Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
ANDIE
“Are you sure about this?”
I’m going through the clothes Pearson procured for me, garment by garment. Still haven’t met the man, but according to Tessa, he’s a scary Russian with a scarred face.
Most of the clothes, so far, have fit. I hold up a sparkly dress. I don’t know when I’ll be wearing a fancy evening gown. I skip over it and toss it onto the bed next to Tessa. She’s sitting cross-legged on top of the covers, a large bandana holding back her shoulder-length hair from her face, typing away at her laptop with rapid clicks.
“I’m sure. Send the message.”
Keane’s going to be pissed when he finds out what I’m up to, but Declan said it was ultimately my decision.
Tessa comically purses her mouth and holds a finger over the ENTER key like she’s about to press a button to trigger the detonation of a bomb.
“Send the damn message.” I laugh as she makes a whistling noise and then a boom when she hits the key.
“Done.” She slides her laptop over, rolls onto her stomach, and bends her legs so that her feet are in the air. “With everything going on, I feel like we haven’t gotten any time to catch up or talk.”
Tessa watches me try on an A-line cocktail dress with interest. I have a feeling that a lot of my new wardrobe will find its way into her closet. She and I used to swap clothes all the time at school.
“I know. All the stuff that happened at the cabin and what’s going on now. It’s a lot,” I reply, pushing the dress aside and dropping down beside her.
I consciously didn’t attempt to make friends at school and chose to spend most of my time alone. It was self-preservation. Not getting close to anyone meant they couldn’t ever hurt you. Tessa never noticed the walls I had up telling everyone to keep at a distance. If she did notice, she didn’t care. I remember the first day we met in the library at school. I was sitting by myself, per usual, in one of the back, darkened corners next to a window that looked out over the main quad. She appeared out of nowhere, sat down beside me, and started talking. I can’t even recall what we discussed that day, but we’ve been friends ever since.
Tessa tugs me over for a side hug. “I’ve missed you, Alex. I really am sorry for not telling you about Declan approaching me at school and what I was doing for him.” She pauses for a beat, and I can hear her throat make an audible gulp when she swallows.
Tessa was the only person I told my ugly secrets about Max to. It happened the night after finals when we celebrated by getting rip-roaring drunk. I totally blame my verbal vomit on the alcohol. If the shoe were on the other foot, and I found out she had been sexually abused, I’d blow up a few houses too in order to get her away from her abuser.
I peck the tip of her nose when she turns her face toward me. “Apology accepted,” I easily say.
I pretend to drop something imaginary into the palm of my hand and close a fist around it. She slaps her hand over my clenched fist, then I place my other hand over hers. It’s our way of saying that a conversation is done and buried, locked up tight and will never be brought up again.
“Oh! Completely forgot that I brought you a present. It’s in my laptop case.”
Tessa pops up off the bed and scurries out of the bedroom. When she comes back seconds later, she’s holding two small bottles of nail polish in one hand, a silver liquor flask in the other. I gaze at the flask and the nail polish covetously.
“You are a magical fairy godmother,” I tell her.
“Scoot to the headboard so I can do your nails.” She hands me the flask and I unscrew it, taking a sip of the Wild Turkey I know she put in there.
I sigh as the whiskey warms my throat and burns a trail to my stomach. “You don’t even want to know how many times in the past week I have longed for a proper mani-pedi.”
From her pocket, she takes out nail clippers and a file and settles in front of me. “Girl, your nails look awful,” she chides, taking my left hand and getting to work clipping and filing.
I may be a hard-ass most of the time, but I’m still a woman who enjoys girlie, feminine things.
Taking another sip from the flask, I nod in agreement. “The guys put me through the wringer.”
Her lips fold in on themselves and she peers up at me curiously from under her lashes. “Speaking of guys. Which one?”
Pretending to be clueless, I ask, “Which one, what?”
She huffs at my feigned ignorance. “Which one are you sleeping with? Seeing as we walked in with you standing beside a shirtless Jaxson West, my guess is it’s him. Am I right?”
I’m not sure if I’m ready for this conversation. But if there were anyone I trusted to help me navigate these fucked-up feelings I’m having about four men—three of whom I, not so long ago, was prepared to kill in order to avenge Kellan’s death—it’s her.
“All of them?” I reply as a question, cringing a little when I say it because it makes me sound like a sex-craved hussy.
I immediately silence that little moral voice inside my head and tell it to go fuck itself.
Tessa’s eyes go saucer-big, and she splutters, “ All of them?”
I wince again. “Kind of? I mean, if we’re getting all technical about it, I slept with Jax, and Rafe got me off a couple of times. I haven’t actually slept with Keane yet, but he did go down on me. And Liam and I?—”
She shakes the bed with her belly laughter. “Holy shit! Holy shit , Alex!” More laughter. “You’re my goddamn hero,” she’s finally able to wheeze out while holding her stomach.
