by Jordan Grant
“He’ll take care of it,” Everett says beside me. Everyone nods in agreement.
“No way is old man Beckett letting Ian’s mugshot end up on Google,” Chase says as he pops the top on a can of Coke and takes a sip.
Molly rests her arm around my shoulders again. “He’ll be out in no time. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah,” Archie agrees, abruptly drunk again since the cops have left. “They don’t keep juveniles overnight.”
I don’t get a chance to say it because he realizes his mistake. “Oh, shit, wait.”
“He’s not a juvenile anymore, dumbass,” Chase says with a snort.
“He’s a legal adult in the state of New York,” Raven adds with a solemn nod.
“Still,” Molly says, her hand rubbing small circles across my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Har. They won’t keep him. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But they think he did,” I whisper as the television show of my life starts to crumble, and it begins to feel too real.
“Can’t believe that dumbass stabbed himself,” Chase says. “What a fucking moron.”
“He got what he wanted,” I say. “Ian gone.”
“Want me to call an Uber? We can wait on him outside the station,” Molly offers.
“Just stay here,” Raven offers. “We have plenty of space. He’ll call when he’s released. If you camp out in front of a police station, they tend to get suspicious.”
I nod. “Raven’s right. The police probably wouldn’t like that.” I look at Raven. “I don’t want to stay here tonight, not with…”
My stomach churns at the thought of blood on the kitchen tile.
“I can drive,” Everett offers, checking his phone. “I had like half of a beer three hours ago.”
“Can I come too?” Molly asks.
Everett nods.
“Joinsies,” Archie says, raising an index finger.
“Me too,” Chase mutters, taking another sip of his Coke.
“Well, I gotta stay,” Raven says. “Aurora’s definitely already told Daddy, and this place better be spotless by the time his plane lands.”
She gives me a quick hug and draws me in tight. “Call me when he’s out,” she says.
I nod.
We follow Everett to his SUV. It’s an all-black Mercedes-Benz model that’s not even out yet. He and Chase are talking about it, discussing the specs of the engine, the top speed, and how it can get from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.5 seconds. As I climb in the backseat, Molly beside me, and Archie beside her, I realize they aren’t talking about Ian’s arrest because they aren’t worried about it. This is a mild inconvenience for them but not something their parents wouldn’t help them out of.
I stare out the window as we head back to campus, looking out at the stars. I wonder if Ian is doing the exact same thing at the moment, except he has cuffs on his wrists. We may be looking at the same stars, but it feels like we are a million miles apart. The drive back to campus takes a while, and I’m pretty sure I hear Archie softly snoring beside Molly. Everett and Chase continue to discuss the car specs. Everett pulls into the student parking garage, a climate-controlled home all its own for the possessions of Voclain’s students, and parks the car.
I still feel numb as I step out, followed by Molly. We walk with the group outside the garage and split to head to the girls’ dorm.
“Call me if you hear anything,” Everett tells Molly.
She nods, and I am lost inside my head as we walk to the dorm and take the elevator up to the top floor.
The button lights up for the second floor, and there’s Ian inside my brain, walking out in cuffs.
The button lights up for the third floor, and there’s his face, so stoic and insouciant like he didn’t have a care in the world. But I know better.
Fourth floor, and then we are here, walking to our dorm room.
“You okay, Harlow?” Molly asks, and I nod automatically as she lets us into our room. When I collapse on my bed, I fall into a dreamless slumber, but I don’t really sleep, and I’m still exhausted when I wake up.
I look over at my nightstand to find my alarm clock staring back at me.
Eleven o’clock in the afternoon.
A bottle of orange juice and a muffin wait for me on the nightstand next to my phone. I snatch my phone quickly and check for any word from Ian or his parents, but there’s nothing from them. I’ve got a text from my mom wishing me a good day and a message from Raven and Molly each, both checking on me.
