Chapter 8
ANDREW
If I managed to survive the day without strangling Brodie with his own shoelaces, it’d be a goddamn miracle.
The smug fuck was basically glowing, as though he weren’t already the college golden boy.
Somehow, between them hashing out secrets from their past, and Brodie making his relationship with Evelyn public, he had a whole new radiance about him.
Taking every opportunity to openly lay claim to our brunette minx.
My breaking point was toward the end of our Econ of Crime lecture, with Professor Casanova himself, when I caught Brodie sliding a hand up Eve’s shirt. That in itself would have been irritating enough, but the breathy little moan she let out when he tweaked her nipple?
Nope, that was too far.
The pencil in my hand snapped in half, and Brodie just smirked my way. Smirked, like he knew how tightly wound up I was, having to sit there and watch him fondle the woman who’d shaken me to my very core just a few days ago.
She didn’t even seem to realize how badly she’d burrowed under my skin, and every indifferent glance from her made me feel physically ill.
This was all going so very wrong, and the lack of control was sending me spiraling on a daily basis.
I’d barely slept since we’d fucked, and last night as I lay there wide awake listening to Ethan soothing her through nightmares, I’d actually hyperventilated so hard I’d blacked out.
“Everything okay, Mr. Knightsbridge?” Eth asked from the front of the class, his expression tight with frustration and anger that likely matched my own.
This couldn’t be easy for him, watching Brodie parading around with Eve like they were newlyweds.
Ethan met her first, kissed her first, fucked her first. Only he had no grounds to claim her publicly.
He must be sweating just as hard as I was.
Though, when his gaze shifted to the purple-haired temptress herself, his whole face softened.
Fucking hell, he was in love with her.
“No,” I replied, gathering up my things in a rush and dumping them into my bag without any care—very unlike me—before standing up. “I need to go.”
That was all the explanation I gave, and honestly more than I’d have given any other teacher basically ever.
But Eth wasn’t just a professor, he was a big brother to all of us.
Even with his and Connor’s estrangement and resentment, he’d never wavered from that role for the whole lot of us.
His appointment as a teacher in Meadowridge wasn’t just a coincidence.
It lined up with the four of us enrolling.
“Andrew…” Ethan said, more quietly, as I hurried past him. But I wasn’t hanging around. Whatever he wanted to say, it shouldn’t be said in front of the whole fucking class, so I continued out of the lecture theatre and made a hard beeline for the nearest restroom.
The second I got inside, I gagged and backed out again. The cleaners needed to be fired, because that was bad.
“Fuck,” I breathed out loud, sweeping a shaking hand through my hair. The assault on my nostrils had served to shake a little of the mounting panic attack though, so that was something.
“Hey, Knightsbridge!” a familiar voice called out as I strode out of the building into the sunshine.
I sucked down a deep breath, trying to steady myself as one of my “friends” jogged across the perfectly manicured lawn with…was that my ex-girlfriend wiping her mouth and fixing her hair beside the oak tree?
“Aren’t you usually in class with Professor Sullivan at this time?” Robert York—third cousin to the King of England—asked with a nervous smile, holding far too much eye contact. Dickhead was legit royalty and couldn’t lie to save himself.
My lips pursed, and I gave him a hard look before shifting my gaze to Laura, who was swaying her hips as she strode over to us. “Usually, yes. Were you two having a nice chat?”
Robert had the decency to flush with embarrassment and panic, but Laura just smirked and licked her lips.
When had she become so…repulsive? Was this new, or had she always been this distasteful?
As soon as the thought entered my brain, I dismissed it with a self-deprecating laugh.
Of course she’d always been like this. She was the ultimate social climber, and I had been her highest rung until my attention waned.
“Oh, um, Laura was just telling me about the party this weekend. Sounds pretty cool. Are you going?” Robert scratched the back of his neck, his expression etched with guilt, and I found I wasn’t even mad about it.
Shit, I was kind of relieved, to be fair…and considering we’d ended it a few days ago, and I found myself obsessed with another woman, I was hardly in a position to judge.
I shrugged. “Probably not. I’m late for a thing.” Without waiting for either of them to reply, I strode away down the path. I needed to be somewhere quiet and clean so I could pull my frayed and tattered thoughts together before I did something really stupid.
