36. Bailey
36
Bailey
Thursday
T he rest of the week went by far more quickly than I had expected. Nolan joined practice again on Tuesday, but his father never came to another practice. Which was good, because on more than one occasion, I had caught Lachlan searching for him. I had to remind him violence wasn’t the answer and was always relieved when he would show up to art class, relaxed and back to normal. Lachlan made it his mission every art class to draw on my arm. Beautiful, Brave, Captivating. Today’s was Inspiring. He never just wrote the word, though; he used his markers and drew them in an elegant scrawl, with little designs around them. Words on skin that sank into my soul. It was hard not to feel special by the gesture.
Chase wasn’t completely avoiding us, but he kept himself to the outskirts. He sat with me in English class and would chat on occasion. At first, asking how Nolan was and then making small talk about the team we were going against this Friday. It was an away game, so we were leaving school early to get on a bus to drive out there.
At lunch, Chase chose to sit with other players, which was fine. But whenever the team started talking about something, he didn’t openly reject speaking to us. I couldn’t figure out what line he was drawing and why. Was it really because I hadn’t told him what Hadley had done?
On Thursday, we sat down at the football table, as usual. Most of the team was already eating and arguing over what team would be making it to the playoffs this year in the NFL. For the most part, everyone was laughing, jostling one another, shouting over invalid disagreements.
Sam came in, walking to the table and straight to Chase. I wasn’t sure what it was that caught my attention, maybe the urgency in which he went to him. Chase leaned in as Sam whispered in his ear, and then his stormy grey eyes flipped up to me. His face got more furious by the second.
Sam held out his phone, showing something on it, and that was the final straw. Chase jumped up from the bench. “Where is he?” he nearly bellowed, still keeping his voice low. That got Ethan’s and Lachlan’s attention.
“Parking lot,” Sam said.
Chase leaned on the table, taking a few steadying breaths before grabbing his empty tray and smashing it against the corner of the table, splitting it in half. The whole cafeteria fell silent, their attention drawn to Chase’s outburst. With one final glance at me, Chase stalked out of the room.
I met Ethan’s and Nolan’s gazes briefly, but Lachlan was already up and following Chase and Sam out of the cafeteria.
By the time the three of us made it outside, we saw the first punch.
Across the parking lot, Chase now held the guy he’d just punched by the collar of his shirt. I didn’t know the guy’s name, but he was one of Chase’s friends. I had seen them hang out together often over the years. Lachlan grabbed a fuming Chase and pulled him off the guy.
“You’re fucking nuts!” the guy said, holding his now bleeding nose.
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Ethan asked. “Sam?”
“Derrick said he was with Bailey on Friday.” Sam pulled out his phone. “I said, prove it, and then he sent me this.” He flipped the phone around to show Ethan. I was close enough I could see it as well.
It was me, with the burlap sack over my head and words over my nearly naked body. And Derrick behind me, one hand cupping my breast while the other held me over my thong. He was grinning from ear to ear, like he’d won a prize.
“Oh, come on, like all of you haven’t been all up in that!”
Lachlan launched himself on Derrick before I could even come to terms with what was happening. The assault was fast, Lachlan landing three or four punches that put Derrick on the ground before he started kicking. Ethan hauled Lachlan off a groaning Derrick, cursing as he did so.
I was frozen. Why? Why were they doing this?
“B, take Lachlan inside,” Ethan ordered, but my ears were ringing. “Bailey! Take Lachlan inside.”
Nolan appeared, his hands cupping my face. “Bailey.”
My eyes fluttered up to him. “Why?” I whispered.
“You need to take Lachlan inside. If he gets caught, he will be in bigger trouble than us,” he said calmly. “Okay?”
I nodded. Lachlan. I had to help Lachlan. I reached out to Lachlan, who was still struggling in Ethan’s arms. “Lach, we need to go.”
His pupils were pinpoint as he snarled, trying to fight his way back to Derrick.
“Lachlan!” I tried to shout, but it came out strangled. It got his attention, all the same. “Please. Help me. I need to get out of here.”
He was breathing heavily through his teeth, blood on his cheek, but I knew it wasn’t his. Derrick hadn’t even had a chance to move before Lachlan had him on the ground. I reached out to him slowly, softly touching his hand before pulling him to me. He came willingly, keeping his eyes only on me. Ethan let him go.
I knew we couldn’t go back to the school, not when he was like this, so I pulled him to the sticks. Not once did he remove his eyes from me. I jumped when I noticed others in the sticks, but Lachlan slipped his arm around my shoulders and guided me to the tree where I had sat with him before.
He leaned against it, still standing. We were far enough from others that they couldn’t see or hear us. “Do you have any weed?” I asked, running my hands through my hair and pacing.
“For me or you?” he joked, but I could tell his pupils were still pinpoint, his hand twitching, and he was grinding his teeth.
“What were you thinking?” I snapped at him. He didn’t react, just watched me. “What if they find out? What if they take you away? What if I have to go through another year without you?” I was becoming hysterical, tears slipping free. “Why would you do that? Why would Chase do that?”
Lachlan pushed off the tree, slipping his hand to the back of my neck, his other hand on my waist as he pulled me in close, pressing his forehead against mine. “The fact that you don’t see yourself as worthy of being protected breaks me.”
My body sagged under his touch. “You can’t risk yourself for me. There’s nothing I can do to change what happened. You guys can’t ruin yourself over me.”
“Baby, can’t you see? We’re finding ourselves over you.”
I searched his eyes, looking for some truth to his words. His pupils were no longer pinpoint. As he held my gaze, they dilated, blown wide, as if he were getting high at the mere sight of me.
