Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
The school is writhing with students returning, and Avery tucks her arm in mine as we make our way back up to the girls’ dorms.
The guys head off to their room, still bickering and shoving each other like children, and it’s only when they’re out of earshot that I groan to Avery about Ash’s demands to sleep in their room, wanting nothing more than a little vent. She, of course, wants to talk about it.
“Well, just go sleep there. Are you scared? Should I find you a therapist of some kind? I’m pretty sure sex therapists are just sex workers who charge more.”
I blush and try to avoid her eyes. “Jesus, I’m not scared! I just… all three of them will be there. I’ve only been in their room once and… it’s just a lot, okay?”
Avery snorts at me and unlocks our front door. “Is it more than having Harley perform oral sex in the middle of a crowded dance floor while my brother twiddled his thumbs and waited his turn?”
I flush scarlet and mumble, “It wasn’t the middle of the dance floor, and technically Ash went first.”
Avery shudders dramatically and pulls away from me, cackling when she sees the color of my cheeks.
“Go there during the day while they’re gone.
Eat their food, smoke Blaise’s stash, get comfortable in one of their beds.
By the time they get home, you’ll be calm and less twitchy about it.
I’ll get you a key. It’s only fair you have one since they all have copies of ours.
If it turns into an orgy please put sheets down, because I do spend time over there.
I don’t need to find myself sitting in Morrison’s DNA. ”
I elbow her gently while she laughs, humming under my breath for a second while I think, but it’s a really great idea.
She’s a fucking genius; I almost feel bad for the sheep of the world.
I’m also so glad we can ignore the weirdness of me being in a relationship with, you know, all three of her people.
When she’s locked the door behind us, and I’m busy toeing off my shoes, Avery frowns and stoops down to pick up an envelope that’s on our floor. It’s been shoved under the door while we’ve been away. I never get mail so it barely registers with me.
I move away from her, already thinking about assignments and quiz notes, when I hear Avery’s teeth grind together. Seriously, I’m kind of afraid they’re going to crack under the pressure from her jaw.
“What now?” I sigh, rubbing a hand over my face. Avery watches me carefully, assessing and cataloging every little sign my body is showing her. I probably look tired, grumpy, and a little hungry because when am I not up for food?
“Don’t worry about it. I will deal with this,” she finally says, eyes icy but firmly fixed on my face. I swallow because whatever the fuck it is must be bad for her to be looking at me like that.
I nod and let her. I have enough on my damn plate and she can hold her own.
I grab a tub of ice cream and spend the rest of the afternoon surrounded by textbooks while Avery deals with whatever was in the letter.
By the time the sun is setting and I’m feeling a hell of a lot better about my studies, Avery is cooking enough food to feed an army and the sound of keys at the door tells me they’ve arrived.
Ash and Blaise both have their sports bags with their basketball shit spilling out of them, but Harley’s hair is still wet from the shower, his eyes a little bloodshot from the pool.
I offer Avery help but she shoos me into the shower to clean up before dinner, snapping at Blaise when he once again offers his assistance. One day soon I think I’m going to take him up on his offer.
When I get out, rubbing my hair with a towel and my belly rumbling at the incredible smell of the food, Harley kisses me softly and directs me to sit next to him at the table.
I usually sit between him and Avery so it’s not an unusual thing to do, but the way he’s handling me sets off warning bells.
“What the fuck was in that letter?” I grumble, and Ash gives me a look, like he’s already plotting the deaths of whoever sent it.
Avery rolls her shoulders back and starts to fix me a plate, her mothering only making me more concerned. “It’s a notice. A warning that you’ll be put on probation if you continue to behave in a manner unbecoming of a student at Hannaford.”
I blanch and Harley grabs my hand under the table, threading his fingers through mine.
He speaks softly, not to keep the others out of the conversation but to soften the blow of his words, “Someone got to the security video of us meeting Illi at the pool before Avery wiped it. He’s not in the footage, but we are.
It hasn’t been leaked, but the principal and school board know it exists. ”
Unbecoming behavior. Sweet lord fuck, there’s a video of Harley fingering me in the pool out there in the world. I think I want to die. I sure as fuck want someone to die.
“Mounty, Avery will deal with it. Don’t panic,” Ash says, and I snap back like a bitch at him assuming I’m breaking over this.