Like punch Brodie.
“Andrew, baby,” Laura whined, grabbing my arm as she hurried to catch up. “Are you angry with me? I know we’re broken up, but that’s the norm for us. We’re always back together by next week.”
I paused, staring at her hand on my sleeve with disgust until she removed it. “No, I’m just busy,” I replied in clipped tones, walking on. “And there’s no next week for us this time.” Laura would no doubt refuse to accept that we were done for good, but she’d learn.
“You’re always busy these days!” she exclaimed with an edge of petulance. “You never have time for me anymore. You’re always hanging out in that disgusting old house with those delinquents. You’ve changed, Andrew, and I don’t like the new you.”
I didn’t stop walking, and I didn’t respond. She wanted my attention and I wasn’t in the mood to give it…but she’d also struck a nerve. I had changed, except I found it hard to believe it was a bad thing.
Evelyn would likely disagree, but then again she’d never met the old me.
The only version of me she’d ever known was this absolutely confused, mess of a former control freak.
When Abraham had first called with his request to keep his daughter safe, I’d thought it’d be a walk in the park: befriend her, flirt a little, keep her safely at arm’s length.
But from the moment pretty little Evelyn Cromwell had arrived at Meadowridge, my whole world had been tipped on its axis and I hadn’t recovered.
Maybe I never would. And would that be such a bad thing? I had liked getting dirty with her the other morning, no matter how misguided that choice had been.
Somehow I ended up back at Bluebell House. That hadn’t been my intended destination. I often used the restrooms in the science hall because they kept them so much cleaner than anywhere else, but somehow, while lost in my own thoughts, I’d gone home.
Home.
It was almost startling to realize that was what I’d started thinking of Bluebell House as, but it was true.
Regardless of how we’d ended up in the dilapidated old mansion, it was actually something I’d always dreamed about: living under one roof with my chosen family rather than my blood-related one; cooking together, eating together, hanging out and playing video games…
It was the sort of cozy domestic shit none of us had ever had, and never thought we would.
And yet here we were, one big dysfunctional family brought together by her. Evelyn. My silly little childhood crush come back to wreck my carefully controlled life.
She drove me insane, but I couldn’t get enough.
Pissing her off was becoming an addiction bordering on kink at this stage, and that filthy encounter from the other morning?
The memory was hooked into my damn soul and not letting up any time soon.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her, and it was killing me to see how incredibly in love Ethan and Brodie were.
I couldn’t fuck that up for them. Not that she’d ever want me in that way…
“Hey, you’re home early,” Haze said in surprise as I stormed through the front door. “Everything okay?”
I swallowed hard, biting back all the out-of-control emotions crowding my head. “Uh huh. Just having an off day.” I drifted toward the kitchen, eyeing the countertops for any crumbs or marks that I could transfer my focus onto.
“You want me to stay?” Haze asked, jerking my attention back his way, and I noted his laptop bag over his shoulder. “I could teach you more coding?”
I forced a smile at his offer. A few weeks ago, when I was having a bad panic attack—the night Brodie and Evelyn didn’t come home after the premiere—he’d started teaching me basic computer coding. All the zeros and ones had actually worked wonders for my need to keep everything neat and tidy.
“Thanks, bro. I’m good though. Really. I just need some quiet.”
Haze frowned like he didn’t believe me, but left a moment later, nonetheless.
I breathed a long sigh into the silence, then went to the cleaning cupboard and pulled out some rubber gloves, antibacterial spray, and disposable paper towels.
The kitchen was already clean—the whole house was really good about keeping it that way, even Evelyn—but it wouldn’t hurt to clean it again.
It calmed me. It helped me regain control of all the chaotic emotions threatening to break free.
Evelyn had taken some pretty harsh swipes at my compulsions the other day, but she also wasn’t wrong.
I hadn’t always been so bad, but ever since Daisy’s death—knowing it was a result of my lack of control—I hadn’t been able to stop the urges.
Control quite literally ruled my life. Or it had until recently. Until…
“What are you doing?” the woman on my mind asked out loud, startling me so hard I knocked over the tin of ground coffee I’d just been cleaning underneath, sending brown grit all over the floor.
“Oh shit,” Evelyn grimaced. “Sorry, I thought you heard me come in.”