I don’t taste the juice when I take my pill with a swallow, and I can’t bring myself to eat the muffin. My appetite lies somewhere in a jail cell with Ian.
I sit there for a long time, hours probably, willing my phone to ring with his call or to ding with a text from him, but no matter how hard I stare at it, it just sits there, dead in my hand.
A knock on the door finally pulls me out of bed. It’s probably Raven or one of the guys checking on me. I pad out of my room and through the modest den to the front door. I open it to find Finn Berkshire staring at me, a hand wrapped around his middle, looking worse for wear. How did he even get inside the building?
“What are you doing here?” I manage after a beat. “Shouldn’t you be in a hospital or something?”
Finn part smiles and part grimaces. “Checked myself out. Your boyfriend back yet?” he asks. “Can’t find him around anywhere.”
“You’re sick,” I hiss at him. “If you came here to gloat, just get out.”
He stares at me with those cold, dead eyes of his. Even looking at him makes me sick. I move to shut the door in his face, and he stops me with one hard push.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warns. “You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
His comment causes me to pause. “Why?”
He does the smile-grimace thing again. “If you don’t want your boyfriend rotting in a jail cell for the next five to ten, you should listen to me.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Again, why?”
“Because my family owns Greenbrier from the cops up to the judge, and I think you’ll find that the words ‘due process’ and ‘fair trial’ don’t apply to your boyfriend.”
My heart ricochets, and I’m glad the hoodie I pulled on covers the pulse point at the base of my throat, which is definitely going wild.
“I don’t believe you,” I lie.
“You will,” and he sounds so confident of the fact. “When your boyfriend doesn’t come home tonight, you’ll see.”
“What are you getting at, asshole?” I snap. I am not a violent person, but I definitely get the urge to punch Finn Berkshire in the face.
“I want you to break up with him, and I want that QB spot on the football team,” he says with a sneer, like he’s not the least bit disgusted by this indecent proposal, probably because he isn’t.
“Gross! I’m not going to date you!”
Oh, he looks like he pities me now.
“I don’t need to fuck you, blondie. I just need to know Ian is fucked.”
“Why, freak?”
He tsks, and I think painkillers are probably the reason he hasn’t full-on tried to kill me yet.
“Because my misery craves his company.”
“You really are a psychopath.”
He grins like it’s a badge of honor.
“What if I go to the cops and tell them what you’re doing?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ll tell them you are trying to ruin Ian’s life and blackmail me.”
He thinks about my words for a moment, shrugs, and promptly disregards them. “They’ll never believe you. I’m just the innocent victim your boyfriend stabbed.”
“You won’t get away with it.”
“And your boyfriend won’t see sunlight in at least a couple thousand days.”
“What is your problem?” I nearly scream at him, and my reaction seems to pull something deep from within him.
“He’s taken everything that should
have been mine!” he seethes, careful to keep his voice quiet. “I deserved the QB spot. My father was QB, and his father before him. It was my goddamned birth right. I deserved the baseball captain spot. I deserved to run this school. Yet, everything that is mine just gets handed to him.”
“You don’t even play baseball,” I scoff. What an entitled fucking prick.
“Because he made sure of it! Just like he made sure I got kicked off the football team!” He leans in, his breath smelling as sour as his soul. “Just make sure it gets done, Weathersby, or the outcome will be worse, for the both of you.”
“Why should I believe you?” I suck in a quick breath. “I break up with Ian, and you’ll just tell the cops you did it yourself?”
He sneers at me. “No, dumbass. I’ll tell him I was a little drunk and in shock and I’m just not sure.” He shrugs. “Who knows who it was.”
“How do I know you’ll hold up your end of the bargain?”
He shrugs again. “You don’t, but if you don’t cooperate, your boyfriend already loses.
“Do it when he gets out,” he adds. “It’s your first and final offer.”
He swaggers down the hallway, clearly confident his plan is going to work.
“What stops him from killing you when it’s all over?” I call to his back.
