Life as We Know It: A Treasure Key Novel

by Sarah Bates

  I hesitated, then grimaced. “Because Jamie’s having a…difference of opinion with Neal, and Delaney didn’t want me to get into the middle of it when I tried to go back to stop it,” I replied.

  He stiffened. “What did he do to you?” he asked, his eyes flashing with temper.

  “It’s fine,”

  “Coco.” He kept his steely gaze on mine. “What did Neal do?”

  I cleared my throat and wrapped my arms around myself. “He grabbed me,”

  “He did more than that,” Delaney said behind me.

  When I gave him a dark look, he lifted his eyebrows and folded his arms at his chest.

  “Coco,”

  “I’m fine,” I told Hayden and the others. “Trust me, he came out of it worse than I did.” My belly quivered with some residual panic, but I ignored it, and made myself smile, sharply. “I don’t think they’ll have to do any testicle retrieval operations on him, as I didn’t have enough room for that kind of momentum, but I’m still pretty sure he’ll be singing soprano for the foreseeable future.”

  When Hayden’s eyebrows shot up, I shrugged. “He copped a feel while he tried to put his tongue in my mouth, so I thought it only fair that I shove my knee into his crotch.”

  “He,” Hayden dropped his hands to his sides and went to step around me, his expression furious.

  I caught at his arm and tried to stop him and looked over to Delaney and Jason when that didn’t really seem to work. “A little help, please?” I asked, trying to hold him back.

  “Oh, hell no. He gets free rein for that,” Jason said, and Delaney nodded in agreement.

  Delaney did, however, reach out and catch hold of Zach’s shoulder when he went to follow Hayden, and dragged him back. “No,” he said firmly.

  “But,”

  “No,” Delaney said again, pointing a finger at both Zach and Donovan.

  “If he gets free rein, then I do, too. She’s my cousin,” Zach snapped.

  Levi remedied this argument by stepping in front of Hayden, blocking his path.

  “Get out of my way, Levi,” he growled.

  “I’ll move when you start thinking with this again,” Levi replied, flicking Hayden in the forehead.

  Hayden caught his hand and before anyone could move to stop him, twisted and shoved Levi against the side of the van. “You really don’t want to piss me off any more than I already am,” he told him.

  Levi grunted, then, in a move that surprised me, at least, shoved away from the van, twisted, turned, and pinned Hayden against the van, holding him there more securely than Hayden had him. “Chloe took care of herself, and impressively,” he said.

  “He put his hands on her,” Hayden hissed, trying to push him away. Levi kept him firmly in place.

  “And as she said, Jamie is showing him the error of his ways,” he said. “Better him than you,” he added. “You can’t afford to get arrested again, HQ. And certainly not because of Humphrey a second time.”

  I blinked in surprise at that, and when Hayden relaxed and rested his brow against the side of the van, Levi nodded and eased his hold on him. He did so slowly, as though gauging just how compliant his friend really was. When Hayden didn’t try to leave, he finally let him go and stepped back.

  “Take Coco home,” Levi told him, nodding toward me when Hayden turned to look at him. “I’ll get Logan home.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” Logan snapped from the back of Hayden’s truck.

  “You don’t get to have an opinion on that anymore,” Hayden snapped back at him, giving his brother a dark look. “You lost that right when you blew your entire paycheck on pot and then proceeded to get shit-faced drunk.” He shook his head furiously at him. “You damn well better hope Ava doesn’t end up pregnant, you idiot,” he added in a fierce tone.

  Though the look Hayden gave his brother may have had a lesser person shrinking back a step, Logan merely glared right back at him.

  Shaking his head, Hayden looked back to me, and everything about him softened. “I’m so sorry he did that to you,” he said, reaching up to cup my face in his hands again.

