18. Stone
STONE
Step-monster
Please call me! Getting things ready for your father’s bday!!
I let my head fall back against the wall and try to formulate a response. If I ignore her texts, in two days I’ll get a call from Dad. Down to the minute, actually. I could time it if I wanted to run another experiment…
Dad’s birthday isn’t for two months. He’d want me to come home, of course. The perfect family picture—you know, father, son, and holy Stepford wife—for everyone to witness.
The step-monster will throw some huge bash, like she does every year. She treats his birthday like the most holiest of holidays.
Gag.
I’m actually surprised that she waited until now to reach out.
So it’s with satisfaction that I shut off my phone and drop it to the kitchen table. Some of the guys have filtered through, but no one questioned why I decided to tackle my Personal Finance homework out here.
There are a thousand reasons loaded and ready to go for if they do ask. Reasons that have nothing to do with Wren Davis.
Archer plops into the chair across from me.
I glance up at him, then turn back to my laptop.
“Foster.”
I sigh. “Yes?”
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you so much, Arch.” I roll my eyes. “Is that all?”
“You’ve got circles under your eyes. When’s the last time you slept?” He leans forward, his brows furrowing. “When’s the last time you ate an actual meal?”
“I sleep.” It’s not quite the convincing argument I hoped it would be.
He chuckles. “Okay, man. It’s late. Normal people would be sleeping… now .”
“Well, I’ve got homework. Stuff to do. Grades to keep up, you know?” I shrug and try not to glance past him to Wren’s closet door.
“Hockey to play,” Archer adds.
I wave him off. “I’ll be ready for our game tomorrow.”
We’re playing the Bexley University Wolves at home to kick off our season. I’m not nervous. I feel like I’ve studied their tapes for hours. I know Theo, their team captain, is a force on the ice. And their goalie, Emery, has anger issues.
I look forward to pissing him off.
“It’s just—”
“I’m fine .” I glare at him. “It’s fine. Everything is under control.”
He nods slowly and pushes off from the table.
I go back to the paper I’ve been trying to write.
What kind of accounting class requires essays ?
The only saving grace is that it’ll eventually be useful.
I’ve got most of my initial signing pay from the New York Guardians sitting in a high-interest account until I’m ready to use it. That was Dad’s accountant’s idea.
I guess I could just rely on accountants, but I’d rather know myself.
The upstairs hallway light goes off. Its glow was visible down the stairs, in perfect view from where I sit. After a few more minutes, I close the laptop. My head was starting to droop.
I flick off the light and pile my stuff up, heading to wash up in the upstairs bathroom. Even if I’m sleeping on the floor outside Wren’s door for the rest of the year, I can’t let my hygiene slip.
It’s when I’m on my way back that a sound makes my blood run cold.
Screaming .
I break into a run and slam into her door. It rattles, but it doesn’t budge. The knob turns, but she must’ve flipped the deadbolt.
“Fuck,” I growl.
Her screams are going to haunt my fucking nightmares.
I punch the door. Nothing. I mean, nothing apart from the terrified noises she’s making. I throw myself against the door again. And again.
Until something cracks.
One more time, my shoulder throbbing, and the door snaps under my weight. I stumble in and find her in the darkness. My chest tightens. There’s just enough light behind me to see her.
She’s curled in a fetal position, tear tracks down her cheeks, eyes squeezed shut as she fights off an invisible attacker.
“Wren.” I drop to my knees beside her, squeezing her arm. “Wake up.”
She flails. Her hand catches my jaw, whipping my head to the side. If I wasn’t so freaked out, I’d be impressed by her backhand. But she needs help being yanked out of this dream, seemingly locked in it.
I grab both her upper arms and shake her violently. “Goddamn it, Wren!”
She wakes and scrambles backward. I go with her, catching her head before she can knock it into the wall. I don’t need her to be traumatized and concussed. Her gaze is all over the place, her breathing wild. She’s hyperventilating.
“Look at me,” I order.
She’s trembling. Her mouth opens and closes, but it’s just sheer panic behind her eyes. I cup her face with both hands, catching her tears on the pads of my thumbs.
“Focus on my eyes, baby.” Baby . I ignore that and hope she does, too.
I focus on my breathing. Her hands come up and squeeze my wrists. I exaggerate my inhales and exhales until she copies me.
“You’re safe.”
She finally seems to come back to herself. And when she registers me , she doesn’t push me away. No, she fucking drags me closer. She winds her arms around my neck and buries her face in my shirt, hiding herself.
My heart cracks.
She was in here fighting for her life in her dreams. Alone .
I can’t leave her. I scoop her up into my arms, ignoring how light she is. How reminiscent it is of the time I carried her to the tub—but then, it was out of spite. And maybe a little bit of lust. This is all concern.
The hallway light is on, and I squint at the brightness.
Archer and Sully stand in the doorway, eyeing the splintered pieces of wood. The deadbolt that ripped clean through the frame.
“Jesus Christ,” Archer mumbles.
I eye him, and Sully elbows him. They both move out of my way. Grant and Taylor made it out of their beds too. They seem more confused than anything.
“You good?” Grant mouths.
I nod.
Evan is at the back of the pack. “Wrenny.”
He steps forward like he’s going to take her from me. I bare my teeth at him, stopping him in his tracks, just as Wren shakes her head against me.
She doesn’t want him either.
He sees the look in my eye, and he’s as confused as me. Well, he can get fucked. They all can.
I don’t know how I went from hating her guts to… this .