“I’m not fucking panicking. I’m jumpy, remember? Consider this, me jumping! Avery, who the fuck am I stabbing? I’m stabbing someone!”
“Harley, for insisting on constantly putting his hands on you in public?” she snarks, but she tucks her arm into mine as she says it.
“I’ve sorted it out with the school board and Trevelen.
You’ll have another formal apology by the morning because they can’t punish you over a rumor of a video.
I’ve put an official complaint in about Ms. Vivienne because this reeks of her. ”
I see red and clamp my eyes shut, counting backward in French until I’m not likely to stomp my ass downstairs to hunt the cougar skank down.
After a fraught second, I hear them all start to eat around me, pointedly ignoring my bloodthirsty rage in favor of the hot meal in front of them, and that cools the fire more than they could ever know.
By the time I start in on my food, Avery has finished hers and is teasing her brother about her admiration for Illi.
“He’s the perfect man for me, Ash. I’m a little disappointed he’s already married. All those muscles and the way he just stabbed that disgusting guy without Lips even telling him, too. He even wore gloves to handle the box!”
I cut in. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to get the smell of rotting human flesh off of your skin if you touch it bare-handed? No thanks! Odie would have shanked him if he went home stinking of corpses.”
Avery gags and I rub her shoulder a little because I’ve got this best friend business down like a pro. Blaise swallows and turns a little green. When he notices the other two nod along, he turns on Ash.
“What, you’ve handled rotting human flesh before?”
Ash stares at him for a second and Avery’s shoulder tenses beneath my hand. Fuck. Finally he shrugs and nods. Blaise gapes and then mumbles under his breath, “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”
“Second thoughts, Morrison?” Harley sneers, still pissy at him over the conversation in the car. Ash had, so kindly, told him the details.
Blaise glares at him. “No. It’s just that every time I think I know how fucked up we all are the bottom falls out and I find a whole new level of depravity. Ash; when, where, and why?”
Avery pulls a face and wriggles in her seat, looking down at her phone and effectively putting a barrier between herself and the conversation. I’m sure now that the death isn’t what’s bothering her; it’s the rotting that turns her gut.
Ash stares at his glass and says, monotone and dry, “I had to help Joey dig up one of my father’s toys. I think we washed more of her down the drain when we washed our hands afterward than what was left of her on the bones when Senior finally fired up the incinerator.”
Blaise swallows.
Harley nods, then grunts and pipes in, “One of my grandfather’s lackeys was sunk in the bay, out past the docks.
He’d been skimming, caught red-handed, and they chained him up and dropped him off a boat.
He floated up a week later. I’ll never forget the smell, Domhnall made me help him scoop the gross fuck into a net and he paid some biker guy to dissolve what was left of him in acid. ”
I nod at him. “The Boar; he’s the same guy who sent the cleanup crew to Haven for us. Pricey, but you’re never going to get caught if he’s the one getting rid of your problems.”
Harley’s eyes flash and he leans over to drape his arm around my shoulders. “He was the one that vouched for you and Illi, right?”
Avery’s head jerks up. “That reminds me. We need to make a list of the members of the Twelve we like.”
I groan and rub a hand over my face. “I’m not sure we like any of them. It’s more like the ones who want us dead and the ones who could be persuaded to spare us.”
Harley snorts. “There’s also the ones who want to fuck you, babe.”
Ash cuts me a glare. “Is that list longer than the Jackal?”
Harley’s eyes only get more intense now he has backup in this brewing argument. “One of them asked if her pussy was gold plated.”
Fucking rich, entitled, bratty boys.
Blaise snorts, enjoying this conversation a little too much at my expense, and I smile at Harley like I’m baring my teeth at the asshole. “Aves, we also need to add the Lynx to the list of cougars chasing Harley’s dick.”
Blaise’s raucous laughter almost drowns out the frustrated groan Harley lets out.
It’s jarring how quickly I adjust to the mundane little bubble of Hannaford but within days of getting back, my focus shifts away from the bloodshed and violence of the Bay and centers on the most irritating issue here, instead.
I watch the cougar skank with rage in my blood and fire in my eyes.
I watch her every move in my presence, cataloging her quirks and ticks, all the little mannerisms until I have a full picture of who Ms. Vivienne is.
She’s a slut.