Ransom (Courting Chaos Book 2)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said as I sat there scrolling through my phone wishing I was anywhere but there. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun that reminded me of the way Bellamy wore hers. Not the color or the length. It was more the shape.

  “No problem,” I said with a sigh.

  Hope leaned down toward me and I thought she was going to kiss me on the cheek. I hated the idea but was going to let her. No sense tipping her off in any way as to why I was really there. But then she kissed me on the mouth before I could stop her. And she held there, but my lips didn’t move. Didn’t kiss her back.

  “That was just awful,” she said when she’d given up on me kissing her back and sat down across from me.

  I didn’t reply and instead waved the waitress over to order, even though I wasn’t going to order anything. She would. She always did when I paid. It must’ve been my lucky day because she ordered a sushi plate. Apparently, Booker had done more research about being pregnant than Hope had.

  “So what’d you want to talk about?” she asked.

  “You want me at your appointment next week, right?”

  She nodded and raised her water to her lips.

  “I worked it out. I’ll be there.”

  Hope snorted into her water, spraying it out over her face and spilling it down the front of her shirt. That alone was worth all of this. “What?” she asked between coughs.

  “You said it was important, so I worked it out.”

  “But how?” Her eyes grew wide as she looked at me.

  I narrowed my gaze on her and could’ve sworn I heard the click of camera nearby. “Why do you seem disappointed? You’re pregnant with my kid and appointments are important. I can’t make all of them, obviously, but I can make this one and I’m hoping for an ultrasound.”

  “I think it’s too early.”

  I was already because shaking my head before she’d finished speaking. “No. I looked it up. By three months, there’s a heartbeat and everything.”

  “I… ”

  The waitress set her plate in front of her. Three neatly-lined rows of different rolls. California rolls might’ve been safe, but the ones with raw tuna on top definitely weren’t. The universe smiled down on me when Hope popped one of the sashimi into her mouth first. I’d looked up what Booker had told me about pregnant women not eating sushi and that was something she would’ve been told on her first appointment with a real doctor.

  “Ransom, I want you there,” she said after swallowing the fish. “I really do but totally understand that you can’t. You’re busy.”

  “I said I could.”

  “You really don’t have to. I can send you an update.”

  I clenched my jaw as I watched her try to weasel her way out of me doing exactly what she’d asked me to. Then I dropped my fist to the table. The glasses rattled and everyone I could see around us turned to look. Hopefully, that included a few guys with cameras.

  “You’re not even pregnant, are you?” I said loudly.

  Hope’s eyes grew even wider as she looked around us. “Of course I am,” she snapped.

  “Then why the fuck did you eat that raw fish?”

  Her mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, but I watched as she realized what she’d done. Obviously, she hadn’t thought this thing through. Everything about her deflated. The way she turned into a lump instead of sitting tall the way she had been.

  “Nothing to say?” I asked as relief washed over me. Seeing her reaction was all the convincing I needed. When she didn’t answer, I stood and pulled some cash out of my wallet. As I dropped it on the table, I said, “This is it, Hope. To say what you tried to do is fucked-up is an understatement. I don’t expect to hear from you again.”

  “Eating the fish was an accident,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she was trying to convince me. She sounded more like she was talking to herself.

  I leaned over, resting my hands on the table so that I was pretty close to her when I spoke. “Don’t worry about it. I knew before that. You might want to get a better fake doctor next time. I’m willing to let this whole thing just die as long as you do, too. Quit bashing Bellamy in public and stop trying to make me look like the bad guy. If you don’t… I’ve got the papertrail from the doctor.”

  When I stood up I saw no fewer than five photographers snapping away, capturing my escape of the she-beast. As I walked past them, they yelled out their questions at me, but I ignored every single one. When they didn’t get what they wanted from me, they descended on Hope. If I were a better man, I would’ve gone back and helped her, but she’d dug this hole and she could get out of it herself.

  While I didn’t love the idea of what I’d said sounding like blackmail, I did want her to realize that she had to back down and I had to proof to her fuckery if she didn’t. I guess that’s blackmail but still… if needed to be done.

  I hailed another taxi and took a deep breath. Free from the she-beast and free to love Bellamy.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Bellamy

  Ransom left me alone naked in my hotel room. Not exactly how I’d wanted the morning to go. But he’d said he had band stuff to do and I had to get used to that if I was going to be with him. Or I assumed it was band stuff.

  Still, I attempted to enjoy the comfort of an actual bed for a little bit longer. Over the last month, a marshmallow-soft mattress had been a rare luxury. Not that I was complaining. Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to meet up with Ransom when he had some time that afternoon, I’d have to actually leave my cloud of happiness and shower. The water felt good and I took a few extra minutes massaging my scalp as I washed my hair. There was something relaxing in the activity.

  I didn’t expect the pounding on my hotel room door when I came out of the bathroom, though. My wet hair still hung against my shoulders, but at least I’d gotten some shorts and a shirt on.

  “What the hell?” I asked as soon as I swung the door open. I saw Indie on the other side, her eye wide and wild, an urgent vibe flowing off her like a waterfall into a river. “What’s wrong?” I stepped aside so that she’d be able to come into the room. “Indie?”