  “I’m fine,” I said, lifting a hand to wrap my fingers around one of his wrists. “Honestly, I think I did more damage to him than he did to me. And Jamie and Leo…” I trailed off, my brow furrowed with concern when I realized they were still inside. “Ah, Jamie and Leo,”

  “They’re on their way out,” Kat told me as she joined us, and tucked her phone back into her pocket. “Leo just texted. Neal’s still among the living,” she added. “But it was iffy, apparently, for a moment. A couple of guys from the swim team had to help Leo peel Jamie off him. And there they are…oh, jeez,” she said, her eyes going wide.

  I turned my head as Hayden lowered his hands again, and felt my own eyes go wide when I saw them. They were both disheveled, with their hair a mess, one of Leo’s sleeves torn at the shoulder seem, while Jamie had simply removed his button up, which was wadded up in his hand, clearly being used as a make-shift ice pack, which he had pressed to his bleeding lip. His tightly fitted white tank top was splattered with blood – some of which I had a feel was not his. He lowered his shirt and pressed it to his bruised knuckled.

  “What did you do?” I asked, shocked, when they reached us.

  “I taught him a lesson,” he replied, and he leaned to the side and kissed my cheek.

  “You are so going to be grounded for life for this,” Kat told him as she looked him over.

  “It was worth it,” he said, and he grinned, then gestured to Delaney. “Let’s go. One of the neighbors is bound to call in a noise complaint, if they haven’t already, and I’d rather explain myself after I’ve had the chance to shower and change, then down at the station.”

  Since Leo apparently agreed with him, he headed for his car, hooking his arms around both Aly and Esme on the way. “I’ll drop them off,” he called out to Jamie and Delaney.

  Both girls waved over their shoulders toward their respective boyfriends – because I was now convinced that Aly and Jamie were more than just friends – and both Jamie and Delaney absently waved after them.

  “Say goodnight, Coco,” Jamie said as he reached out to open the passenger door.

  “I’ll take her home,” Hayden told him.

  “I think you’ve got other issues to deal with at the moment,” Jamie said, nodding toward Logan. “Deal with your brother. Coco can ride home with us.”

  Though he didn’t look particularly happy about Jamie’s bossiness, Hayden nodded. “Right.” He shifted to looked at me. “I’m so sorry about all of this,”

  “None of this is your fault,” I said before he could finish. I did my best to smile, and held his hand close. “And hey, the night wasn’t a complete loss. I did enjoy what time we spent at the Courtyard, and before.”

  He studied me for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I did, too. Next time…if your uncle lets there be a next time, maybe we can do something normal. Like see a movie or go play mini-golf.”

  “Ooh, mini-golf,” I said, ignoring his uncertainty over whether we’d be able to go out again. As far as I was concerned, Hayden was one of the best things that had happened to me so there was no way I was going to give up on him without a fight. “I’m the queen of mini-golf,” I added when he lifted his eyebrows over my clear enthusiasm.

  “Yeah?” When I nodded, he grinned. “Mini-golf it is, then.” He leaned forward and kissed me softly, keeping it light and gentle. “I’ll text you later,” he said when he pulled back.

  “Later,” I agreed, and I watched as he turned for his truck. After a brief exchange – which Hayden won, by simple brute force, dragging his brother from the back of the truck with Levi’s help, and then shoving him into the cab – he backed out of the driveway, and then pulled out onto the main street. A moment later, Levi and Kade followed in their Jeep. Demi watched them go, then glanced over at me, a considering look on her face. She hadn’t said anything the entire time I’d been out there with them.
But I had a feeling there was plenty she was thinking about.

  Whatever it was, she kept it to herself, and climbed into her car. A moment later, Jason joined her and Wes, who was in the backseat with a queasy looking Alec. After a short debate, between them and Leo, who had leaned in to confer with them, she backed out and followed the others.

  Leo waved to us on his way back to his car, where Aly and Esme were waiting. “See you tomorrow,” he called out, and then he climbed into his car, and a moment later pulled out as well.

  Though I wished my night was ending differently, I climbed into the back of the van with the others. It was a tight squeeze with all of us, but we managed it, and within a few minutes we were heading toward the front gate of the community.

