by KT Strange
Cael met my eyes again through the rear-view mirror, a question in them. I blinked and glanced past him as he turned onto my uncle’s drive, crunching over the rocky path. The truck bounced more than I was used to and Shawn slung his arm around my waist, pulling me close.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Um, yeah, I think we need to be more worried about you right now,” I said, “like, don’t even think about anyone else but yourself right now.”
He let out a humorless laugh.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, but I didn’t trust him or that promise. He was too close to the edge; I could feel it in him.
As we pulled up to the house, I saw my uncle standing on the porch, Buck with him. My uncle lifted a coffee cup to his lips as we stopped, his eyes dark and intense. Buck hopped off the porch and came running toward the truck. I slipped out of the back seat as he reached us, his arms coming out. I slid up next to him, feeling the strength in his grip as he wrapped me against him.
“Shawn,” Buck said, and I shivered for a moment, seconds tripping over themselves as Shawn hovered on the edge of the truck-seat before sliding down, right up against Buck’s chest, Buck’s other arm curving around his shoulders.
The three of us stood there, leaning into one another as Shawn started to shake all over again.
“Good thing you didn’t call Reid,” Cael said to Garrett in the background.
“Kids,” my uncle said as he left his coffee cup on the porch railing and descended to meet us. Shawn was half-buried into Buck’s chest, which didn’t even bother me when maybe it should have. It just seemed… natural. Like he was supposed to be there. There was that feeling inside me again, jus like when I’d kissed him in the car. We needed to save Shawn, however that happened. Something bigger than my feelings was at play, and the seriousness of it had swallowed up my past hurt, at least temporarily.
My uncle cleared his throat, waiting for us to look at him. Shawn lifted his head from Buck’s shoulder, his chest expanding in minute, strictured breaths.
“I think we should all go inside,” he said, gesturing to the house. “Get warmed up. There’s coffee, and donuts.”
Garrett’s eyes flashed with gratitude and when he walked past my uncle, he dropped his head an inch and murmured a thank you. My uncle smiled briefly, and met my eyes, a softness there that told me he was going to handle everything.
Thank God for Uncle Matt. I was beginning to think that he could make anything better, anything at all.
“Let’s go, Shawn,” Buck said gently, peeling himself away from him.
“I don’t feel cold,” Shawn lied as a gusty breeze hit the leaves a few feet from us, and he shivered in response. His thin t-shirt had dried out from the fear-sweat, but he was still sockless and shoeless.
“We can fix that,” my uncle said, eyeing up Shawn’s disarrayed state. “I got some clothes that’ll fit you, from my younger years. Mia, do you mind? Up in the hall closet, there’s a box I was planning on donating.”
I followed him inside, Buck and Shawn trailing behind me, Cael bringing up the rear, still quiet and steady.
“No problem," I said, running up the stairs as Shawn just stood there in the middle of my living room, looking mildly shellshocked. The warmth of the house was welcome after the chilly outside. November days were a real drag, especially out in the countryside when the clouds opened up and all the heat seemed to evaporate into the atmosphere.
Wrestling with my uncle's poor organizational skills a few minutes later, I dragged the box downstairs. Shawn looked at me with relief in his eyes as he reached in and snagged an old pair of jeans, and a long-sleeve henley, along with an oversized pair of work socks. He padded off to the downstairs bathroom, and shut the door tight behind him.
The rest of us were left to look at one another, and I swallowed tightly.
"So," I said.
"Cael texted me a sit-rep," my uncle said as Buck poured us all coffee. We were going to need it. I wrinkled my nose when he didn't put in enough sugar and he gave me a small smile and heaped a few more teaspoons into my cup.
"It was every bit as bad as I told you, sir," Cael said, crossing his arms over his chest as we gathered around the kitchen island. I reached for my coffee and sipped it. Coffee was alright. It wasn't my favorite drink, but I was going to need some of that jittery energy boost to get me through the rest of the day, whatever it was going to hold.
