“Sunday,” I answered, I didn’t hide my confusion. He smiled softly and shook his head.
“It’s Monday Ari.”
“What?” A flare of panic was rising in me, how was it Monday?
He checked his watch. “Monday afternoon in fact. Matt’s in class. We have a test, I couldn’t leave you here alone. Matt went to sit it and make my excuses. I’m hoping that my otherwise impeccable attendance record, goes in my favour for a re-sit. If it doesn’t dad’s a big investor in the college. I could maybe flash his money,” he flashed a humourless smile at me.
I sunk down in my seat. I’m going to burn in hell.
“I’m really sorry.” I stared at my coffee cup fighting back tears.
“He’s going to go see your professors too. We both have an abhorrent case of food poisoning.” He continued. I sank further. I felt wretched.
“I’m really, really sorry.”
“Your boyfriend called.” I jerked in response and looked up at him. He held my gaze; my eyes ran over his face and I noted the disappointment. I felt something inside me die.
“Ok, he’s not really my boyfriend, we’re just friends,” I muttered. I took a deep drink of scalding coffee. I winced as it burned, but in all honesty, it was the least I deserved.
“Well he seems to think he is.” Was the easy retort. I shrugged. I felt like I was being chastised by my father. Only dad would never have made me feel so incredibly guilty. Although to be fair, I would never have been so stupid before.
“I’ll call him back later.”
Colton sighed and looked out my kitchen window. I drank in his side profile. He had beautiful skin, it wasn’t fair. Those ridiculous long lashes and those cheekbones, I should hate him.
I tentatively reached over and placed my hand on his. “I’m really sorry I dragged you into this Colton.”
His eyes swung to me and then down to my hand. I went to pull back, but he moved deftly and his fingers intertwined with mine.
“When I saw you in that dive bar, swaying about with your boyfriend behind you, I saw red. When I saw you go down, I knew I had to get to you,” he shook his head. Sighing he withdrew his hand and stood. He looked down at me. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to keep you out of it, I should have known you would get right into the middle of it.”
“It’s not your fault,” I protested. I looked up at him. “This is my fault. That bloody crazy Tattoo Neck challenged me and like an equally crazy person, instead of walking away, I ran towards it.”
Colton smirked at my reference to Tattoo Neck. “What did he challenge you with?” He asked, his focus was intensifying.
I scowled. “He threatened you, Matt and Theo with bigger scarier fighters if I didn’t play pool.” When I said it out loud. It sounded stupid.
Colton’s eyes narrowed and anger lit his eyes. “That’s not for you to get involved in Ari,” he growled at me.
“Well that freaking psycho made me get involved! I know! Don’t even say it. I should have walked away,” I grumbled. “Corey would have walked away,” I muttered.
“Corey?” He sounded confused. Join the club mister.
“Forget it.” I stared back down at my coffee and took another swig.
He sat back down again. I peeked up at him and noticed the clenched jaw and angry stare as he resumed looking out the window.
I reached out and touched his hand again. “I’m really sorry and so grateful you and Matt just happened to be there,” I laughed a little hoping to ease the tension.
He frowned at me. “We didn’t just happen to be there. I got a call from Aaron, saying you were in trouble and needed help.”
I felt my anger rising. “He was the bloody reason I was in trouble. What the hell is his game?” I jumped to my feet and started pacing. Colton stood too and pulled me softly into his arms. Despite all my better judgment I sank into him and laid my head against his chest. My arms snaked around his waist and we stood there in my kitchen, wrapped in each other. I felt the anger ebb out of me and I found it easier to breathe. It was the most peaceful I had felt in weeks.
The front door opening made us spring apart and I sighed in disappointment. I caught Colton’s eyes and he chuckled softly at our reaction. Matt entered the kitchen and I was in a bear hug before I could greet him.
“Still sore Matty,” I mumbled and he placed me on the ground. Colton looked away as I glanced at him and I noted the clenched jaw again.