  Just as we reached the front gate a bright flash of blue and red lights streaked by, heading in the direction of Neal’s mom’s house. Looked like Jamie called that one, I thought, and I was grateful we’d left when we had.

  Still, I knew it was going to be a long night, given everything else that had happened, so even though it was a cramped ride, I did my best to enjoy it while it lasted.

  Nine

  After a long and detailed explanation of what had happened – well, not too detailed; I left out the parts concerning the exact nature of Logan’s need for his brother’s intervention – and then an equally long time waiting while all our parents deliberated, they finally cast their verdict.

  While they were not pleased by any means that Jamie and Leo had taken it upon themselves to show Neal the error of his ways, due to the nature of Neal’s actions, they all agreed that Jamie would get a suspended sentence for the fight. And both my mom and Uncle Jim promised they’d speak to Leo’s parents about the matter, so he didn’t get into too much trouble for his part in it.

  Because Jamie had drunk some beer, and Margo, too, they were both grounded for the rest of the weekend and the following week to come.

  Both of them took their punishments in stride, apparently knowing it was a moot point to try to negotiate the terms of their punishment down.

  As for Neal, Uncle Jim was furious – well, really all my family members were furious, my mom most especially – but given the sound beating that Jamie and Leo had doled out, he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He could, as he told me, arrest Neal and charge him with assault, as he called it, but that left things open for Neal to turn around and press charges against Jamie and Leo.

  Apparently, he couldn’t come after me because I’d been defending myself.

  Though I wanted to see him punished for what he did, I didn’t want Jamie or Leo to get in any more trouble than they already were, so at the end of the day, I decided to leave things as they were, and hoped that wasn’t the wrong choice.

  With all the excitement of Saturday behind us, Sunday was quiet, with everyone sticking close to home.

  A few times during the day I caught my mom watching me, a worried look on her face. Each time I assured her that I was all right. And oddly enough, I was. If anything, I felt angrier over what had happened more than I felt traumatized, and while I wasn’t sure if that was any better, I at least took comfort in the fact that I had been able to defend myself.

  Telling myself it was better to focus on other things, I turned my attention to finding an ice rink, in between text messages with Hayden.

  So far, I was still coming up empty. Though I had known it probably wasn’t going to be easy to find one, given our location, I hadn’t anticipated that it would be quite so hard. So far, all the rinks I’d found were simply too far away to go to on any sort of regular basis, and the ones I found that I thought might have potential all turned out to be roller rinks, which were clearly not at all the same thing.

  Discouraged, but hardly ready to give up, I turned my attention to getting my homework finished, and figuring out what I would wear to school the next day.

  I decided on a floral print sundress – another find from the depths of Kat’s closet that still had the tag on it – and a pair of flip-flops, and was supremely glad I’d gone with that choice Monday morning when I stepped out into the thick, humid heat. It truly baffled me that Jamie could possibly be wearing jeans and sneakers without feeling like he was going to melt.

  As had become our habit the week before, when we got to school, I met Hayden at the front entrance. I knew right away that something was wrong just by the resigned look on his bruised face, and when I reached him, he wrapped his arms around me in a hug that was clearly meant more for comfort than any kind of romantic affection.

  Worried, I wrapped my arms around him and simply held him for a long moment, giving him the comfort he sought. When he pulled back a few minutes later, I lifted a hand and touched his unmarked cheek. “What happened?” I asked. The last time I’d heard from him last night, things had been okay. Not great, but okay was better than bad.

  He sighed and reached out to take my hand in his, brought my hand to his lips and kissed my palm lightly before he lowered our hands and laced our fingers together. “Apparently my grandpa and I weren’t as thorough as we thought we’d been on Saturday night when we went through Logan’s room. We missed a stash. After we hung up last night I went out to the pool and found him smoking a joint while he floated in the deep end on our grandma’s favorite lounge float.” He shook his head unhappily. “Suffice it to say, we nearly drowned each other when I went in after him, and one of the guests saw us and called the police.”

  “Oh.” My eyes widened at that, as I remembered how Uncle Jim had been called away for something to do with work at one point after dinner.