“You don’t think I’m a slut for messing around with four guys?”
Sobering a little while tears of mirth drip down her cheeks, she smiles broadly at me. “Hell no. Want to guess how many ménage fantasies I had about being in the middle of a Mr. Dubois and Mr. Radcliffe sandwich?”
Now it’s my turn to gawp at her. Mr. Dubois was our advanced calculus teacher, and Mr. Radcliffe was our English professor. Both were in their midthirties and hot as hell. Mr. Dubois had the sexiest French accent, while Mr. Radcliffe looked like the young version of David Beckham. Let’s just say, most of the girls at school would’ve dropped to their knees in a heartbeat for either man.
“I can see that,” I acknowledge.
Going back to my nails, Tessa hums in delight. “I want deets. All of it. Leave nothing out. I need something to tide me over during my dry spell. It’s been a long time since my girlie bits got any attention that wasn’t from my hand or Mr. Rabbit.”
I make an unladylike snort of amusement. My girlie bits have gotten more attention this past week than in the last five years.
Once she’s done shaping and polishing my nails, she holds up the two nail polishes. One red and one black. She knows me so well.
“Both.”
She shakes them vigorously to mix. “I figured. Half and half or alternating?”
I purse my mouth in consideration. “Surprise me,” I tell her. She chooses to paint one hand with red and the other with black.
“Your niece is a cutie pie,” Tessa comments as she concentrates on gliding the small brush over each nail, making sure that the color doesn’t bleed into my cuticles.
Sarah was so excited to see me and the guys when we video called her. She and Rafe prattled on in Spanish for a good five minutes with me only catching about a fourth of what they talked about. Something about la playa , the beach. I really do need to bone up on the language.
Sarah didn’t once ask about Meribella, and that bothered me. A lot. Wouldn’t she have been curious or concerned about why her nanny suddenly went MIA? But she seemed happy and was very excited about visiting Ireland. The people Declan has caring for her are a youngish couple, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. Hannah and Eoghan. Declan flew them over in one of his private jets so they could accompany Sarah back to Ireland. When she asked why we weren’t coming with her, I promised her we would visit soon. It’s a promise I will keep. I want to see where Declan came from. I want to meet all the cousins he told me about. I want to know about that part of me that was kept secret my entire life. We ended the call with reading her some of Shel Silverstein’s poems that I pulled up on my phone, “Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out” being her favorite.
Tessa finishes my right hand. I gently blow on my scarlet-tinted fingertips while she starts on my left hand with the black. As she works, I catch her up on everything that has happened since I left Switzerland. She gets all righteously indignant on my behalf when I tell her about the “initiation tests.” When I come to the pantry escapade, sex with Jax, and Keane’s talented tongue, she’s like a rabid Chihuahua as she peppers me with question after question which make me blush hard and laugh harder.
Just as quickly as I forgave her, she does the same for me over the lie I told her about me being on vacation in Greece, when in actuality, I’d come back home to destroy Maximillian Rossi.
Eventually, after talking for hours, we wind up cuddled on my bed, watching a Netflix movie, our stomachs settling after we gorged on a bowl of popcorn that we poured a bag of M&M’s over.
I stare at the flickering images on the large-screen TV, but I’m not really seeing them. My mind is a tornado of thoughts about what happens next.
“Hey, Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to piss you off or anything, but I’m not going to lie to you either. What you’re doing really scares the hell out of me.” Her voice is soft, wary.
It scares the hell out of me too. Can I really take down a drug cartel and the East Coast families? I’m just one girl. Anger, revenge, and a shitload of stubborn determination are my weapons.
Tessa comes from a nice British family with loving parents who only want the best for her. One year when Kellan wasn’t able to visit me in Switzerland for Christmas, I spent the holiday with her at her family’s home near Oxford. I got to see the inner workings of how a real family should be. The love and support and closeness. Tessa may be one of the smartest people I know, but she doesn’t belong in my fucked-up world of death, guns, and violence.
I turn on my side, so we are lying face to face on the bed. “I want you on a plane back to London tomorrow.”
A fierce fire of resolve erupts from her. “I’m not leaving you.”
Closing my eyes, I sigh wearily. “Tessa, the things I’m about to do… like with Sarah, I need to know that you’re safe. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
Out of nowhere, Tessa pinches my arm. Hard.
“What the hell was that for?”
“That was for being stupid and making decisions for me when I’m fully capable of deciding for myself. I’m not leaving,” she tells me with a scathing tone. “Sista friends to the end. I’m not budging, and you know how stubborn I can be.”
I send her a pointed look. “I could knock your ass out and have Liam drop you on the next plane out to London.”
“You could, but I’d just come right back. Like a bad cold.” Her grin is infectious. “You’re my bae, Alex. My best friend and I love you. Besides, there’s too much testosterone around here. You need me to help even out the balance.”
God, this girl.
“I love you too, Tess.”