Chapter 35 Ash
When I came home on Sunday, Red was gone.
Ava said that she needed space and left not long after she ate her waffle, so Jett and Ava took her home.
I knew they must have all talked it out because Jett actually drove her home.
Quinn said Mia insisted on going down to the basement to see Casey and apologize before she left.
Not knowing why she was apologizing to the freshman, I went down and asked him. Seemed the Shane prick had been a dick to them, too.
I was in my room pacing when Quinn came in.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“What’s up?” I asked, still getting used to the casualness between us. I liked it, it felt . . . normal.
“Well, I’m trying to study, and your thinking is distracting me,” she said honestly as she sat on my bed. Her hand landed on Red’s top. “Should I ask?”
“Did you see her last night?”
“It was pretty hard to miss, she was really upset.” Quinn folded the top in her hands.
“No, not the crying.” I reached over and plucked the top out of Quinn’s hands. “Did you see this? What is this? Is it a top? Is it a bra? Is it even suitable for wearing outside?”
Quinn pressed her hands to her mouth as she watched me. “Ash, did you just rewind time?” She let out a peal of laughter at my bemused expression. “It’s not the nineteen forties — she can wear what she likes.”
I shook my head. “No, you see, you’re wrong.” I held the top up again. “She can’t wear this.”
“You can’t dictate what your girlfriend is going to wear,” Quinn told me seriously.
“Yes, I can.” I tossed the scrap of clothing to the side. “There’s no way in hell Gray would let you out in that.”
“Let me?” Quinn lost her humor. “Gray doesn’t let me do anything. He is not in charge of me.”
“Can you stop being all women’s lib and just let me have this?
” I asked as I stopped pacing. Quinn made a show of closing her lips and mock locking them.
“Thank you.” I resumed pacing. “Why can’t I kick his ass in?
” Quinn pointed at her lips, and I ignored her.
“I mean, he touched her when she didn’t want to be touched, isn’t that assault? ”
I stopped pacing and snatched the top off the bed, turning it over in my hands. Quinn raised her hands.
“And he’s a dick. Did I tell you he was a dick?”
Quinn nodded.
“Isn’t he the one who was sniffing around Ava?” I asked, and once again Quinn nodded.
“See, dick.” I picked up the top. “He needs his ass kicked. Gray should never have stopped me looking for him.”
“Can I speak yet?” Quinn asked.
“Yeah, unless it’s to say he isn’t a dick.”
“Okay, you need to calm down.” Quinn stood and, reaching over, took the top off of me. “I think I may keep this safe for Mia, you know, before you tell her half of what you just said to me.”
Grumbling, I made my way to my desk. “Fine.”
“Are you going to study?” Quinn asked at the doorway.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Calm down,” she cautioned as she closed the door. “She’s fine, you just need to have a conversation with her.”
I stared at my computer screen for a few minutes. Did Queeny call Red my girlfriend? Staring at the door, I thought about it. Everything was fucked up.
Picking up my phone, I considered it.
Me: Are you home?
I waited for a while. Finally, it beeped.
Red: Yeah, I feel like I haven’t slept in a week
Smiling, I read her message. She had been so wrung out after her breakdown. When she’d just given up and sat on the ground not giving a fuck, it had actually been a little bit funny.
Me: Okay
Red: Thank you for looking after me and letting me sleep with you, again
Rubbing my thumb across my lower lip, I thought of all the possible answers. You’re welcome. Bland. You’re always welcome. Sheesh, sounded like a tagline for a grocery store. Anytime. Sounded like I was desperate.
Me: Don’t worry about it
Smooth. Epically smooth. I groaned in disgust at my lameness. Turning the phone over so I couldn’t see the screen, I opted to work on my assignments. I was actually engrossed in a line of code when Jett walked into the bedroom.
He was wearing all black, his bandanna around his neck. Gray hovered behind him.
“You ready?”
I didn’t know what for, but they were dressed for Mayhem. Five minutes later, we were leaving the house.
“Look what I found.” Gray grinned at me suddenly as we parked in a residential street in Cardinal.
“The meaning of life?” I jested as I took his phone from him. My eyes flew to his. “Please tell me it’s my birthday.”
“You get a two-for-one special.” Jett deadpanned as he pulled his bandanna over his face.
“But you still need to share,” Gray warned me from the back seat of the car. “Nothing is ever a coincidence,” he said in disgust.
