My gaze goes soft as my heart swells. I might be new at relationships because I wasn’t interested in chicks after my family’s money or the status of dating me, but she isn’t like that at all. She’s just herself, this incredible light.
Thea is the only girl I’ve never hated the idea of letting in, sharing my life with, keeping. When I think about the future now, it’s one that includes her.
“Ready to fight me for the covers?”
Her question draws me out of my dazed thoughts. She has her fists up in a mock boxing stance. I cover her hands with mine, correcting her so she won’t end up with broken thumbs if she ever throws a punch.
“Like this. Remind me to teach you to fight.”
“What if I don’t want to fight? Make cake, not war.”
Thea nods sagely, crawling into my open arms as we settle into a comfortable position. I spoon against her back, nuzzling into her neck.
“For self defense, then.” My voice turns drowsy and I stifle a yawn. “Important stuff, baby. Everyone needs to know how to protect themselves.”
“Okay,” she murmurs, reaching over to turn out the light.
As the room plunges in darkness, I roll my hips against hers, enjoying the feel of her ass tucked against my dick. “Mm, goodnight sunshine.”
“Night.” She finds one of my hands and tangles our fingers together, holding our joined hands over her heart.
It’s the most comfortable I’ve felt in a long time.
At dawn, I wake up before Thea, spending a minute enjoying watching her in the pale morning light. Her face is smashed against my chest, and she wasn’t kidding about the fight for the covers—she has all of them cocooned around her while I’m left with a measly corner.
I carefully brush her hair back and kiss her forehead before climbing out of bed. Rustling through my pockets of my pants, I take out the small, polished moonstone I’ve been carrying around, intending to give it to her. I got it when I was a kid, when Dad took me to a nature museum. It was one of our last outings before he began to drift.
The shimmering light blue stone reminds me of Thea. She’s my sunbeam, but I love the way she shines at night, like this stone.
After tugging on my jeans, I flip open one of her recipe notebooks on the desk and take a fresh page. I borrow one of Thea’s pens to draw a heart on the page, put it on her nightstand, and place the moonstone in the middle.
Resisting the temptation to crawl back into bed and wake her up with my tongue, I slip out of the room and manage to sneak out unnoticed. Once I make it out, I send her a good morning text.
Twenty-Five
Connor
After soccer practice finishes, I shower as fast as I can to pick Thea up from the dance planning committee. It’s one of the last practices we’ll have this season before the playoffs start now that it’s November.
“Is your ass on fire?” Devlin jokes as I fly through the locker room.
“Shove it, I’m late to see my girl!” I toss my stuff in my duffel bag as I drag on a clean Silver Lake High Coyotes t-shirt.
“You saw her an hour and a half ago,” Devlin points out as he sprawls across the opposite bench. “Made out with her until we had to drag you off her so she could go.”
I level him with a flat look. “And where was Blair while this was going down?”
Devlin drops his gaze, grinning stupidly. Yeah, I’ve got him. I saw the way he was all wrapped up in her in the parking lot when he went to get his gear.
“Aight, I’m out,” I call to the other guys in the locker room. “Let’s keep it tight and finish the season strong.”
A few whoops and hollers follow me as I duck out of the room and head for the one the dance committee is using for prep duties. I can’t wipe the dopey grin off my face as I yank the door open, planning to sweep Thea off her feet and kiss her.
I freeze in the doorway, jealousy rocketing through me fast enough to make me sick to my stomach.
Coleman stands too close to Thea, leaning into her space as he points out whatever is on the papers she’s presenting to him. Creep.
Dealing with this was hell when we were faking, but now that she’s my girlfriend? I’m even more possessive of her. He gives me a bad vibe and I don’t want him near her.
Stalking into the room, I make sure I’m as loud as possible, dumping my athletic duffel on the floor. The other students on the committee throw me dirty looks. One of them is Maisy Landry, squinting at me over the clipboard she’s marking.