  I guess now I knew why he’d been called.

  He nodded, looking miserable. “Your uncle was able to smooth things out, as far as the guest was concerned – though my grandparents still had to comp the room. But Logan…” he shook his head. “Your uncle had the same come to Jesus talk with him that he did me, but I don’t think it resonated with Logan as much as it did me. I don’t know what to do with him anymore.” He shook his head, and blew out a deeply weary sigh. “And none of this is your problem. I’m sorry,”

  “Hey,” I frowned and shook my head. “Don’t do that. You listened to me when I vented about my dad. That’s what people who care about each other do, isn’t it?” I lifted my eyebrows when he opened his mouth. “I know we haven’t known each other very long, but there’s something here,” I gestured between us with my free hand, and tightened my hold on his hand with the other. “If you need or want to talk to someone, about anything, then you can talk to me.”

  He hesitated, then nodded and leaned forward to kiss my temple. “Thanks. I guess I’m just used to only having Levi to vent to.”

  “Hey, I’m in the same boat,” I told him, and we turned together to go into the school. “Up until my mom and I got here, I didn’t have anyone to vent to, so it’s new for me, too.”

  He frowned as he glanced down at me. “Not even your mom?”

  I shrugged. “For some things, yes, at least when I was younger. But over the past few years, no, not even her. I didn’t want to trouble her with anything, because my dad tended to spew stuff sometimes when he got annoyed or frustrated, and I didn’t want to add to everything she was already dealing with.”

  “I guess I get that. I’m the same way with my grandparents.” He looked back down at me. “What about your friends, though? You didn’t feel like you could talk to any of them?”

  I shook my head as we neared my locker. “I had friends, but none that I was ever particularly close to. At least not close enough that I felt like I could talk to them about anything majorly important or personal.” And how sad was that, I wondered to myself, because in the end this was true. Since my mom and I had left Minnesota I hadn’t heard from any of my old friends, even though I’d texted a couple of them a few days before. I shook my head because it didn’t matter now. “But now I have Kat, and I have you, and my mom and I are getting to a place where we talk more,” I added, not wanting to dwell on ho
w truly empty my life really was back in Minnesota.

  “Good, I’m glad.” He tipped my chin up when we reached my locker and, ignoring Margo and Jenny, who were both waiting there for me, he kissed me softly. “Thank you, for letting me vent,” he said as he straightened. “I’ll see you at lunch?”

  “Definitely,” I replied, and I smiled as I watched him back up a few steps, then he turned and headed for his own locker.

  “Wow,” Jenny said, and when I looked over to her, she lifted her eyebrows. “So, apparently things are progressing quickly,” she added.

  I shrugged and turned to my locker. “They’re progressing steadily.”

  She hummed and checked her phone when it beeped. Ignoring the message that she’d received, she looked back to me. “So, I hear things didn’t go well at the party on Saturday.”

  I spared Margo a bland look, as I knew very well that she was Jenny’s source of this information, and when she shrugged, rolled my eyes. “They could have gone better,” I said, looking back to…our friend. Because I was sure now that Jenny and I were friends, too. At least by my limited experience, I thought we were.

  She hummed again and leaned against the locker next to mine as I unloaded some of my books. “I just have to know; did you really kick Neal in the balls?”

  I grimaced and glanced over to her again. “Actually, I used my knee, not my foot, but yes.”

  “Good girl.” She pushed away from the locker when its owner gave her a disgruntled huff. “I knew I liked you. Come on, Margo, we’re going to be late for homeroom. See you at lunch, Coco.” She waved at me, then headed down the hall.

  I watched her go, then glanced at Margo. “See you at lunch?”

  “Definitely,” she agreed, and she waved as she followed Jenny.

  I shook my head, as she wasn’t even watching where she was going – she had her compact out and was touching up her lipstick – but she still managed to head in the right direction. Amazed at her skills, I turned back to my locker and quickly finished organizing my books, then I headed for my own homeroom, and wondered where Kat had disappeared to.