He stops walking and turns around to stare at me. “Because I won’t be here, cupcake. At the end of the year, I transfer, and your boyfriend will never find me.”
“You’re sick!” I spew at him.
He gives me the finger. “And you and your boyfriend are screwed,” he replies.
5
Ian
Fuck, it’s bright outside, too bright, after being in a cramped cell for the last twenty-four plus hours. The guard handed me my shit in a brown paper bag. My phone is dead, like won’t even tell me to charge it when I hit the button dead, and my wallet’s in my pocket. I wad up the bag and toss it in the nearest trashcan on my way out.
My head throbs like I’ve taken a football to the skull, and I would give everything in my wallet for a couple of Advil. I don’t see any of my friends, and I’m debating going back inside to ask to use the phone when a guy with a can of grease in his definitely-not-natural black hair thrusts out his hand. “Ian?” the guy says. “Ian Beckett.”
I blink at him and then his outstretched hand. Dude’s dressed in a pinstripe Prada suit and a pair of Gucci loafers. He’s trying too hard, but he’s definitely the lawyer my father hired.
I shake his hand.
“I’m Tucker, Tucker Eaves,” the guy says, “your lawyer. Nice to meet you. I’ll drive you back to school, and we can talk. Sound good?”
“Sure,” I tell him.
What choice do I have? I can’t even call someone, and eventually I’m going to have to talk to this fake prick anyway. Might as well get it over with now. Plus, I am moderately grateful he got me out. I was sure I was going to have to wait until the arraignment on Monday.
I climb into his Yukon Denali as he starts the engine, blasting me with AC immediately.
“You have a charger?” I ask him.
“Nope.” The guy shakes his head as he pulls away from the police station. “It’s a rental.”
He hits a red light before he can turn onto the interstate.
“Tell me what happened,” he says. “Start from the beginning and don’t leave a single detail out.”
I recount the story to him, with him interjecting surprisingly astute questions about my past with Berkshit, Finn’s reputation at school, my reputation, and the scene of the alleged crime.
“Sounds like that kid’s a real piece of work,” he says.
I don’t reply.
“Well, I can tell you that town is something else too.” He frowns, and although my father is definitely paying this guy five hundred an hour just to babysit me back to campus, he seems a little concerned, which in turns makes me concerned.
“Should I be worried?” I ask him.
The shutter falls over his face, and he shakes his head over at me. “Nothing I can’t handle, that we can’t handle at Eaves, Munoz, and Donaldson.” He says the firm name like I should know it, like it should impress me. I don’t, and it doesn’t.
He shrugs. “I had to threaten a civil rights lawsuit to get you out and drop the name of Beckett Enterprises multiple times. Normally, it’s not that…difficult.”
I think about Sergeant Sourface who arrested me. Yeah, that guy definitely doesn’t care about any of the words that just came out of Tucker Eaves’s mouth.
Dude puts his hand on my shoulder like we’re about to have some father-son bonding time or some shit. “Don’t worry, son. We’ll get you out of this. They don’t have anything on you besides that kid’s lies. I had the state lab put a rush order on the fingerprints on the knife, and they can’t find your prints, which would be all over that blade if you had done it.”
Great. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. I normally don’t care who believes what about me, but I want my lawyer on my side all the time.
“They won’t find my prints,” I say, “because I didn’t do anything.”
“I know, son,” he squeezes my shoulder, “and they do too.”
It’s the longest ride ever back to Voclain. About forty miles outside campus, there’s a fender-bender turned pile-up that takes forever to get through. At thirty miles out, there’s construction, which has got the highway down to two lanes. At twenty miles out, it starts raining. Great—there’s a literal storm brewing.
Raindrops pelt the glass as my attorney forces me to listen to shock-jock radio on Sirius. Not that anything they say is particularly shocking to me. They have never lived with my father or heard the things he has said. He cranks it up, but the rain is coming down hard, the windshield wipers barely able to keep up, and the storm drowns most of it out. We pull up to campus, the wrought-iron gates open and accepting visitors.