“Hey, babe. Practice finished early. Perks of being captain.” I slide in, draping an arm over her shoulder, subtly pulling her away from our teacher. “Ready to go?”
“Hi. In a minute, we’re just figuring out the logistics of the refreshment tables and the DJ.” She flips through her papers, mumbling to herself.
I touch her hair, pulling it out of her face while she’s working. I know I’m being territorial, but I can’t help it when it comes to her. Coleman’s hand twitches every time I touch her.
“Mr. Bishop, this meeting is for planning committee members and faculty advisors only, I’m afraid,” Coleman says in mock-sympathy. Yeah fucking right. He’s trying to kick me out so he can perv on my girlfriend. “If you’d like to wait outside for—”
“Actually, come here,” Thea says, tugging on my shirt. “I need your help and everyone else is busy with their own tasks.”
I smirk at Coleman as she leads me across the room. His lip curls and he looks like he wants to strangle me. Not very becoming for an educator.
“Hold this up for me? Yeah, like that,” Thea directs, stepping back and pinching her chin as she studies the balloon archway decoration I’m holding up. “Okay, good. We’ll weave the clear ones through to spell out SLHS and fill those with silver glitter. It’ll be perfect for the photo op as people arrive.”
I peer overhead. “You did all this?”
Thea nods.
“It’s awesome.”
“Thanks. This is just the test version, but I saw a really cool photo online.”
“People are gonna love it. Look, come here.” I motion her over with my head as I hold up the archway. “Take a selfie so you can see.”
As she holds up her phone, I kiss her cheek. She’s grinning in the photo, her face scrunched adorably from my attack kiss.
“There. See?”
“Yeah.” Her voice is warm as she studies the photo. “It looks so good. Okay, perfect.”
“Send me that one. I’m totally posting it.”
Thea shoots me a beaming smile as she shuffles her papers. I set the decoration down and lean over her shoulder to see the logistics.
“Put the tables with food over here and the DJ here,” I say, pointing out spots on the page. “Mom made me go to this rally once and that’s how they did it. Something about the natural flow.”
“Oh! That’s perfect.” Thea makes a mark on the page, drawing little symbols of her own making. “Awesome, now we can go.”
Coleman has been watching us the entire time. While his attention is on us, I take her face and tip it up for a kiss, sliding my gaze to him. A muscle in his jaw jumps.
I wind my fingers with hers. “So are we good to go?”
“Yes.” She pulls away to cross the room.
I shoulder my bag and take Thea’s as she talks to Maisy. They both come over. Her friend sizes me up.
“Maisy is coming over so we can go shopping.”
“Cool.” I hold a fist out for her to bump.
She holds out, then taps her fist against mine.
Coleman hovers while Thea delegates last minute questions from the other planning committee members. As she returns to my side, he stands in our path.
“Is there anything else we can knock out today?”
“No, but I’ll call the DJ to confirm tonight.” Thea doesn’t pick up on his intensity. She’s too kind to suspect anything is wrong. “We’ll move onto the other tasks at the meeting next week.”
“Well. I
have to say, Thea, I knew you were the right choice for this. You’re perfect.” His gaze is unwavering as he stares her down, like he’s waiting for her recognition. “I have to commend you for a job well done so far.”
I exchange a look with Maisy. She’s put off by Coleman, too, so I know I’m not imagining this weird feeling.
“Thank you,” Thea says.
“I just know that because of your hard work, you’ll always have all the world has to offer you,” Coleman says in this haunting voice that makes every hair on my body stand on end. “You won’t have to wait for it anymore.”
What the fuck?
An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu washes over me. I recognize those words. They were one of the creepy stalker comments on Thea’s blog.
I’m taking a step before I know it, edging between them to protect Thea. Coleman can’t quite smother the frustrated sound that catches in his throat.
“Come on, or we’ll totally miss all of our shopping time,” Maisy says, hooking her arm with Thea’s and ushering her ahead.
