33. Saint #3
“Baby, listen. We’ve come a very long way from your violent outbursts.
Let’s not go back there for a girl who’s not worth any of your time or effort.
” Her phone vibrates again and she silences it.
“What you did is a serious crime, one that draws a lot of attention. It’s not going to be easy for Vic to make this go away. ”
The first sign of reality hits Hendrix, making her gulp. “I couldn’t just let her get away with calling Theory a whore and Saint mentally deranged.”
“And you, a pitiful fat bitch,” I interject with a calm I don’t feel.
I leave out the fucking me part, since I know Hendrix is not ready to tell our parents about us. As for me? I say fuck what either of them say, even though most of the backlash will likely come from her mother. My dad’ll just be happy I’m choosing a girlfriend over random sex and violence.
“I’ll be sure to mention all of this to Mr. Beaumont tomorrow at our meeting.”
I’ve got my eyes narrowed on him as Hendrix blurts out, “You two are having a meeting?”
“Uh, yes. It’s pretty standard when your stepdaughter assaults another student.”
“Am I…gonna get kicked out of school or something?”
True panic grips Hendrix, probably for the sheer fact I know how bad she wants to get into Bromwell University and is depending on Riverside to make it happen.
“Over Beaumont’s dead fucking body,” I grumble loud enough for my father to side eye me.
“Stay out of it, Saint. I’m serious. I will try to reason with the old man.”
“Wait. But isn’t your family, like, one of the founders of the school?” Hendrix blinks. “How can he kick me out?”
“He can’t, Jimi. Don’t worry.”
“Saint.” My father’s voice is hardening again, but I don’t give a shit.
I will bring every single Beamont to their fucking knees, including Good Guy, if it means Hendrix stays on track to graduate.
“Oh my God…” Hendrix paces back and forth, hands pressing her temples. “I fucked up. I completely fucked up.”
I watch intently as my father, June, Poppy, Theory, even Carlo tries to calm her, but not one of them can. She’s too far down a hole only fucked up people like us fall into.
Hendrix is pulling at her already knotted hair, running through a list of every possible shitty scenario she assumes is about to happen.
Expulsion. Arrest. Jail.
Not being allowed to have pencils in her cell.
Even death by a minimum wage janitor position.
“Hey, hey, hey…” I step in front of her mid-march, bringing her body, but not the rambling, to an abrupt halt. “Listen to me, Jimi.” I shake her gently by the shoulders. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay?”
“I-I didn’t think it through. What would happen.” Hendrix darts her gaze around the room, clutching her chest. “I-I was just so mad. I couldn’t control it. I wanted to hurt her. I needed to hurt her.” A sob rips past her throat, and her mother is at our side in an instant, pulling her arm.
It’s unnatural how fast my blood starts to boil as I imagine June taking Hendrix away from me. Stopping me from being the one to calm her down and bring her back.
“Hendrix, baby, let’s get you upstairs and in bed, we can talk about all of this tomorrow,” her mother suggests, and it takes every fiber in my muscles not to tell her to shut her trap and suck a dick.
Yeah, yeah, paradox, conundrum, whatever.
“No…I can’t. Something’s wrong with me. My chest is tightening.” She shakes her head at breakneck speed, to the point I have to physically stop her before she hurts herself.
But, like patching a broken pipe, when one crack in the mind closes another bursts open.
In Hendrix’s case, hyperventilation.
“Nothing is wrong with you, okay? You’re just having a panic attack,” I say as calmly and quietly as her high pitched wheezing will allow. “Just breathe with me.”
“I can’t get expelled, Saint. I can’t. I can’t.”
“You won’t, Jimi.” I whip around to face my dad. “Tell her right the fuck now that she won’t get expelled!”
Hendrix was right…our families do hold all the power over that ancient crusty bastard Hubert Beaumont.
My father knows it too.
The mention of a meeting was simply his way of putting the fear of God in Hendrix for acting out…exactly like he’s done to Theory and me on endless occasions.
