5. Five
FIVE
H arley
I pull at my dress, wondering if it was the right one to wear today. I paired it with a pair of leggings and some strappy heels. The dress is blue to match my eyes, making them brighter than they already are. The black sedan pulls up to the curb outside my dorm and the driver steps out.
He’s in his early forties. His hair is starting to get the peppered look. He stands tall next to the back door of the sedan, giving me a warm smile. His hair is cropped, face clean shaved, and his attire is in tip-top shape, just how my mother likes it.
“Hello, Miss Thomas. You look lovely today,” Arthur, my parent’s driver, greets.
“Thank you, Arthur. You are very dashing yourself. Is that a new tie?” I ask, animatedly.
“Why yes, it is a new tie.” He strokes the emerald fabric.
Arthur opens the back door for me. “What kind of mood are they in today?” I quietly question him.
Arthur purses his lip and gives me a tight smile. “Mangos.”
Code word for not good. I hold back the fear and respond, “Perfect.”
I tuck myself into the back seat and start to mentally prepare myself for an incredibly long evening with my parents. I stare out the window as Arthur pulls us away from the school.
My parents are mentally daunting people. My mother has always made sure to try and stuff me inside a tiny box. One that’s too small for me. I’ve spent most of my life attempting to fit inside that box and being completely devastated when I fell short.
No matter what, I have always managed to disappoint my mother. And for my father? Well, he’s always been too busy running his company, and fucking through every secretary he’s ever had, to notice the way she treats me. To keep the peace, he always sides with her.
“We are pulling up, Miss Thomas,” Arthur informs me.
Inhaling, I count to ten and then exhale. I wish the drive to my parent’s estate was longer than it is. Arthur parks the car and quickly makes his way around to open my door. He extends his hand for me. I place my palm in his and give him a forced smile.
“Thank you, Arthur.”
“See you soon,” he says with a wink.
I walk up the cobblestone steps. As soon as I step up to the intricately carved door, it opens. I cross the threshold, shrugging my jacket off and handing it off to the housekeeper.
“Sally,” I say, giving her a nod.
Her brown eyes meet mine for a brief moment and then drop back down to the floor. “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas are seated in the dining room. Your presence was required eight minutes ago.”
“Yes, well, I don’t control the traffic, Sally,” I tell her coldly.
I’ve never liked this woman. She doesn’t have the backbone it takes to work for my mother and not be steamrolled by her. It’s depressing.
Moving down the hall to the dining room, my footsteps sound on the wood floor, announcing my arrival. I step inside to find my mother at one end of the long dining table and my father at the other. I force my eyes to not roll and walk to the middle of the table where the only other place setting is.
“You’re late,” my mother points out.
“Traffic was bad,” I tell her flatly.
“Leave earlier next time. Don’t let it happen again,” she demands.
“Yes ma’am.”
I give my father a small smile, one that goes unreturned. His brown hair is slicked back with gel. I have his perfectly straight nose and blue eyes, but other than that I look exactly like my mother.
The only difference between my mother and I is that her hairdresser straightens her blonde hair every day. Even if she is going to wear it up. She despises my curls, something that she makes known anytime I have my hair down.
My father snaps his fingers, the indication for the kitchen staff to serve us our meals. All of my life I’ve watched him and my mother treat our staff with little disregard for their wellbeing. The social status of my family is much higher than the average family in Bridgedom. Growing up, I’d always heard whispers about how Kill Ridge City is packed full of rich snobs. One week spent at KRU goes to show how wrong that rumor was.
It’s one of the reasons that it was such a fight to get transferred to KRU. The people of Bridgedom are proud. Bridgedom may be considered the lower class of the two cities, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve done everything in their power to put old legends to rest.
I can feel my mother’s beady eyes on me. My skin prickles with awareness under her scrutiny. Angling my head in her direction, I wait for whatever tasteful thing she has to say to me today.
“Are you eating that ghastly cafeteria junk?”
“No, mom,” I tell her.
“Then you must not be working out at all. Your face is looking chubby.”
“I’ll be sure to add more to my regimen,” I say curtly.
“Good. You have an appearance to uphold.” Her cold tone rakes on my nerves.
A plate is placed in front of me. Salmon and a salad. No dressing. Only a single slice of lemon. Begrudgingly, I squeeze the lemon over my plate, attempting to put more on the salad portion than the salmon. I know better than to ask for ranch or even vinaigrette.