"No doubt. I'll need to take Shawn to speak with someone about it," my uncle said. Garrett made a noise in the back of his throat.
"He's not going to want that," he said when we all looked at him. "It's..."
"It's not the first time," Buck finished for him with a sigh. Garrett glanced away, a guilty blush creeping up his neck.
"Sometimes... people think we've been fighting, but I'd never.. not like that, I'd never lay a hand on my brother like that, but they don't look into it too deep if they just think it's a fight between twins, you know?" Garrett's eyes were shiny with unshed tears and I shifted my weight back and forth before going to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. I just couldn't stand back while he was on the edge of crying, and it was obvious he was feeling bad for never speaking up before, for hiding it.
"Hey now, it's not like you're born knowing how to deal with this shit. Your father should know better," my uncle said, his tone soothing and calm. Garrett nodded, not able to meet Matt's eyes out of the shame of it. He wasn't to blame, not really. What was he suppsoed to do? What were any of us supposed to do? Sure we played at being adults, and... and I'd been doing very 18 plus things with the guys, but we were still young, and it wasn't up to us. It should never have been up to Garrett to stop the abuse.
"We all knew," Buck said, "but we never-"
"Can you guys stop talking about me like I'm not here," Shawn said, his voice cracking. We twisted to look at him. He stood, his hands clenched at his sides, the hurt on his face aimed at us but I knew it wasn't really us. He was upset at his dad, his parents. We were just convenient, and safe, to be angry with.
"C'mon over here," Matt said, holding out an arm. Shawn heaved a breath, and unclenched his hands, reaching for the coffee that was set aside. My uncle let a heavy arm span the length of Shawn's shoulders.
"He should stay here," I said, realizing what would make it better, or as better as it could be, in the short period of time we had. "He can stay with us for a few days, right Uncle Matt?"
"Mia," my uncle said with a sigh. I expected Shawn to say no, he was fine, he'd either go home or somewhere, but instead Shawn turned to my uncle and gave him a pleading look.
"I can't go home," he said, "I really don't belong there."
"Like hell, of course you do," Garrett said, even as Shawn shook his head.
"No, you're the favorite son, we all know that. It's all about you. It's always been you. Please, and I don't want you to feel bad about it. It's never been your fault. Our parents are super fucked and it's on them. You know that, right? Like... they're fucked." He took a shuddering breath in and drank his coffee with a big gulp. He grimaced at the heat, but managed to swallow it down. "I need to think. I need space and time, and if you'll let me, Coach, please. You won't even know Im here."
Buck's lips twitched as my uncle gave him a hard look.
"Yeah that worked out well for me in the past," my uncle said, as Cael raised his eyebrows, and from the way his gaze slid toward me, I knew they were all thinking about how me and Buck had... um. Fucked. Right under my uncle's roof. Whoopsie.
"We're not exactly," I said, my face burning. "Can we just not worry about what might happen and instead focus on what is happening? Shawn needs a safe place to stay."
Buck raised his hand as if offering his place. Shawn groaned.
"No, that's the last thing I need, my dad already hates the fact that I'm-" he cut himself off before he could say it but I knew exactly what he meant. It wouldn't be a good look to stay with Buck, when Shawn's feelings were open and on display for
everyone in town to gawk at.
"Yeah, alright," my uncle said after a moment. "Downstairs is still ready for guests." Shawn let out a relieved sigh and I reached for his hand, squeezing it when he let me grab it. He gave me a brief, shaky smile.
"Thank you," he said, "you were like a goddamn avenging angel today." My heart pulse, the warmth spreading through me.
"Well, it looked like you needed one," I said softly in return. My chest ached for him, but it the tension was slowly unwinding, the weight slipping off of my shoulders. It was a relief. My uncle went downstairs to make up the bed as Garrett lead Shawn out onto the porch for some twin time. The three of us, me, Cael, and Buck stood around the kitchen island, drinking coffee in the quiet of the household.
"You know," Cael said, his eyes lifting to glance out the windows where Garrett had his head tucked against his brother's as they talked. "There's one person you really need to check in with."