Good intentions that always lead to no prevail.
Something this man never seems to learn.
Because now Hendrix is not only going to feel like a monster for how far she went with Annalie, she’s going to carry that monster with her for the rest of her life.
Let it eat her alive.
“Hendrix, you won’t get expelled, okay?” my father reassures her. “We’re going to work this all out.”
A pathetic attempt, but hey, at least he gets to keep his teeth.
I squeeze Hendrix’s cheeks, forcing her to look at me. “You see, Jimi? Everything’s gonna be fine and dandy.”
“I…I haven’t acted like that in such a long time.”
“We’ll call it celebratory violence, then.”
The joke hits the spot enough to include a chuckle in her cries.
“Such…an…idiot.”
“Insults. Yes.” I pull her to my chest. “That’s more like it.”
At some point during our talk, Hendrix’s mother journeyed back to where she came from between her sister and husband. At least smart enough to know not to fuck with whoever is managing to calm down her panic stricken daughter.
“I wanted to kill her, Saint,” Hendrix rasps, low enough for only me to hear. “And I would’ve if you didn’t stop me.”
I leave out the fact I already knew this, that I saw the familiar hunger for death in her eyes, knowing now is a pretty bad time to compare psychotic notes.
“But I stopped you…and I will always be there to stop you.”
“You…really…mean that?” she asks, chest still heaving.
“I mean…as long as you promise to leave the snorting to the pigs.”
Hendrix’s ability to laugh comes through easier this time, and continues to do so once I help her utilize my breathing technique.
“In like a balloon…out through a straw,” I repeat the phrase for her, and the more she listens the more I feel her heart rate even out. “There you go.”
“I think I’m okay,” she says after a few more rounds, her voice low and hoarse.
“I don’t know…” I whisper. “That was some grade A sucking you did there.”
“We all better, baby?”
Fucking June can’t take a hint.
Hendrix removes herself from my chest to face her mom. “Yeah, I am.”
The twin aunt approaches us next.
Then the damn Italian.
Dad and Theory trailing behind, forming a circle of uncomfortable assholes around us.
“That was some pretty good work you did with our girl, kid.” Poppy slaps my arm. “Gotta say, I’m impressed.”
The concern hidden behind June’s smile tells me she does not at all agree with her spitting image of a sister. In fact, she looks as though me soothing her daughter is some sort of existential fear unlocked.
Sounds like quite the personal problem.
“You should really get some sleep,” June says to Hendrix, brushing fingers through her unruly hair. She tilts her head in confusion, pulling out a stray leaf. “Jeez…where the hell were you two fighting? In a tree?”
Hendrix’s face blushes a whole ass shade of red. “Uh…”
Oh, making her mother squirm is about to become my favorite pastime. “Actually, June, it was up against one.”
The insinuation alone leaves not much room for error.
Pairing it with a shiteating grin? Yeah, I’d say it paints a pretty sex filled picture for step-mommy dearest.
Luckily for my dick, Hendrix got distracted talking Carlo down from his obnoxious panicking over her, so it will live to fuck another day.
June apologizes as she interrupts Carlo and Hendrix. “Let’s get you to your room, baby,” she insists, nodding her chin to where the elevators are down the hall. “We can have a much needed cuddle sesh.”
Hendrix seems… genuinely interested …in sleeping with her mom.
Which makes it that much harder to want to sabotage it.
Mothers, man. They. Ruin. Everything.
The two take off together, and as if Hendrix can sense my disappointment, she glances at me over her shoulder.
I wink, letting her know we got all the time in the world for glorious fuck fests, and those gorgeous greens smile back at me in appreciation.
My eyes stay on Hendrix until she’s lost inside the elevator, then on the elevator for a while after. Theory appears at my side, joining me as I stare into the depths of a metal sliding door.
“Falling for the step-sis you hate…huh?” She whistles, then bumps me with her arm. “Bet that shit wasn’t on this year’s bingo card.”