I looked over at the house, which was a simple single-story with a Spanish-style roof. The timber features looked weathered and worn, the yard unkept.
Shane Lowe did not live on campus; he lived in Cardinal with his brother. His older half-brother, Randy, who recently became unemployed.
“That’s why he was at the bar,” I realized. “To see his brother play in a new band.”
“It seems so,” Jett agreed. “Onyx can’t find anything on the janitor in regard to the other thing, so he had no choice but to let him go.”
“That’s disappointing.” I turned to Gray. “Sorry.”
“As long as I know that most of them are locked up, I’m sleeping at night,” Gray said gruffly.
“Amen to that, brother,” Jett murmured. “Now, in and out, quickly.”
“Not too quickly.” Gray shared a look with me. “We have some time.”
With eager anticipation, we got out of the car.
The three of us made our way around the side of the house to the back door. I could hear the TV. I had been waiting for this, to get my hands on this fucking janitor. The fact that he was the brother of the guy who had marked and bruised Red made it all the more worthwhile.
Both of them were in the living room, drinking beer, watching the game. We didn’t announce ourselves; we didn’t do like they do in the movies or on TV, and have a long monologue of why we were there.
We beat the shit out of them in their living room.
Plain and simple. They touched what didn’t belong to them.
They touched without consent and purposely tried to intimidate our girls.
For that, they paid the price. It was disappointing that neither of them really fought back, but probably a good thing as Gray’s hand was just getting better.
I didn’t care too much about my hands as I repeatedly punched Shane in the face.
While Gray and I took care of the brothers, Jett smashed some of the house up to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.
A robbery gone wrong. Who’d really smashed up Red’s apartment?
When Shane and his brother were both on the floor, bleeding and groaning, Jett pointed at his watch. Gray delivered another boot into the side of the older guy, Randy. I searched the bedrooms, and picking up their laptop, I joined the twins at the back door, and as quietly as we came in, we left.
Back at the house, I opened the laptop and passed their shit security.
Who really uses “password” as their password?
Idiots, that’s who. Within a short time, I was on a call to Onyx.
The janitor may be innocent of being involved with the baby trafficking, but Shane wasn’t.
His girlfriend in freshman year dropped out suddenly.
It didn’t take much investigating on my part to find out why.
“We were right.” I sat back and looked at Gray. “They have eyes and ears inside the campus to find the girls and prey on them at their weakest.”
“You should have broken something,” Gray growled as he read what I was sending Onyx.
“We could go back?” I suggested.
“We lay low.” Jett was reading on his phone. “Cops are there.”
“And Onyx?” Gray asked him.
“Already sending the stuff as an anonymous tip.”
We sat in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Gray looked up and met my look before he turned to his brother. “Is it over?”
“I think it is,” Jett answered.
We all let the same breath, because it felt like the room felt lighter.
“What do we do now?” I asked as I felt the knot in my stomach, which I seemed to have carried around with me for too long, start to unravel.
“Move on?” Jett spoke quietly as he watched Gray, who gave a simple nod.
“Time to let the healing start,” Gray said as he rubbed his hand over his face.
“And win championships,” I said with a grin. Jett and Gray shared a smile, and I saw the weight lift from each of my cousins.
* * *
Training on Monday morning in the rain didn’t feel so bad when you knew you were training for a conference championship game. Gray had been declared ninety-seven percent fit, and he and Coach were taking it.
It felt good to have the full team at practice.
It actually felt okay to listen to Gray bitch about Quinn wanting to go back to her apartment now that the threat was eliminated. He was trying to be supportive, but in truth, he wanted Quinn at the house where he was.
When I suggested he move to Quinn’s apartment, both he and Jett looked at me in disbelief.
“Dude, no. He’s my twin,” Jett said as if I had somehow forgotten the fact over the last nineteen years.
“And Queeny’s his girlfriend,” I rationalized.
They were both looking at me in mingled surprise and horror.
“You guys can’t live together your whole lives,” I said with a laugh.
My laughter faded when I saw the look between them.
“You both have issues.” I floundered. That wasn’t the right word. “Dependency issues.”
We were walking to lunch, and my cousins were quiet beside me. “Will you manage three hours without each other this afternoon?” I teased as I stopped outside the cafeteria.
“Dick.”
“Pussy.” Gray shoulder-blocked me on his way past.
Chuckling, I followed them in, and we made our way to the back table. Quinn had cooked most of yesterday, making batch meals, and each of us had our prescribed meal. I would actually miss her not being in the house.