"Huh?" Mr. Riordan could go fuck himself, as far as I was concerned. If my uncle wanted to tell him where Shawn was, that was his choice, but I wasn't going to be calling the rich old bastard.
"Colt," Cael said, "he's probably going to want to know about this before it hits the gossip mill."
Oh. Shit.
9
Mia
Getting ahold of Colt was proving to be way more difficult than I had anticipated. He wasn't responding to text messages or calls. Cael had said that things were sorted out, for now, legally speaking, and that Colt had been released back to the school. Shawn had taken the brunt of things, and until anyone said otherwise, I was going to assume (cautiously) that Colt was in the clear.
So if he was okay, why the hell wasn't he answering me?
After my fifth unanswered text message that day, I bit my lip and finally turned to Cael, who'd stuck around with Buck to hang out at my uncle's place, and asked for a ride to the school. I could've walked, but the afternoon sun was short and shivery in the late fall sky.
Cael rolled his eyes.
"If I’m gonna do any more of this, I need one of those hats that drivers wear," he said. I cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Okay, well, then why don't you send your driver over to collect me instead if it's such a hassle. You have one, right? A family driver?"
"We do," Cael said coolly, collecting his truck keys from where he'd slung them on top of his coat on the couch. He said nothing else, leaving it at that. Buck snickered and raised his coffee cup to us.
"Have fun," he said.
"Not coming?" I asked. He shook his head.
"I'm not Colt's favorite person right now," he said with a shrug. "Cael, at least, he won't throw things at."
Cael was silent on the drive over to the school, and he pulled around back toward the dorms where the boarding students lived.
"Want me to leave the car running?" He asked.
"What's the big deal?" I asked, even though I knew perfectly well what the big deal was and that I was fooling myself if Colt was going to be okay with Shawn staying under the same roof as me.
"He'll probably be a little angry, but how mad can he be, when Shawn took the fall fo rhim?"
"Yeah I can't really wrap my head around that."
"He loves you, idiot," Cael said, slinging his arm behind my seat, twisting his body to look at me straight on. "Do you not see that?"
I flushed, and met his gaze evenly.
"He made out with my boyfriend."
"Kissed. Once. And you know the shit he's been going through at home. That's enough to make anyone act like an idiot. I'm not saying you should forgive him right now and forget everything, but is it all that bad in the big scheme of things?" Cael was so reasoned, it sounded perfectly logical coming from him.
"You're forgetting about how he set everyone at school on my ass and didn't do anything to fix that," I said, the hurt coiling up my stomach. I had wrapped it up in Pandora's box, but Cael was prying it back open, for whatever stupid reason that was possessing him. I glared at his face, and ignore the perfect way his eyebrows framed his eyes.
It was annoying how men had better eyelashes than women. It was annoying and unfair. I kinda hated that about him right then. And how he was standing up for Shawn.
"Why can't this be simple? I don't want to pile on Shawn right now, because everything sucks for him, but I'm still mad at him over what happened. It's not like it was a year ago, or something, like, it just happened." It felt like unless I spelled things out for Cael in the most calm, detached method possible, he wasn't going to take me seriously or listen to my very valid points.
"Be mad, but don't forget that all your'e seeing is your side of things. He's a tit, obviously, but he cares about you."
"That's not always enough," I pointed out, and unlocked the door. "Thanks for the pep talk, real swell, Cael." I slammed the door on anything he would have said in reply.
A freshman was coming out of the dorm as I walked up to it, and she took one look at my face and held the door for me with wide eyes. Either she knew who I was, or I was looking particularly murderous. Either way, I was just grateful I didn’t have to buzz him through the intercom and have him ignore that as well. I took a moment to breathe in deep before going up the stairs to his room, my heart tripping along in my chest.
Would he be super pissed? I had a feeling he’d understand once I explained. It’s not like I was back together with Shawn, or was I? God everything was so damn confusing. It honestly felt like I was taking two steps forwards and three back every day. At least I was going to go confront it head on before anyone could talk to him. That was part of my new resolution, to finally stop hiding from myself and face my fears before they could take on a life of their own and come back to eat me.