I tilted my head, brushing my lips against his, a feather of a touch and then a pause, asking for permission, waiting.
Lachlan’s lips tipped to a soft smile, the smile he only wore when he looked at me. The smile I was now dubbing my smile. “I want words. Ask me, baby.”
“Kiss me, please, Lachlan.”
His hand came up, cupping my jaw. “You ask me, and I will give you anything. I will give you everything .”
Lachlan’s lips were sweet and soft when they brushed against mine. I leaned forward, wanting more. He smirked before melting his lips against mine. Lachlan kissed me slowly, tenderly. He wasn’t just savoring me, he was making me savor him. His taste, his scent, his touch, he gave just as much as he took.
I reached under his shirt, grazing his skin and causing his muscles to twitch. I pulled back, afraid I had pushed him too far, but I remembered what he had said. I only had to ask. “I want to touch you,” I whispered breathlessly.
Lachlan let go of me, reaching up over his head and pulling his shirt off in one swoop. He held his arms out, palms up, as his eyes stayed on me. I stepped up to him, my fingers brushing along his arm until I got to his shoulders, sliding my hands down his chest. Lachlan took a slow, deep breath.
“Am I hurting you?” I asked. I pulled my hands away, but he grabbed my wrists, holding my hands against his chest.
“No. It feels so good.” He dipped his head down, capturing my lips, letting go of my wrists so he could hold me against him.
I allowed my hands to explore every part of his chest and stomach, pulling him in closer so I could run my fingertips down his back while he swept his tongue into my mouth again and again. I grew frantic with the kiss, getting lost in all of him, my fingers digging into the flesh of his hips.
Someone cleared their throat from behind me, and I clung to Lachlan, shielding him from whoever it was, a possessive emotion filling me. This was a side of him that was mine, I didn’t want anyone else to have it, I didn’t want to lose it. Lachlan chuckled, his chest vibrating beneath my ear.
“We should get to class. Coach will be wondering where we are,” Nolan said behind me. I relaxed and let go of Lachlan, so he could put his shirt on. “Sorry for interrupting.”
I bit my lip, unsure how he would react to me kissing another guy, but at this point, I should’ve known better. Nolan reached up and pressed on my chin until my lip was free. He lightly brushed my lip and smiled. “Even when swollen, they're still beautiful.”
Lachlan chuckled, and I looked away from the intensity of Nolan’s stare. My eyes fell to Lachlan’s chest and the tattoo above his heart. It was a black-and-white tattoo of two dandelions, the wishing ones we used to pick as kids and blow our wishes to the wind. In the drawing, a few seeds were drifting away.
I raised my hand up to it, and he paused in putting on his shirt. “May I?”
“Yes.”
“When did you get it?” I asked, tracing over it with the tips of my fingers.
“Last summer. It was a promise to myself.”
“What promise?”
“That I would set myself free. That I would let go and make my own wishes come true.”
My brows pulled in, and I tilted my head to the side. “And the blood? Dripping down the stems?” It was the only part in color—a deep maroon.
He pulled his shirt on as I dropped my hand. “The blood I’ve spilled, the blood I'm willing to spill, for those wishes to come true.”
“I brought your backpacks,” Nolan said. He seemed unphased by Lachlan’s tattoo. “I wasn’t sure if you needed help calming down.”
“Thanks. I’ve been clean this week. Urine testing is in a month. Besides”—Lachlan smiled at me—“I think I found a new vice.”
Nolan laughed and slipped his arm around my shoulder as we walked back to the school.
“What happened to Derrick?” I asked. “How are Chase and Ethan?”
“Chase and Ethan are in class, where they’ve been since they finished lunch in the cafeteria. If you want to know about Derrick, I will tell you, but if you would rather not know, then I don’t know anything, either.”
What he was telling me was that Ethan and Chase were safe and untouched, and if I wanted to continue my ways of feigning ignorance to events of last Friday, ignore the consequences of what had happened, then he would keep quiet about that as well. Nolan was starting to understand me in ways I wasn’t sure I understood myself. “I’m good. Lachlan and I, we’ve been at the sticks the whole time and didn’t hear the bell ring.”
Nolan nodded. “Which was why I left the cafeteria to get you guys.”
As we got to the school, Nolan reached for the handle of the door, pulling it open for us, just as the sound of sirens drew close. I froze and looked up at him, his blue eyes meeting my gaze and holding it. “We’ve got you, Bails.” The sirens got louder and louder until they sounded like they were in the parking lot.
“Always, babe,” Lachlan whispered, pressing his hand to the small of my back and ushering me into the school.
My only hope was that the noise of sirens wasn’t a new sound that would keep me up at night.
In gym, we were playing basketball. All week prior, we had been learning about the sport and common injuries, as well as how to read the standings. At the end of class, though, Coach pulled all the football players that were in the class aside.
“If you run into any other players today, tell them to come down to my office,” he told us as he pulled out a large box. He got to work rummaging around in it, finding specific names before handing out cloth bags.
We all pulled out letterman jackets. Mine had my name sewn on the back, along with my number, and the school mascot patch on the front. The material was thick, and the arms had that fresh new leather scent, the quality nicer than I figured the school could afford, especially with a dying program.
“Bailey.” Coach pulled me aside while everyone tried on their jackets. “This was very generous of your father. Could you give him this?” Coach handed me an envelope and two team ball caps. “We look forward to seeing him at tomorrow's game.”
“Yes, thank you.” I took everything from him. Inside the envelope were two season tickets to all our high school games. Dad bought all these jackets? For the whole team?
It was Ethan’s expression that warmed my heart. He held his jacket delicately, staring at it like it was the most prized thing he had ever seen.