  “Have you seen this?” she asked.

  “Seen what?”

  “I’m so fucking pissed right now.” She paced the room in front of me. “I’m going to kill him. Going to stab him in the balls.”

  “Indie,” I snapped as I grabbed her arms to make sure she was paying attention to me. “What are you talking about? You’re freaking me out.”

  “Ransom. Have you seen the Watching Celebrities blog?”

  “Of course not. I don’t read that crap and I especially avoid them like the plague since my name popped up on a few. Why?”

  Indies pulled her arms out of my hands and took her phone from the back pocket of her shorts. “I don’t read the gossip as a general rule, but whenever I come on tour for the summer, I set some alerts on Dad and the guys. This year I added Courting Chaos.” She typed away on her phone. “Just so I’m not caught off-guard with anything.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. This was something she’d never told me and I had to put effort into not smiling at her. It was kind of adorable.

  “Look… I know it’s dumb, but it’s also how I found out that some people thought I was my dad’s girlfriend when I was seventeen.”

  “Gross.”

  “Yeah. So I do it every year now.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then turned her phone my way. “It’s how I saw this.”

  When she first began telling me all of this and typing on her phone, I thought she was going to show me something about Cross. Or her dad even. She’d said Ransom’s name, but her words were flying by with such rapid fire that I hadn’t completely understood what she was trying to say, but now there was photographic evidence.

  “What the…?”

  The picture in front of my face made my stomach burn with anger. Rage even. I took the phone out of her hand to get a better look, but no matter
how much I wanted to deny it… It was a photo of Ransom and Hope. Lips pressed together as her hands rested on his chest. The chest that had slid against my skin last night.

  “This must be from before, right?” I asked. “When they were together?”

  Indie wet her lips with her tongue, her breathing rapid so that her chest rose and fell as if she’d been running a mile. “It says it’s from today.”

  “OK, but anyone could lie about that.”

  “The restaurant in the background is a place called Ritchie’s. That’s here in Miami.”

  Now my breathing fell in line with hers as I sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. “But… ” No matter how much I wanted to come up with a reasonable explanation, nothing came to mind.

  “Do you know where he is?” she asked.

  I bit my lips together and stared at her. Finally, I slowly shook my head. I didn’t know where he was because he hadn’t said and I hadn’t asked. “He just said he had some things to do.”

  “I’m going to cut his balls off,” she said, then dropped onto the bed beside me.

  “No, you’re not. Depending on what he says when he gets here, I might, though.”

  “What do you mean depending on what he says when he gets here? That’s photographic evidence of him kissing her.”

  “I know.” Yet I couldn’t explain it to her. I’d likely bite his head off when he got back to the hotel and maybe stab him in the heart, metaphorically, but I still had to see what he said when I confronted him with the picture.

  I’d need evidence, so I took a screenshot of the photo, then went into Indie’s text messages and sent it to myself. Then I just had to wait.

  Indie stayed with me. We lay on the bed and talked about Maggie and school and my mother, unfortunately. I told her about the new asshole boyfriend and how much my brother really hated him. Though my brother was super happy when I’d told him that I was living with Indie when I returned to Michigan after the tour. Though if I left earlier than expected, I’d have to tough it out back home for weeks.

  She was there when someone, I assumed Ransom, knocked on my door that afternoon. She turned her head to look at me and asked, “Want me to stay?”

  I chuckled. “No. But I’ll get you the play-by-play later.”

  “You better.”

  We each swung our legs off the bed and sat up. Indie grabbed her phone off the table and went for the door. I was right behind her when she opened it.

  “Hey,” Ransom said with a smile that quickly faded with whatever he saw on Indie’s face. “What’s… going on?”

  Indie glanced over her shoulder at me with a raised eyebrow. I began to smile at my overprotective friend but cut if off halfway.

  “I’ll see you later, Indie,” I said.

  She sighed with obvious unhappiness that she had to go, but still, she left, so he stepped inside and shut the door.

  “What’s going on?” he asked again.

  “What’d you do today?” I asked instead of giving him an answer.

  “I get the feeling you already know, but I’m not sure why you seem pissed off about it.” Ransom folded his arms in front of his chest while tears burned the backs of my eyes.

  He didn’t know why it upset me? Then I’d show him. I pulled the picture up on my phone and turned it toward him.

  “You don’t know why I seem pissed off?”

  He slowly took the phone from my hands and muttered, “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re fast,” he said.

  “What? Who?”

  “Paparazzi. I knew they were there but didn’t expect they would’ve already published photos.”

  I thought my brain had a seizure inside my skull with the way everything around me frazzled, but really, it was anger taking over.

  “So you’re mad they got you on camera?” I yelled.

  “Woah. No.” He dropped my phone and put his hands up in front of himself defensively. “She kissed me.”

  “But you didn’t stop her?”

  “I couldn’t,” he yelled back.

  “I… ah… ” Words wouldn’t form. I had to calm down if I was going to get through this and get him out of my room. “You couldn’t stop her. Yeah. That makes sense. Someone lies to me and tries to ruin my life and I can’t keep my hands off them, either. It’s really a turn on.” I took a breath. “Get out.”