I cut a glance to the side, making sure Thea is leaving.
“What? No we won’t,” she says. “Relax, the dresses aren’t going anywhere.”
“Let’s just get out of here.” Maisy twists around. “Boyfriend? Your chauffeur service is required. My brother already left.”
I hang back for another beat, meeting Coleman’s gaze with a challenge. He seems to snap out of the psycho trance he was in a second ago talking to Thea and sneers at me.
“Get out of here before I give you detention, Mr. Bishop.”
I give him an arrogant snort. “For what? Standing?”
Without waiting for his answer, I head out. The slithering feeling knotting my stomach doesn’t leave as I catch up with the girls.
“So that was weird, right?” Maisy asks once we reach the parking lot.
“Hmm?” Thea takes her bag from my shoulder, rummaging for her phone. “What was weird?”
Maisy’s gaze darts to me and we both look at Thea.
“Do you have conversations like that with any of your other teachers?” Maisy questions. “Seriously, I think what he said to you was over the line.”
“I guess not. Mr. Coleman’s really cool though,” Thea says. “I’ve always felt like I can talk to him.”
“That guy?” I shake my head.
“Thank you!” Maisy looks at me in a new light, no longer judging me for being her friend’s boyfriend she doesn’t know.
“He’s my favorite teacher,” Thea says firmly.
“I’m questioning your taste.”
Thea pokes my arm. “My taste includes you, too.”
“Smile and eyes,” Maisy cuts in, studying me. “Twelve out of ten, but butt? Eh, six out of ten.”
“What’s wrong with my ass? Have you ever seen a soccer player’s ass up close, little Landry?”
“Absolutely nothing wrong back here,” Thea assures me, biting her lip around a smile and tucking her hand in the back pocket of my jeans, boldly giving my ass a squeeze.
I give her a smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. I can’t shake the dark web of thoughts clinging to me.
We climb into my Lexus GX and I waste no time pulling out of the lot. As soon as I drop them off, I’m setting out on the hunt to dig up the comment triggering my memory to check it against Coleman’s words.
Hiding my suspicion from Thea and Maisy on the ride home was hard. I didn’t want Thea to think I was in a bad mood, but I was itching to get on my computer and dig through her blog. A sick feeling has lodged in my gut and I have to double check if I’m right.
My knee bounces as I wake my system from sleep mode, and my fingers pound the keys harder than necessary as I type in my login.
I go straight for her blog, Coleman’s words playing in my head like the eerie tune of a rundown carousel ride.
The same thing repeats in the comments.
Henry_Your_GoodKnight: Your intelligent eyes say it all, love. You’re longing for the world to show you all it has to offer.
Henry_Your_GoodKnight: Do you trust me, princess? Your knight waits for you. My precious doll. Say you’ll take my hand and I’ll show you all the world has to offer.
Henry_Your_GoodKnight: Missing these intelligent eyes and talking to you. Where have you gone, love? Do you miss me, too? I dream of finding you, coming to steal you away for the whirlwind romance the world has to offer you. It’s me, I’m your world. If I held out my hand, would you take it? The thought consumes me.
The timestamps are recent. My overprotectiveness for Thea goes into overdrive, but I have to know what I’m dealing with first.
Gritting my teeth, I take the IP address and trace it. The search runs for a second, bouncing around before telling me it routes to the Ukraine. That isn’t right. I know it.
There’s no way in hell Coleman says the same exact thing to Thea that this Henry Knight guy says all over her blog.
“Fucker,” I grit out. “Know how to mask yourself with a VPN, huh? I’ll find you.”
I switch to searching for Coleman instead. One way or another I’ll tie him to the Henry Knight username and gather everything I need to prove to Thea she needs to stay away from him. Basic search engines only turn up his LinkedIn and results that don’t match him. I slam my fist on the desk, frustrated beyond measure.
