Chapter 18 Ash
The rest of the team had cleared the living room, and in the kitchen, Ava stood in one corner and Gray stood in the other, leaning against the fridge, his hands behind his back, casually watching Ava, waiting.
In between them stood Jett, hovering as if he didn’t know what side to choose.
Quinn stood outside the kitchen on the other side of the breakfast counter, but I could tell by the set of her shoulders that she was pissed.
“Who wants to tell me what that was?” I asked quietly as I looked between Ava and Gray.
“She didn’t want to be here, and honestly, I agree with her,” Gray told me without looking away from Ava. “She was involved because you wanted her here.”
Ava blinked, and then it was like a volcanic explosion. The girl erupted. “Are you fucking kidding me? You agree with her? The woman who you just called a desperate slut?”
“Whoa, what?” I asked as I too looked at Gray for an explanation.
“Gray!” Quinn gasped. “Why?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, she has a reputation, we all know it.
You wouldn’t have fucked her if she didn’t,” Gray directed at me with exasperation.
“I didn’t want her here, and you didn’t want to be there, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be here or part of this.
And she shouldn’t. Do you know she said that what was happening, the threat to Quinn, was not her problem?
” Gray pushed off the fridge angrily. “I mean seriously, not her fucking problem. Well, she isn’t fucking mine. ”
Quinn dipped her head at his words, and I winced at Red’s poor terminology.
“Okay, so, she could have worded it better,” I hedged, “but is she wrong?” Gray’s look of disdain was now directed at me. “If I hadn’t been at the apartment, would she even be on their radar?”
“No!” Ava wailed in despair. “It’s my fault. I wanted Mia watched, and I never thought about how scary this was for her.”
“Scary?” Gray demanded, incredulously.
“Stop being a dick,” Ava snapped. “You were totally out of order! You cannot call my best friend a slut. She isn’t.
Yes, she may have a reputation for being flirty, but she isn’t easy or whatever you want to call her.
Mia has fun and goes on dates, but she isn’t a whore.
She doesn’t sleep with tons of guys. You judged her wrongly and harshly.
And in this house, you’re a huge hypocrite. ”
“I don’t care,” Gray said with a half-shrug.
Ava ignored him. “We threw her into a situation she wasn’t prepared for. I moved here, Ash moved there, and no one listened to her about what she wanted. I’m as guilty as anyone in this room for strong-arming her, but you were a dick. Again.”
Gray’s face twisted into a scowl, and shaking his head, he looked away. “Personally, I think she’s done us a favor, going.”
“You’re so single-minded sometimes.” Jett spoke for the first time.
“You heard her say that it wasn’t her problem, and you went into attack mode.
We know, we all know, that this is a huge thing, probably a dangerous thing, coming for us.
For Quinn. But Mia isn’t us, Gray. She’s a girl who last week was hooking up with a guy after a party and then was thrown into a shitshow.
She had no idea what was happening.” Jett scratched his head as he thought about it.
“I admit, when she spoke earlier, I did the same, I went on the defense for Quinn, but . . . but Mia isn’t us. ”
“She told me her life had been turned upside down, and all I could think about was how it didn’t matter, she needed to be here with us.” Ava’s lip trembled.
“But Jett’s right, she isn’t us,” Quinn said softly. “And she isn’t malicious. She actually told me she felt awful for what I’ve” — she glanced at Gray — “for what we’ve been through. But she’s right, she’s nineteen, and my problem is not hers. Five or six weeks ago, she’d never even spoken to me.”
Gray held Quinn’s look, and it still made me uncomfortable with how open they were with each other, now that everything was out in the open and they were together. “Can we trust her to keep her mouth shut?” he asked Ava.
“Yes.” Ava looked to Jett for support. “She isn’t the bad guy here.”
“So, what? You saying I am?” Gray scoffed. “No. Nuh-uh, she dismissed Quinn’s safety like it was nothing.”
Ava jumped to argue, but Jett cut her off. “Mia may not have been on their radar before, but she is now. And that, we are responsible for.” He looked around the room. “All of us.”
“Ash can’t go,” Gray bit out tersely. “You know this.”
“It’s fine,” I muttered. “She hated me being there before, she’ll be delighted to see me back.”
“Ash, you can’t fucking go,” Gray snapped at me. “Use your fucking head, the one on your shoulders,” he bit out.
“Why can’t Ash go?” Ava asked as she looked around the kitchen. “What changed?”
“It’s nothing to do with you,” Gray retorted.