“All sorted at school?” Cole asked. Matt nodded as he reached into a cupboard and poured himself a coffee. He rummaged in my fridge and poured an unhealthy amount of milk. Not that any amount would seem particularly healthy to me, since I took my coffee black, like your heart a voice whispered inside my head.
“Yeah Jefferson was fine with you missing. I explained you were sick, he bought it.” Matt shrugged. He turned to me. “Theo got most of your notes, caught up with that guy, Ronnie.”
“Robbie,” I corrected automatically.
“Whatever, he caught up with him. Had an interesting talk with him,” Matt chuckled. “Poor guy thought he was getting knocked out again. Said he didn’t want to be involved with anything connected to Aaron Jonson.” Two inquisitive pairs of eyes regarded me.
I sighed in frustration. Fuck my life. Just then the door opened again and mere seconds later, Theo entered the kitchen. Ok my kitchen was just not equipped for the three of them. They were all huge.
After Theo let me go and stopped asking if I was sure I was ok. I suggested we move to the living room. Theo bent and scooped me up. I protested that I could walk. He muttered something unintelligible. I frowned over his shoulder at the other two, who were looking on with a mix of amusement and concern.
I was placed on the couch with a cover no less – I held in my protests – it was still warm outside I didn’t need a blanket. However, it was clear that Theo needed the mothering more than me.
“Right, let’s start at the beginning,” Theo declared as he handed me my refilled coffee cup.
“Um…” My eyes flicked round each of them. Three resolute stares focused on me. Right. Sighing in acceptance, I ran through the evening with them.
I could feel the fury emanating from Colton. I couldn’t look at him. I was only partly sure it was Tattoo Neck he was angry with. I didn’t want the full force of Colton’s anger directed at me. I wasn’t fit for it for starters.
Matt glanced at Colton. “We need to tell her.”
Theo nodded firmly in agreement. He glanced sharply at both of them. “If I had told her on Saturday, this wouldn’t have happened,” he snapped as he settled onto the couch with me. He started rubbing my feet. It was ticklish and I wanted to withdraw my poor feet from this unwelcome attack, but he looked like a giant upset puppy.
“Theo, you know Bit hates her feet being touched,” Matt scolded leaning over and swatting his hands away. I hid my grin. They were both adorable. I caught Colton hiding his grin behind his mug.
Theo growled at Matt and tucked his hands over my feet in protest, but he did stop rubbing them.
“Colton?” Matt turned to his friend and they shared a look. It was one of the few times in my life I experienced Colton Dawson giving in.
“Connor fucked up,” Matt began. I had not been expecting that for an opener. I felt my eyebrows crawl into my hairline. “He was being a complete prick after you took off.” I inhaled sharply and Matt held up a hand. “That’s not a dig at you, he was just more out of control than normal. Jake decided to let him ‘run with it’ as he called it.” Matt blew out a frustrated breath.
“I talked him into coming to Cali with me,” Theo jumped in. “I thought before Cole kills him or he kills himself in his recklessness, I’d take him away. Different scenery, get him to unwind.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew exactly what that meant.
“He seemed to settle down. Met up with a few girls, had a good time. Got stupidly drunk and basically took a couple weeks to work you out of his system,” Th
eo admitted. I shifted uncomfortably. A couple weeks? They told me a few days before. What else were they hiding?
“He met Corey the last week, she was actually the perfect find. He calmed right down and became almost like his normal self.”
“However,” Matt continued, “Jake decided enough was enough. He wanted Colton to change schools for sophomore year and Theo and I decided to do so too. Then Connor said he was tagging along as well. I think Corey had more to do with this decision than she thinks.” I was nodding in agreement. Connor did like his fixations it seemed.
“Matt came to Cali and met up with us,” Theo said. I turned my head to look at him. “Before Jake agreed to let Connor change, he had been acting up again, so Matt came to help me with him.”
I quickly looked at Colton. Where had he been?
“When I got there, I got the call from Cole saying Connor would be joining us at CU.” Matt rolled his eyes, pretty much summing up how he felt about that.
“We got the little drama king back to Big Sky and then made the arrangements to move here,” Theo said. I giggled at the terminology.