How can he have wiped himself from the web? It’s damn near impossible these days to fly so under the radar. Leaning forward with a deep inhale, I pull up the Ridgeview School District database and use Dad’s password to login to the admin network. Coleman’s employee file has to have something. I click through only to find his previous employment history won’t open.
Closed records.
“That’s not shady at all,” I mutter, trying to find a workaround to access it.
All I get is his ID photo and his start date. The name on his file makes me suck in a breath. Shit.
H. K. Coleman.
“Too close to be a coincidence. What does H stand for?”
The deeper I search, the more roadblocks I come up against. My hair must be standing on end from practically ripping it out of my head because I’m not getting anywhere.
It’s like Coleman showed up without any trace of where the hell he came from. I’ve never been able to find anything useful on him. No one is that much of a ghost.
When I’m about to give up, a search result on my third try with new keywords catches my eye. Next to the link is a thumbnail of Coleman smiling with a group of students. Mostly girls, I note with clenched teeth.
The link says North East Regional Award for Excellence. Beneath that, the description goes on to preview the article.
Local students from Thorne Point Junior Academy commended for their fundraiser work, along with their advisor, Harold K. Coleman.
An icy sensation drags down my back like vicious nails. Harold. If my name was Harold, I’d go by Henry, too. I swear to god, if Coleman’s middle name is Knight…
My violent thoughts race too fast to sort out. I click on the link while my heart thuds.
An auto-download triggers.
“Shit!” I fumble with the keyboard and mouse, but I’m too slow to stop it. Within seconds, the file downloads and runs an install package. “Mother fuck—no!”
Goddamn it, I’m better than this. I know not to click on unfamiliar links or download fishy files, no matter how funny an angry desktop goose sounds. Learned that the hard way thanks to a trending TikTok video. Wasn’t worth it, twelve out of ten wouldn’t recommend.
Whoever this is, they’re good. They confused a major search engine to show their download within the results, luring anyone looking hard to find Coleman once they put together enough of the puzzle. That is top level shit. I have no idea how they pulled it off.
An 8-bit crow animation flies across my screen, the little black bird mocking me. The screen goes dark and flashes with a skull. Once the crow lands on top of the skull, the whole monitor display glitches
into pixelated distortion before returning to normal.
I’m looking around for the crow, ready to drag its ass to the trash can icon, when a chat window pops up. There’s no way anyone should have access to my system. Whatever was in that download package, it infiltrated my firewalls.
Dolos: Looking for info on Harold Coleman?
I hesitate to answer, rubbing my jaw. This whole thing feels hinky.
Dolos: Time’s ticking. Answer now.
When I don’t respond, they message again.
Dolos: Connor Alexander Bishop. Ridgeview, Colorado. Senior at Silver Lake High School. Varsity soccer captain. Son of city council chairwoman Vivian Bishop. Active social media presence. Girlfriend, Thea Kennedy. Oh, she lives next door. Cute. Should we keep going?
“Jesus.” I push back from the desk and scrub my face.
Within seconds they were able to doxx me and get a whole picture of my life. Not just mine. Thea’s, through her connection to me. This is a professional who knows what they’re doing.
If they’re on my system, they could get into my blackmail files or find the backdoor to Thea. Not happening. I drag myself back and release a ragged breath.
Connor: Enough, I get it. I’m here. Nice work on the search result embedding. You got me.
Dolos: Glad you’re paying attention.
Connor: You have details on Coleman?
Dolos: We do.
Connor: And??? Give it to me. I need it.
Dolos: That’s not how this works. First you need to do us a favor. If you’re successful, we’ll give you everything you’re searching for.
Connor: And if I refuse?
They can give it to me now or not at all. I don’t have time to play games. I’ll get it on my own.
Dolos: You can try. You’ll never find what you’re looking for. Coleman has friends in high places with deep pockets that helped him disappear the last time we had him pinned down. We’re the only ones with the info. It’s no longer public record.
Ruthless Bishop: Dark New Adult High School Bully Romance (Sinners and Saints Book 3) Page 21