“Nice place,” my lawyer remarks. I direct him where to go, and he parks behind the guys’ dormitory.
He snatches a card from inside his suit jacket and hands it to me. “Call me if you need anything,” he tells me. “Otherwise, I will call you in a few days to check in.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, shoving the card into a pocket of my khaki shorts.
I exit the SUV and walk through the rain toward the front door. It’s a short walk, and I am fast, despite being exhausted, but I’m still soaked by the time I enter the lobby. I need to shower at least five times to wash the police station off of me. Then I need to gargle with mouthwash a couple of times and burn my clothes.
The elevator is super slow, so I opt for the stairs, taking them two at a time, because first I need to charge my phone so I can call Harlow.
Then I’ll double bag my clothes and shower until my skin blisters. In the last few hours, I’ve seen some of the grossest displays of my life, including a dude projectile puking across the aisle into my holding cell. I’m throwing away my shoes too.
I finally reach my apartment and unlock the door. I rip off my shoes and my shirt, leaving them on the tile floor of the kitchen on the way to my bed to find my charger. It’s right where I left it, and I plug in my phone and wait.
And wait.
And wait some freakin’ more. How long does it take…
It finally turns on with a buzz. Thank everything. I swipe my thumb across the screen quickly, unlocking it, but there’s a knock at my door. I’m determined to ignore it, but I haven’t even pulled up her contact before the pounding becomes a steady, relentless patter.
“What the fuck,” I mutter before tossing my phone, charger still connected, on my bed and leaving to investigate.
I unlock the deadbolt and fling open the door, ready to kill whoever is already taking my attention away from her. Only it’s her standing there already.
I blink at Harlow in surprise. She’s drenched, shaking a little under the cold AC, her shoulders speckled with goosebumps.
“Y
ou’re here!” she says as she launches herself at me. She wraps her arms around my neck and sends me rocking back onto my heels. “Thank God you’re out!”
“You doubted it?” I ask with a dry laugh, but she doesn’t respond. She pulls back and doesn’t even look elated anymore. She just looks serious and somber.
“What took so long?” she asks. “I thought they’d release you yesterday.”
I shrug as I shut the door behind her. “Lawyer said there was some small-town bullshit.”
I expect her to ask me more questions. I expect her to make sure I’m all right and whole. I don’t expect her to burst into tears.
“Hey,” I say, tugging her back into my arms. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’ll be over soon. I’m not getting expelled either. I’m not. Since it happened off of campus grounds, they won’t take any action unless I’m found guilty, which I won’t be.”
I know that from the year before and my drunk and disorderly arrest. Hopefully, that rule continues to apply for assault charges.
My words don’t seem to comfort her at all though. She just keeps crying, and I keep holding her as she cries. I knew it had to be rough on her. I didn’t know it would be devastating.
“Shh,” I whisper. “It’s okay. Seriously. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
I run a hand through her white-blonde hair as she stands there, sobbing. I kiss the crown of her head, then her forehead, and she is so cold against me. Her skin is wet from the rain, her hair sticking to her bare shoulders. Slowly, she begins to calm, hiccupping with her sobs.
I kiss her cheeks, her nose, her lips, yet it feels like I’m holding a shell of my girlfriend, until something between us ignites, and there’s the taste of sweat and a hint of salt and rain. She moans, leaning up on the tips of her toes, and stretches to reach me. My tongue slides inside her mouth, and fuck, I really need a shower, but it can wait.
I roll her shirt over her stomach and her breasts, tug it over her head, and let it drop to the floor next to mine. Her fingers run over my pecs and down my abdomen before they fumble with the button on my shorts. They drop to pool on the floor at my feet. My cock is painfully hard, and I need to be inside her, to just be us for a moment.