Chapter 27 Ava
I was quietly confident that I shouldn’t be there in the bathroom, which was actually in someone’s bedroom, but as I cooled down, I did my best to calm down.
His malice when he looked at me was unnerving.
Gray had been cold, and Ash, although he had been as unnerving as the twins, had at least been decent enough to move to let us pass.
I knew with certainty that there was no way Jett or Gray would have moved.
The three of them were dressed similarly, but each stood out.
Their family was definitely blessed in the genes department, shame they had crazy in their DNA.
I wet my lips as I contemplated the window.
Dramatic much, Ava? I thought he was just a guy?
I was nodding to my inner self that he was just a guy when there was a light knock on the door.
“You okay?” Shane asked me with concern. “You’ve been in there a while.”
Great, now he thought I was pooping. As I threw the door open with gusto, the poor guy stepped back in alarm.
“Sorry, I needed to cool down.” I grinned, and I knew it was manic, so the wary look he gave me was warranted, causing me to dial it down a bit, and I watched him visibly relax.
“That’s okay.” His easy smile was calming, and he glanced over his shoulder to the main bedroom door, which was half closed. “I just don’t think we should be in here longer than we need,” he confessed, and if possible, his contrite look made him cuter.
“Noted.” I checked I’d turned the tap off in the bathroom and then headed to the door. “Let’s go.” When we were in the hallway, Shane tugged at my hand, pulling me to a stop. “You okay?” I asked him as he walked around me and stood in front of me.
“Yeah, there’s just no rush to go back down . . . is there?”
Oh. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Did he mean one of the rooms or stay here? “You want to stay up here, in the hall?”
“Yeah.” Shane looked around the empty hall. “It’s quieter and cooler, and now the football team’s turned up,” he rolled his eyes, “we’re never going to get near the drinks again.”
Go downstairs and meet the wrath of the triad with their resident bitch, or stay up here and hide with a nice, safe guy, who wasn’t pushing for me to go into a bedroom? Hmm, the decision was a tough one.
“I’m good to stay up here and talk,” I told him as I considered the wooden floor and whether I should sit on it.
“You think it’s safe to sit?” I asked with a smile, and as he thought about it, he bent down to look closer.
Which is how I saw Jett stride up the stairs, his eyes already locked on mine, his dark look sending a shiver down my spine.
If I were honest, my reaction wasn’t solely from fear.
Shane straightened when he felt the foreboding presence behind him, and with a glance at me in confusion, he turned to see who was behind him.
“Oh hey, was I in the way?” Shane asked as he looked around the wide hallway in which Jett could easily have moved around him.
Jett’s eyes flicked to mine, and then his attention was back to Shane. “Need a minute with her,” he told him.
Her? Asshole.
“Oh.” Shane was looking at me curiously, and I knew I was scarlet. “I didn’t know you were friends.”
My strangled laugh caught both their attention, and Shane took a step toward me. “You okay?” he asked me with concern.
Jett raised an eyebrow, daring me to say otherwise.
“Yeah, absolutely.” I nodded, not making eye contact with either of them. One could see right through me and the other, well . . . I didn’t want to lie to his face. “I’m really thirsty, would you mind getting me some water?”
“Of course.” Shane smiled, and his hand ran down my arm in a familiar way, which caused Jett to narrow his eyes and my cheeks to burn brighter. “You sure you’ll be okay?” When I nodded, he stepped back. “Meet you back downstairs?”
“Absolutely, I’ll be right behind you.”
Jett didn’t have to speak. His face told me I may have been hasty with my assumption on the speed of this next conversation.
Shane lingered for a moment more before the Saints’ number eight turned his head and stared right at him. The message to move along was loud and clear. With a gulp, Shane dashed down the stairs.
“Nice,” I snarked as I watched Shane’s retreating back.
“How’s your Instagram?”
Embarrassment flushed my face this time. “Haven’t checked.”
“Hiding?” The smirk was back, and he looked far too pleased with himself.
“Never.” Liar.
“I told you not to do it,” Jett said casually. Almost too casually, as if he thought being friendly toward me was going to ease my nerves. Well, he didn’t know me that well.
“Well, thank Christ I don’t have to listen to you.”
The friendliness vanished as quickly as it had come. Hard blue eyes traveled over me before he made eye contact again. “Don’t you?”
“No.” Defiantly, I met his stare, Quinn’s words from earlier in my head.