I was sick of my shitty communication skills turning on me. It was almost like being a normal human being required you to actually talk to people or put up with perpetually being in a frantic state of putting out fires of your own making.
I passed a bunch of students hanging in one of the dorm lounges, and ignored the quizzical looks they were giving me. I didn’t have time to stop and chat, even though I reocnigzed a few of the girls who’d been nice to me on different occasions. Colt’s door was slightly ajar as I approached and I settled my shoulders and prepared to face down whatever fears his insecurities would cook up over what I was about to tell him.
I loved him.
That had to matter more than Shawn camping out in my basement for a few days.
“Hey, I need to talk to you,” I said as I pushed open the door.
“Oh really? Do you now?” The voice that greeted me took me by surprise, like swigging vodka when you think it’s going to be a glass of water.
Paige sat on the edge of Colt’s bed, her hands folded neatly in her lap as she smiled up at me. My heart jerked to a stop as I windmilled internally, trying to figure out what was going on.
Colt’s bathroom door was closed and the shower running behind it. And there Paige sat, like she had every right to be in his bedroom, while he was taking a shower. Like she was expected, or even… oh god, welcomed.
I swallowed down the knot that suddenly bloomed in my throat.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, getting right to the point. No need to mince words. This was Paige. We weren’t even close to friends. It’s not like our relationship could get worse or something.
Her eyes narrowed even as she smiled.
“So rude,” she said primly, reaching to the side. Her purse was there, an expensive Goyard tote. She reached into it, rummaging around, her eyes bright. “Oopsie, condoms, that’s not what I was looking for,” she said, before pulling out a chapstick.
“Oh fuck off,” I said, not falling for it. Was she really that stupid? Did she honestly think I’d believe that she’d come here to have sex with Colt? That he’d want her? “Does Colt know you’re being a creeper and sitting on his bed while he’s having a shower? Sexual predator much, Paige? Do you need to go sit in a harassment seminar?
That’d look real good on your college application,” I snapped, knowing I was on the edge of losing it at her, and not caring what a bad look that was.
Paige applied her chapstick like I wasn’t even in the room, lifting up a compact mirror from her purse and checking her reflection in it.
“Hmmm, you are prickly today. Why so salty, dear? Too many boys, not enough time? I had that problem once, but I learned better. None of them deserve my pussy, and I don’t offer it up on a platter for any sad little football player with sweaty socks.” She sneered at me as she capped the gloss and threw it back in her bag.
I grit my teeth.
“So Shawn’s staying with you, hmmm?” Her words stopped my anger in its track. She already knew. Which meant Colt already knew, or why would she be in his room, almost like she was waiting for me to come so she could watch the fireworks as he went off about the new arrangement. I didn’t flinch, instead doubled down, letting the anger inside me rumble quietly.
“Shawn is staying with my uncle while he sorts out what he wants to do,” I said, “and you might want to shut the fuck up about him and be a decent human being considering what he’s going through.”
“Oh lord, Mia, it’s not like he’s the first person to ever be assaulted by a parent,” she said, telling me clearly she knew what had gone down. But how the fuck had she found out so fast? Who had talked? I didn’t think Cael, with his latent irritation for her would have said anything. Garrett neither. He cared too much about his brother to let that slip. Buck? Never. Ever.
Paige laughed, rearranging her skirts around her hips.
“Oh my god you’re transparent,” she said, before she stood up. “I can actually see every stupid thought on your face.” She took a step toward me and I tensed.
“One more,” I hissed, “push me one more time and I’ll show you just exactly how few fucks I give about wrecking your face.”
Something in me must’ve given her pause, because she lifted her upper lip to sneer at me.
“Whatever, trash-basket,” she said as she grabbed her purse, holding it close to her. As if that could be defense from my fury. I’d break her. I was done taking her abuse.