not?” I snap back. “She can’t just be wandering around breaking into shit around here. If she picked the wrong dorm, someone could have hurt her.”
Jeremy’s expression hardens slightly. “That won’t happen.”
I take a step forward before I can stop myself. I’m going to knock him out and then I’m going back to bed with my boobie pillows and my girlfriend.
This is the most horrendous conversation I’ve ever been a part of and I’ve heard Winter tell Tristan he’s a good boy.
Ick.
I need to be sedated. The universe gives me one magical night and now I’m dealing with this shit.
Livy must sense what I’m feeling because her hand lands against my chest, holding me back with no force at all. She knows I’ll do whatever she wants.
She tilts her head slightly as she studies Jeremy, I think trying to feel out why he’s so fucking chipper when everything he’s told us is a shitshow. There was not one good thing about this twisted tale he’s spewed out.
“Was she okay when she left? Should we check on her?” My girl asks.
Jeremy’s grin returns instantly. It spreads across his face like he’s been waiting for someone to ask.
“Oh, she’s fine. I untied myself as soon as she left and followed her home. I’ve been out all night looking after her,” he says.
Kalen groans. “At least she knows it wasn’t us and she had the wrong room.”
“Yeah, that would be really awkward because I’m going to marry her.” Jeremy says, clapping Kalen on the shoulder and then looking at me. “I think you two should decide who’s going to be my best man. It’s not fair to make me pick between my two best buds.”
Juniper makes a strangled sound, and Jeremy ignores it completely.
“She doesn’t go to school here. I researched her last night when I was sitting outside her house,” he continues proudly.
“I know where she lives. Her full name— Her parents are super nice, they volunteer at the animal shelter, which is sweet. Her sister is older than her, but you wouldn’t know that if you met them.
Soph is very responsible and helps take care of her parents, but she won’t have to worry about that for long now that she has me. ”
“We need to get her a plane ticket to the fucking moon so she can be far away from here. You sound insane,” Juniper says, swatting her hand at Jeremy.
Jeremy’s head snaps toward her and says, “No one is sending her anywhere. She’s mine now to protect, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“You know this actually tracks,” Kalen says, flopping down on the sofa next to Sparkles who was sound asleep.
She juts her little face out at him, squinting her eyes to show she’s displeased he woke her up.
Before he continues, Kalen pulls Juniper down to sit on his lap.
It doesn’t appear to be intentional, but as he settles her in, his hand slides up, cupping her breast and pulling her back against his chest. Livy’s eyes flash to mine as if to ask me if I saw what she saw, and I just shrug because they’ll be bickering in the next ten minutes anyway.
“Every woman minus, Juni and Livy, on this campus…” Kalen trails off, laughing a little before he says “Including my psychology professor wants in your pants and you pick the one girl who can’t stand rugby players, broke into your fucking home and tied you up and left you there. ”
Jeremy straightens slightly, the humor gone from his expression as he turns to head back to his room. “Watch how you talk about my wife,” he calls over his shoulder.
“She’s not your fucking wife!” Kalen yells.
Jeremy’s door slams shut, and all we hear is a muffled, “yes she is!”