“We’ll see.” Jett leaned into me, and I pressed myself up against the wall, my breath leaving my body in a rush in my haste to get out of his space. With that smirk in place and humor dancing in his eyes at my reaction, he pushed past me as he entered the room I had used the bathroom in.
My hand grabbing his arm surprised him, and well it should, because it shocked the hell out of me.
“Wait.” My voice cracked, and I couldn’t take my eyes off my hand curled around his forearm.
“You don’t need to be a dick. You don’t need to try to intimidate me or send your psycho girlfriend to give me veiled threats.
” With confidence I wasn’t feeling, I looked up at him.
“I didn’t do this to you, but I told you, I’m willing to tell whoever you need about what I remember if it helps you. I’m willing to help you.”
Jett’s hand covered mine, plucking my hand off his arm and dropping it like it personally offended him. “Who were you with?”
“When?”
He looked over my shoulder, jerking his head toward the stairs. “Boyfriend?”
“Shane?” I looked toward the stairs. “No.”
“Fuck buddy?”
My head snapped back at him in disbelief. “No, what is wrong with you?”
“Got drugged, fucked a girl, got suspended from football.” Jett said it so matter-of-factly without a flinch, but I did at the brutality of his words. “What’s wrong with you?”
Asshole. “Got wasted, fucked a guy, got threatened.” I could play his game even if I didn’t match his coldness.
Jett smirked as he leaned forward, and this time, I didn’t move away from him. “Who said it was a threat?” With a low chuckle he went into the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
I hurried down the stairs, not at all surprised to see Gray standing at the foot of the stairs, blocking anyone from going up. His eyes met mine, and I looked away as he stepped aside, and I rushed back to the main room.
They said there was safety in numbers? Well, I needed numbers because I did not feel safe.
Quinn had unsettled me with her little speech earlier, Gray looked menacing, and Jett .
. . well, he confused me. Because while he completely intimidated me, he also made my pulse throb in anticipation any time I was near him.
Our hook-up in his bathroom still made no sense to me.
I mean, we went from freezing to hot to cold again within the space of twenty-four hours.
Twenty-four hours? Twenty-four seconds felt more like it.
“Did you see who’s here?” Mia asked me quietly as she handed me a beer.
“Hard to miss,” I replied as I purposefully turned my back on the Devils whom I could see.
“We can go, we don’t need to stay,” she assured me with a quick smile. I looked at Alex, who had been talking to someone else. With a fist bump to the guy, he turned back to Mia, his arm slipping around her waist. I said nothing, but I noted Mia wasn’t stepping out of his touch.
“I’m not running from him.”
“Who’s him?” Alex had heard my comment as the music dipped into the next song. “Did you ditch Shane?” he asked me curiously as he looked around the room.
“No, I was in the bathroom, and he said he’d meet me down here.” Over a week of knowing Jett Santo, and I’d become a habitual liar.
“There he is,” Mia said as she pointed over to Shane, who was talking to Wade and Bea. Finally, the numbers I needed to stay away from shithead and crew.
“My girl!” Wade greeted me with a hug, which I returned before hugging Bea. “This place is packed, music’s shit though. I’ll be back. Why don’t you all head outside, get us some air.” With a kiss to Bea’s cheek, he went off in search of whoever was in charge of music.
“How are you, Ava?” Bea asked me with a smile as she watched Wade make his way through the crowd before we moved our little group outside, and Wade was right; it was better, not as noisy but still crowded.
“Good thanks.” Another lie. “How are you? I love your outfit.” Bea had on a tight black pencil skirt, a butterfly clasp elastic belt, and a red and white gingham short-sleeved top with a sweetheart neckline and tiny red heart buttons. It was perfectly retro and fit her slender figure like a glove.
“I made this top in class, and I’m telling you, Ava, I thought I’d given myself at least a half inch more room than I have. These girls are ready to greet the world if I’m not careful!”
With a glance down at the cleavage on display, I laughed. “No dancing for you,” I agreed with a wink.
As Bea told me what else she had been making, I could feel him behind me.
Self-consciously, I looked over my shoulder quickly, and there he was.
Leaning against a low wall in the yard, a bottle of beer in his hand, listening to Quinn, who was standing close to him but not touching.
Were they together? Because if I’d hooked up with her boyfriend, well, I kind of understood her dislike of me.
Jett’s eyes flicked my way and held. Jesus. He was intense.
“Ava!”
The loud shout in my ear made me jump. “What?” I turned back to look at Mia, who was shaking my arm.
“Ava, look!”