“All was good again, Connor graduated in Big Sky, we ended freshman year in Cali, had a normal summer and were getting ready to move here.” Matt took a gulp of his coffee. “Then about two weeks before the semester started, Jake took Colton to Japan for a huge business meeting.” Colton’s brow furrowed. “Shithead went off the rails again,” he shook his head in disgust.
“Honestly, babysitting isn’t my forte,” Matt said snidely. Colton cleared his throat and Matt flushed angrily.
“So, Cole’s in Asia and we’re left with temper tantrum extraordinaire,” Theo carried the story on. “He disappeared for a few days.” Both of them looked at each other.
“We probably should have looked harder,” Matt admitted. Colton snorted in what I think was agreement.
“When he comes back again, he’s like a ghost. All weird and shit and jumping at every little thing.” Matt gripped his coffee cup. “We couldn’t get a word out of him about what was wrong,” he blew out a frustrated breath.
“I called Cole,” Theo said, “he calls Connor. Connor refuses to speak.” This time it was Theo who rolled his eyes. “Colton comes back early from the trip. Tells his dad he wants to make sure he is settled for the start of semester.” I looked at Colton who was still studiously looking out the window.
I frowned. What the hell had Connor done?
“Colton’s back maybe ten minutes. Little shit’s crying and sniffling like a pussy,” Matt muttered.
“Matt.” The low warning tone made Matt pull himself up and he gestured to Theo to continue.
“Seems dipshit decided to make his father proud by getting involved in the shadiest of shady deals with a bloody gangster,” Theo spit out. I gasped.
“What?” I was incredulous.
“Don’t even ask what the deal was, we still don’t know, plus I’m pretty sure knowing what it is makes us guilty by association! We got him to tell us he was trying to impress his dad with a business venture, but he wasn’t smart enough to know it wasn’t legit. However, the crux of it is he took money from his trust fund, ‘invested’ it and lost it all, in about a week, we reckon,” Matt scoffed. “Then to hide the fact that he lost the money, he borrows money from the guy he lost it too, only to then realise that he wouldn’t be able to make the interest payments.” Matt’s voice dripped with contempt.
“We can hide the fact he took the money from his trust fund, that’s not the issue. The issue is the money he borrowed and the rate he needs to pay and the timeframe in which he needs to pay it back by.” Colton said softly. “I found out who the guy is. Aaron works for him now and again. We went to meet with him. We left Connor at home, decided he had done enough damage.” Colton was letting his emotions out and he was more than a little bit bitter.
“He took one look at the three of us and saw dollar signs,” Theo muttered. “Turns out he likes dabbling in underground fighting. We met his criteria for attracting a crowd,” he said equally as bitterly.
“I tried to talk him into letting it just be me, but these two wouldn’t let me do it alone.” Colton’s expression was contrite. His eyes swept over his friends and they both looked at him with mutual love. I saw the bond that they had and with sudden understanding, I knew exactly why Connor acted out. You couldn’t beat that closeness, blood didn’t even trump the bond these three had.
“I couldn’t let him expose my brother or bring my dad’s business into this,” Colton explained. “Aaron runs the fights on the guy’s behalf. If we fight and make the money back that Connor borrowed; he and Aaron will keep quiet.” Colton looked at me for the first time. “We don’t fight because we feel like it, or because of the thrill, we actually need the money. Whatever we make, he keeps and it goes towards the debt,” he looked completely defeated, I ached to reach out and touch him. “It’s for my dad Ari.” Colton added softly.
“Why can’t you just pay him?” I whispered, I knew my eyes were round like saucers. I knew I was on the verge of screaming in frustration at the unfairness of it all.
“We tried. As I said, he looked at us and saw dollar signs, I think Aaron does too. Plus, we can’t have the actual money, there’s a chance Jake would find out. This way, there’s no money changing hands and what we win, goes towards the debt,” Theo bit out. “Also, Aaron’s just a sadistic bastard and likes to mess with people.” Well I could vouch for that.