I pick at the food, eating most of the salmon and part of the salad. The chef thankfully didn’t dry out the salmon. Per usual, there is no dessert served. Because dessert has too many calories.
“How are your classes going?” My father asks.
Ah, yes, the only thing my father cares about. “They are good. I’m almost all caught back up. I wasn’t too far behind with transferring.”
“You shouldn’t have had to catch up at all, Harley.”
His eyes are penetrating me. I can feel my cheeks heating under his scrutiny. I uncross and recross my legs, trying to figure out the best thing to say to him.
“Don’t fidget, Harley, it’s not ladylike,” my mother scolds.
“Sorry.” I drop my head and link my fingers together in my lap. Absently, I start picking at the cuticle on my thumb.
“I set up a date with a boy in a couple weeks,” my mother informs me.
My brows pinch together, and I raise my head to look at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I didn’t stutter, Harley. I set you up on a date. His family has a great social circle. You will go.”
“I didn’t ask you to set me up on a date, mother,” I grind out.
“Don’t speak to your mother like that,” my father demands.
“Tell her not to set me up on dates without my permission,” I bite back.
“Don’t speak to your father like that,” my mother hisses.
“Sweet strawberries,” I mutter under my breath. “Why did you think it would be a good idea to set me up on a date without my permission?” I ask as politely as I can manage.
“I’m not getting any younger, Harley. I would like grandchildren before I’m too old to know them.”
“You’re forty-one years-old!” I shriek.
“Do not talk to your mother like that.”
I turn my head toward my father. “You have got to be joking.”
“I am not joking,” my mother says. I swing my head back around to her. “I will email you all the details. You will go.”
“You could just text me. Like a normal person.” I stand up from my chair. “Is that all?”
My mother waves her hand in the air, effectively dismissing me.
I storm down the hall, where Sally is already holding up my jacket. I rip it from her hand and yank the door open. Arthur doesn’t even have time to get out of the car and open the backdoor for me. I slide inside the seat and glare at him in the rearview mirror.
“Did you know?” I say through gritted teeth.
Arthur puts the car in drive. “I told you. Mangos.”
“You’re buying me a bottle of whiskey for this one. The good kind.”
I don’t drink often. But when I’m forced to go on a date with some random guy I don’t even know, it calls for drinking. The only other time I got extremely drunk was when my mother told me I was going to fat camp. Fat camp. It was because I had gained eight pounds during my junior year because of the stress from studying for the ACTs and SATs.
A half hour later, Arthur is dropping me off with a bottle of top shelf whiskey. I don’t even bother to say goodbye to him. Nothing about this evening has been good. I’m ready to climb into bed and bury myself underneath the covers.
“Goodnight, Miss Thomas.”
I hear him softly close the door behind me as I walk into the dorms. I don’t even make it to the elevator before my phone buzzes with an incoming notification. I pull it out to find the email from my mother. It provides the information for said date, where, when, what to wear. And below that, his contact information. Leroy Sanchez.
“Oh. Great. I do know the guy,” I mutter.
Monday morning, I wake up on a warpath. And the person in my way just so happens to be Jax Stone.
Day One of war is off to a great start.
This morning, I scored a half a point higher than him on a pop quiz in Professor Gordon’s class.
He’s seething. I can almost smell the smoke coming out of his flared nostrils.
Because of said comment about my hair Friday, I let my hair remain extra frizzy. Something I know is bothering him because he keeps huffing and making it shift around.
Our last class ends, and instead of going straight to the library, I head off to the food court to meet Alicia. I expect Jax to follow his routine. But when I look over my shoulder, I can see him shouldering his way through the crowd of students.
Frowning, I look around until I find long, brown hair that I know to be Alicia’s. Zigzagging through the tables, I drop my backpack next to her.
“Hey,” she says, closing the book she’s reading.
“Hey,” I reply.
“I’m starving,” she whines.
Laughing, I extend my hand toward the line. “Let’s get some food then.”
Once we get closer to the menu board, I start looking over all my options. It’s college. Meaning that there are a lot of fatty foods. My options are limited to salad and tofu. Sighing, I decide on the salad because tofu is the worst invention on the planet in my opinion. What I wouldn’t give for a greasy cheeseburger right now.