I saw Jett draw himself up, I heard Quinn groan, and I spoke before this morning became worse. “I’m bulimic.” My admission quietened the room. “I’ve suffered from it since I was fifteen.”
I saw her look me over, and I saw her confusion. “But . . .”
“I have a really good handle on it now. My family,” I gestured to the twins and then Quinn, “and friends support me, but sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed, even if I don’t know I feel overwhelmed, I have what they call an episode.
” I saw her brow furrow, and I explained.
“I binge eat and then I throw it all back up again.”
She looked stunned, and I appreciated the fact that Ava didn’t hide her honest reaction. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”
“No need. You didn’t do this to me, I did.” I gave her my usual smile.
“But what it means,” Gray spoke up, “is that right now, Ash can’t leave to go babysit your friend.”
“I can.” Looking at him, I held my hands up. “I know, I know I usually relapse within a day or two after an episode, but Quinn and I did good last night, didn’t we?” I asked her, hoping that she would back me up.
Quinn smiled at me and nodded. “He ate every bite, and he kept it down.”
“I did.” I hesitated. “Wait, how did you know?”
“Because she sat outside your door,” Gray told me gruffly.
“He sat outside your door.” Quinn shot him a glare. “Stop pretending you’re so cold all the time.”
“That’s why you went home?” Ava asked me as Jett pulled her into his side.
“No, I went home to forget about dropping the ball and blowing the game. The food kinda happened after I got there.”
“You didn’t blow the game,” Jett assured me. “You took a fair hit.”
“I think low blood sugar and something unbalanced in your meal plan didn’t help, but I will fix it,” Quinn told me with determination.
“I trust you,” I said and then realized, when her eyes widened slightly in surprise at what I’d said, at what I’d admitted, that I did. “But we do need to stop talking about me, as much as I am marvelous, and focus on how we coax Red back.”
“She won’t come back,” Ava said sadly as her head dropped onto Jett’s chest. “And I stayed here to yell at you.” She pinned Gray with a glare. “And she’s going to think I’m the worst friend ever.”
“She can’t stay in that apartment alone,” Quinn agreed. “So we need to fix this, but I don’t know how.”
“It’s technically a crime scene,” Jett mused. “Will she even be allowed back in?”
“I’m not apologizing,” Gray said quietly. “So, brother, you can take that calculating look you’re giving me off your face and shove it up your ass.”
“I don’t think she would be allowed back in yet.” Jett ignored his brother’s comment as he turned to me. “They may offer her a guest room in the main building. You know, the visitors’ rooms?”
“I don’t know how I even swing that.” I looked at my cousins as we thought about it. “I need ideas on how this works.”
“This sucks.” Ava was still shooting glares Gray’s way, which he was either ignoring or hadn’t noticed.
“We need to talk to Mia.” Quinn focused on Gray. “You can do it.”
“Queeny . . .”
“No, you overreacted. Apologize.” Her hand snapped up to stop him from talking. “Do it.”
“And then what?” Gray asked in exasperation.
“Then we convince Mia to tell the nice administration that her boyfriend is a permanent fixture to her side.” Ava smiled sheepishly at me. “And you fake a relationship.” Jett was nodding in agreement. “Or whatever is going on between you both, maybe you won’t need to fake it.”
“You’re right,” I said to no one in particular. “This does suck.”
* * *
Fake a relationship, they said. She likes you; it will be easy, they said. You know what wasn’t easy? Trying to find a redhead who didn’t want to be found.
Ava and I went back to the apartment, and I saw for the first time what damage had been done. We had to call maintenance to let us in. It was completely boarded up, and they told us that no one else had asked to be let in. It was Sunday, did we know that?
Ava looked ready to decapitate the guy, so I slipped him a fifty for his trouble as Ava picked through the apartment, packing up things for her and Red.
Red, who wasn’t answering texts or calls, didn’t seem to have spoken to anyone since she left the house this morning, and no one knew where she was. Ava was checking her phone so many times, I wasn’t sure why she kept putting it back in her pocket. It didn’t stay there.
“Ava, can you stop freaking out?” I asked her eventually when her pacing was pushing me to a breaking point.
“No.” She groaned out loud and then looked at me, her shoulders slumped with sadness. “I didn’t go after her, Ash.”
“None of us did,” I reasoned.
“Well, you at least tried. I was too busy fantasizing about removing parts of Gray’s anatomy and shoving them down his throat.” Her scowl was directed at the door where Jett and Gray were waiting outside. The apartment was small; we weren’t all fitting in here comfortably.