“They’re blackmailing you?” I whispered.
Three nods.
“What complete bastards.” Three more nods. “How do you know they won’t turn around and tell you that you need to keep fighting?” I felt panic rising, “I mean what’s to say they’ll ever let you stop? They could say you hadn’t paid any of it back!” My eyes were wide, I met Colton’s eyes and realised they had all come to this conclusion a long time ago. What a complete fuck up. I slumped back on the couch.
“And Connor doesn’t know?” Synchronised nodding.
“If he knew he would be worse,” Colton said softly. “It’s best to keep him out of it. He thinks Aaron took the money to pay the guy for us and now we just like hanging out with him, because he’s such a stand-up guy.” Said with pure contempt. I understood why.
“Your brother is an idiot,” Matt muttered.
“I know,” came the soft reply. My heart clenched at the despair in his voice. Colton was hurting bad.
“Where does he think you got the money from?” I wondered aloud. This was a lot of information to take in. My head was reeling and my heart was heavy.
Colton looked at me sadly and with a shake of his head he walked out of the room.
Matt looked after him and then looked at me. “He never even asked,” he said it so softly, his words heavy with the betrayal they all clearly felt.
The fact that Connor just expected his brother to fix this and never even ask how he managed to fix it was a kick in the teeth to them all. It’s not as if the guys had lots of cash to spare. They were from wealthy families sure, but they didn’t have easy access to that wealth. To get to it, questions would be asked. I couldn’t believe Connor hadn’t even asked, no wonder they were frustrated with him.
This was really bad.
My three superheroes looked after me all day on Monday. It made my head hurt when I thought about how I had lost an entire day and more, but I was so very grateful I had lost it with them. How lucky was I that they had been there to catch my fall? The fact that it had been Tattoo Neck that had called Colton to tell him to come get me, confused the hell out of me. What was his angle?
Colton was tight lipped in regards to his theory as to why. Matt changed the subject when I questioned the motive and given all the emotion that had been shared today. I was ok with letting it go. For now.
It left me with a problem though. I wanted nothing to do with Tattoo Neck or his crowd anymore. I was pretty confident that Jay was innocent in all this. I had asked if he knew why they were
fighting. Jay didn’t take part in the fights on a regular basis. They weren’t sure how deeply he was involved in what his brother had going on. Theo had reluctantly admitted that his brother had convinced him that they were just rich kids wanting to slum it.
None of the three of them had disputed it. Jay thought they were authentic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination really. Rich boys ‘slummed’ it all the time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about continuing with Jay. Should I still see him? It seemed unfair to blame any of this on him. I needed to think about this when my head was clear.
I had also learned that Jake Dawson was completely ignorant of their endeavours to keep his family name clean. I was relieved. If I had thought otherwise, I would have strung Dawson Senior up by his tonsils.
The late-night calls from Colton’s dad hadn’t actually been Jake. They had used him as an excuse. I had to offer imaginary Senior an apology in my head for all the negative thoughts I had been sending his way. Seems Tattoo Neck thought he had them at his beck and call and arranged fights at stupid times. Theo was reluctant to admit that the impromptu mid-week fighting actually paid more than the regular fighting at the weekends. Regular fighting, it made my blood run cold.
It was late evening when I looked round my lounge. Theo was on the floor, his long legs stretched in front of him as he rested against the couch. Matt and I were ‘top to tail’ on the couch and Colton was in the single seat his eyes half closed as he slumped in the chair. Theo kept nudging his foot to make sure he was awake as the opening quarter of Monday night football started. It was irritating Colton and giving me and Matt the giggles.
Connor had phoned several times throughout the day and Colton had always answered him, never saying where exactly he was. I had been concerned he would do something stupid, but Colton had assured me Connor had learned his lesson. I noticed that Colton always kept his whereabouts vague. Neither Theo nor Matt had met my questioning gaze when Colton turned his back to answer his brother.
Connor hadn’t been looking for them as such, just letting them know he was going for dinner with Corey and then back to her place that night, so not to look for him.
Indian Summer Page 24