But I hear my mother’s lingering voice in the back of my mind. I scrunch up my nose, hating the damning thoughts about my weight that are starting to run through my head. I make the conscious decision to hit the treadmill later this evening.
“What can I get for you?” The lady asks.
“I’ll do the grilled chicken salad with a big side of ranch and a bottle of water,” I tell her, handing her my meal card. The big side of ranch is something I’m going to have to run off later, but it’s better than dry lettuce.
“I’ll get the crispy chicken sandwich. Actually, make it the spicy one, please. And a diet soda,” Alicia orders. She bumps me with her hip. “Wanna share a pudding?”
“Sure,” I mumble, giving her a small smile as I mentally add another mile to my run.
The two of us walk back to our table with our food in hand.
“Hockey jocks, to the right,” she whispers in my ear as we sit.
I look to my right and see a table of five guys, one having a familiar face. Ross lifts a hand, waving at me. I wave back. The guy to his left follows his gaze. A giant smile spreads over his face and he also waves, wiggling his fingers at me.
“Name’s Alicia. I only know Ross,” I tell her.
“There on his left is Quinton Pierce. He’s one of the two defensemen on the first line. He’s a maniac on the ice. The one beside him is Declan Jameson, also a defensemen. And the two twins,” her lip curls in disgust. “Jace and Justin Mathews.”
The two blondes are talking amongst each other, while one’s eyes remain on Alicia. “Which one is the one eyeballing you?”
“Justin,” she bites out his name. “We dated back in our hometown and then he split after taking my virginity without a single word. I heard that I was single through the grapevine at school.”
“Ouch. What a tool,” I grumble, stabbing into my salad.
“Not a tool,” Alicia says louder, most likely loud enough for him to hear. “Scum. Trash. Douche. Ass. Among many, many other words.”
“Double ouch.”
I hear a chair sliding across the floor and when I look over, Justin is glaring at Alicia and standing from the table to leave. Despite his lethal glare, there’s an obvious pain in his eyes as well.
As soon as he walks away, Jax comes over, dropping himself into the vacant seat. Those dark eyes land on me, assessing me. They drop to my tray and come back up.
His lips twist into a smirk and he calls out, “What’s with the rabbit food, Davidson? Embracing the doe in your pretty little eyes?”
I flick my gaze to his tray, noticing a delicious looking cheeseburger. It’s taunting me along with his words. And since I can’t just come out and say, ‘Just making sure I don’t gain any weight to please my mother.’, I come out with an attack.
“I’m trying not to clog my arteries. Clogged arteries lead to slow brain function. Probably why you missed that half a point on Gordon’s pop quiz this morning.”
Quinton and Ross chuckle and high-five each other. Jax narrows his eyes on me. “Maybe if you ate more red meat, you’d have a better sense of humor.”
“Oh shit,” Alicia gasps. I can feel her wide eyes on me.
It isn’t until I’m rising to my feet, salad in hand, and crossing the distance from my table to his that my brain registers what my plan is here. I place my tray on his table, sliding it in his direction. I hook a single finger on the lip of his and pull it toward me.
“If I had known all I needed was a bit of red meat, Zayden, then I would have started eating it years ago.” Locking eyes with him, I lift the burger to my mouth and take a large bite. I give an over-exaggerated moan, which makes his eyes widen a fraction. “Damn, that’s a good burger, Zayden. Thanks for offering it to me. Enjoy growing brain cells with that salad.”
Walking back to my table, followed by the laughter of all of his friends and some bystanders, I add an extra five miles to my run later.
“That was badass,” Alicia says when I return to my seat.
“Apparently, Jax Stone brings out the worst in me,” I grumble.
Biting my thumb nail, I look at the monstrosity of a burger in front of me. It’s a massive burger. Shoving down the anxiety crawling inside of me, I pick it up. My eyes meet Jax’s from over the bun. He’s reluctantly pouring ranch over the salad.
“I should probably give him his lunch back,” I say from behind it.
“He can get more food, Harley. Eat the burger. You’re winning at his little game.” Alicia lifts her sandwich. “Cheers!”
She taps her chicken sandwich with my burger, making me giggle. When I look back to Jax, I see his lips twitch like he’s trying to hide a smile, just before he takes a massive bite from my salad.