  “No. You need to listen to me, Bellamy.”

  I clamped my jaw shut tight to stop the words I really wanted to say from falling out. If I let him get out whatever he wanted to say, he’d leave. I could do that.

  “Hurry,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “She kissed me when I met her at the restaurant. I didn’t kiss her back.”

  “That literally explains nothing.”

  “I know.” He sighed and rubbed a hand up the back of his head. “Listen, I promise her touching me turned my stomach at least as much as it does yours.”

  “Doubtful,” I muttered as I rolled my eyes.

  “OK.” He pulled me over to the bed and basically forced me to sit before he dropped beside me. “Booker did some research and found out the doctor Hope was using to fake the pregnancy is a total sham. So he went to New York to talk to him.”

  “That’s why he went?”

  Ransom nodded.

  “He’s a really good friend,” I said. “Probably better than you deserve.”

  Ransom laughed silently and tried not to smile. “Probably. But still he did it. And he got evidence. She was going to fake a miscarriage. Whatever. You know that part. But what I did today was meet with her to call her out on it. Which I did. Booker called the photographers so there’d be witnesses. It’s done. She knows I know. I’ve deleted her from my contacts and she won’t be contacting me again.”

  I eyed him with skepticism. Was all of that true? Or was he just trying to get out of trouble? He seemed sincere, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust my own judgment. Ransom dropped to his knees in front of me and slid in between my legs. It wasn’t a sexual move, but a vulnerable one.

  “Bellamy, I know I shouldn’t because I’ve only known you a short while, but I could lie and tell you that I’m falling for you, but in reality, I’ve already fallen.”

  My heart shuddered against my chest, skipping a beat, and all of the other corny things I’d read about in books or seen in the multitude of romantic comedies Indie and I had watched.

  “I love you,” he continued. “No pressure to say it back, but I need you to know that and today was just about getting her out of my life for good so that I can have one with you.”

  “For future reference, if you hung around Indie a little more, you’d know that camera’s can send pictures immediately now. As long as they’re connected to WIFI.” I swallowed hard, then smirked. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  He laughed loudly, his head dropping back. His Adam’s apple bobbed beneath the skin on his neck. “No, but if I thought you’d elope with me right now, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  “Maybe I should finish college first,” I said back.

  “I guess.” He shrugged, then moved into my space until his lips brushed against mine softly, as if he had all the time in the world and nothing else to do but kiss me.

  My lips responded by parting. His tongue stroked against mine and we stood up, pushing me back at the same time. He picked up the speed and kissed me harder as he hovered over me. Kissed me until I was breathless.

  “We’re supposed to meet Indie and Cross for dinner,” I said. “If you can eat after all that sushi.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, then gently bit my neck, causing me to squeak. “I can eat, but I’d rather have dinner in this bed.” Then he went about dropping soft kisses down my neck.

  “You have a show,” I said. Ransom groaned into my neck.

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh, then he pushed off me and reached out a hand to help me up. “But can we go somewhere without knives? I think Indie’s ready to cu
t me.”

  “Oh, she was.” I grabbed my purse and key card so we could go meet our best friends. “I’ll protect you.”

  “You better. She’s your friend.”

  Ransom tucked me under his arm while I sent Indie a text telling her we’d meet them in the lobby and he didn’t let go when we got on the elevator or when we got to the lobby. He didn’t even flinch as Indie glared at him. But when she saw the small smile on my face, she let the scary glare slide.

  “Didn’t you explain everything?” Ransom asked Cross.

  “I did,” he said back.

  “Then why is she wearing an angry face?”

  “She’s pissed we didn’t tell them.”

  “Oh, Indie,” Ransom said in a playfully condescending voice. It better have been playful. “Some evil plans are better if they’re a surprise.”

  “You’re all assholes,” Indie said to them as she grabbed my arm to pull me away from them. As we walked, she looped her arm through mine. I had to glance over my shoulder to make sure the guys were following us and they were. Of course they were.

  If anyone would’ve told me this was how the summer would go, I would’ve told them they were crazy. I’d come on tour to get away from a crazy ex-boyfriend, not to find a new one. Now I thought I’d probably never want another. Not to mention, I’d stepped out on the sidewalk without even considering the fact that Chris could be out there somewhere. He could’ve been.

  But at least now, I had more backup than I knew what to do with.

  Epilogue

  Bellamy

  “Ohmygod, I love you,” I said as Ransom rolled over onto the bed beside me.

  He chuckled deep in his chest. “Why do I think you’re not talking to me, but rather to a specific part of my body?”

  I turned to the side and snuggled into him. “Can’t it be both?”

  He laughed again, then kissed me on the side of the head. “Of course it can be.”

  The bus’s brakes screeched with resistance as the bus came to a stop, meaning we’d arrived in Atlanta. Fuck, that felt quick. We’d left Miami after the show last night and in reality it’d been like eleven hours with the gas stops, but I’d slept through most of it, so it went by too quickly. I wasn’t ready for Atlanta.