She thought I went through her shit. It wasn’t me, and I highly doubt it was any of the other guys.
They respect her space, although there’s certainly been an air of confusion around the house in the last week or so.
Only Evan has caught me downstairs past midnight, but I assured him it was a one-time thing.
A total lie.
It’s her face I pictured while being held in the police station. Her name I cursed when my father scolded me. When he made sure I knew I had to do better, to be better.
I never told Evan what she did. I made something up to explain why I was hauled out of the lunchroom and later arrested—something my ego did not anticipate needing to brace against. The questions, the jokes.
Now there’s this.
Hurt flashes across his expression, but I ignore it and keep moving. Up the stairs, into the bedroom. I turn to close the door and find the rest of the guys in the hallway.
We don’t need a fucking audience—but they probably deserve an explanation.
I do, too.
My body aches. I’ve never thrown myself at something so hard—no check in hockey could compare to the jarring nature of trying to break down a door. A door Wren locked to keep me—and the world—out.
But she can’t keep me away. Not after tonight.
With her head tucked in the crook of my neck, her fingers curled in my shirt, the need to protect her grows stronger and stronger.
I kick the door shut and sit on the bed, resting her on my lap. I stroke her hair. “It’s just us.”
She shudders, her fingers tightening on my shirt before slowly relaxing. Her palm flattens. It’s amazing how much heat is transferred from her to me.
“I’m sorry, Stone.”
“For what?”
She lifts my hand and runs her thumb over my knuckles.
“Punching it didn’t work. I just rammed it until the lock broke.” I force a laugh to hide my sudden nerves. I’m not fifteen years old anymore, practicing how to talk to hot girls. “I’m fine…”
“But?”
There’s always a but. And in this case, it’s the elephant in the room. The reason for her screams.
“But I think I deserve the truth. You said someone was in your room. You freaked out about the picture I posted. Who is chasing you?”
I can’t even tell her how much I need her to be honest.
She slides off my lap and scooches backward, until she’s leaning against the wall. She takes my pillow and hugs it to her chest.
“I do owe you the truth.” She looks away. “But I don’t want you to hate me for it.”
I eye her. “I doubt I’d hate you for it.”
“You already hate me for…” Her jaw works. “For what I did in high school.”
“Just tell me the truth,” I reply. “Please, Wren.”
She rubs her eyes and nods. “Well, you know my dad is into some stuff.”
“Drugs.” I withhold the obvious duh .
“When I was a teenager, he discovered I had an affinity for…recipes.” She tosses the pillow aside and jumps to her feet. “Recipes of an illegal nature.”
Holy shit. “You were cooking his drugs?”
“Yeah. Well, you know. It’s hard to find someone smart enough to not get blown up in that line of work.” She tucks her hair behind her cheek and offers me a small smile. “But with that line of…work…comes other things. Mainly, bad men.”
“But your dad—”
“He couldn’t protect me twenty-four seven.” Her expression falls. “And sometimes I think he didn’t want to protect me from it all.”
This is ridiculous.
“You were cooking meth, and he didn’t even have the decency to keep you safe?”
She laughs. “Do you hear yourself, Stone?”
I stand, too. I run my hands through my hair. “This is only backstory, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So… I would go a few months with Dad, then something would happen. He’d get in trouble, or a neighbor would call the police, and I’d end up with the Mitchells.”
Evan’s family.
Wren clears her throat. “ Anyway , I cut ties for good when I left for college. Dad’s in prison, and it seemed as good a time as any for a fresh start.”
I narrow my eyes. She got away from her drug-dealing father… “Until I posted the photo?”
She goes to the window and pulls back the curtain, peeking out.
“Wren.”
“Yes, Stone, until you posted the photo. Then the phone calls started.”
A chill skates down my spine. She’s weirdly calm relaying all this information. Like she’s not really comprehending it, just reciting the facts.
“Your dad?”
“He found me,” she says on an exhale. “He wants me back in his operation.”
I already know it was his drugs that she planted on my truck in high school. I already know she came from a bad family. That she didn’t sleep when she was living there—or eat. She’d lose weight, she’d get dark circles under her eyes.
Evan would give her the car keys so she could nap.
I didn’t suspect…
“Did they hurt you?”
She glances over her shoulder at me. Her dark hair is loose. I want to run my fingers through it. To tug it.
Get your head out of the gutter .
“No more than expected,” she whispers.
I close my eyes. Everything in me goes white-hot, a burning rage like nothing I’ve felt before. I suspect I’m the one shaking now. I ball my fists and try to breathe, but it’s not really working.
“Stone.”
Wren needs protecting.
It isn’t a matter of question. I fucked up, and someone is clearly out to manipulate her back into her father’s operation—no, wait. Manipulate is too nice of a word. I have no doubt they’d drag her back.
“ Stone .”
Her fingers run up my arms, looping around the back of my neck. She pulls me down until her breath ghosts across my lips.
Someone was in her room. They found her room and went through it enough to show her that they were here.
We need fucking security cameras. Or a bodyguard to follow her around, or—
“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” she whispers. “Can you help me with that?”
I open my eyes.
She’s right there, her sometimes-green, sometimes-brown eyes so damn alluring, I have no doubt I could fall right into them if given the chance.
If you haven’t already .
“Are you propositioning me, baby?”
She bites her lip to hide her smile and slowly nods.
Oh, fuck. I’m a goner—and judging by the glimmer in her gaze, we both know it.