I hesitated. I looked Ava over. She was slim, but she wasn’t afraid of much. I mean, she had no trouble calling Onyx out. “You do know he won’t apologize?” I asked her quietly.
“I know.”
“But you’re going to keep hounding him?” I suspected, and her glare narrowed on the door.
“Did you hear the headboard comment?”
“I didn’t.” Shoving my hands in my jeans, I rocked back on my heels. “Bad?”
Ava snorted and resumed picking up clothing from the floor. She looked at me as she held up a bra. “How can I wear this again when I know some sleazy asshole’s had his hands on it?”
“I don’t think your underwear was what they were looking for, Ava.” I couldn’t stop my grin as she rolled her eyes at me before scrutinizing the bra.
“If I put it on, I’ll remember . . . this.” Ava looked sadly around the room, and I felt sorry for her and guilty at the same time.
“Leave it, we’ll get you new clothes,” I told her. Her suspicious look made me smile wider. “Seriously, you don’t need anything from here, clothing-wise anyway.”
Ava looked at me with excitement. “Shopping!”
“You look far too enthused,” I complained as I looked around the room, making sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“No, not for me. Mee! She’ll have gone shopping — it’s her form of therapy.” Ava darted past me as she headed for the door, glancing back at me once. “You don’t need to buy me underwear,” she added as she opened the door.
“Why the fuck is Ash buying you lingerie?” Jett demanded as he stood outside the door.
“Because she doesn’t want to wear the stuff that’s been rifled through and flung on her floor,” I told him reasonably. “Also, I never said I was buying her underwear, I said we will get her new clothes. That means you.”
Jett considered his girlfriend as he appraised her, reaching out to pull her toward him. “Lingerie shopping . . . I like the idea of that.”
“Ugh!” Pushing past him on the stairs, I joined Gray and the janitor, leaving them behind me.
“They totally make me barf,” I commented as the janitor headed to the stairs to close the apartment back up.
Gray’s sharp look made me regret my word choice, and I looked away from his heavy glare.
“I didn’t mean that,” I told him quietly.
I heard him start to speak, and then he stopped, considering his words. “Did I do this?” he asked me quietly. “Did I cause you to do this to yourself?”
“Quinn asked me the same thing. Feeling guilty, cousin?”
“About Quinn? No, never.” Gray frowned as he thought about it. “But if I did do this, I do feel guilty.”
“Wow,” I mocked him, and when he gave me that flat, unimpressed look he wore so well, I grinned.
“What’s happening?” Jett asked as he joined us.
“Gray said sorry for being Gray.”
Jett looked at his twin and started to laugh. “Has that happened before?” he teased his brother.
“You’re both dicks, just saying,” Gray told us as he failed to hide his grin.
“We need to go to Cardinal,” I told him. “Ava thinks Red’s gone shopping, so . . . you coming?” I asked him.
Gray shifted his feet as he looked at his watch. “Quinn’s alone.”
“And you want to go back to her,” Jett said in understanding.
“She’s in a house full of footballers,” Ava reasoned, and then she pursed her lips. “You’re right, she’ll need a break. She was going to do some batch cooking.” She tried so hard not to look at me, which made it more obvious.
“Ava, it’s okay. I don’t break,” I teased her gently.
“I’m sorry, I can’t imagine any of you being . . .”
“Pathetic?” I filled in for her when she paused.
“No! I was going to say vulnerable.” She reached over and hit my bicep. “Don’t speak like that about yourself, I won’t have it.”
“Okay, fighty pants,” I joked as I rubbed my arm. “Keep this up, and I won’t buy you new clothes.”
“Time’s marching on. When you find her, bring her back to the house,” Gray ordered.
“You’ll say sorry?” Ava asked him in surprise as she looked at Jett.
“Nope.” Gray started to walk back to the football house. “Just want you all under the same roof tonight.”
Ava’s hands were on her hips as she glared at his back.
“Relax,” Jett said as he hooked her under his arm, “that’s him saying he’s sorry.”
“He could try using his words,” she mumbled as we followed behind him.
Jett and I shared a look of amusement. “Ava, if Gray could use his words, half of this shit wouldn’t be happening,” I mock-whispered.
Gray turned around and pierced me with a look that made me lose the smile on my face.
“Shit. Gray, I didn’t mean—”
“Forget it.” Brushing it off, he turned away from me. “We all know it’s true.”
The walk to the football house and the car was quiet, and I wondered if we would ever return to a time when we were normal.