“Oh my god.”
Coach Thompson comes over and looks out as well.
“What the hell?”
“Looks like Chelsea is tying Christian to the chair and the table,” I narrate.
“This is not at all what I thought we would see when we got here.”
“Me neither,” I agree.
We both laugh.
But deep down in the pit of my stomach, I’m so relieved. I had no idea what we would see, and I have to admit I had feared the worst.
It looks like the worst could have happened, too, if not for the fact that Chelsea somehow saved herself before I arrived to save her.
We rush out the back door, with me yelling “Chels?” and Coach Thompson yelling “Sweetheart!”
“I see my knights in shining armor have arrived,” Chelsea jokes, as she finishes up with the rope.
“Holy shit,” I exclaim. “How did this happen? Is he bleeding?”
Christian moans and twists around, but he can’t say anything and can’t get up.
Chelsea says, “I told you it’s your turn to be quiet, Christian. Or I won’t call 911 to come help you with your little wound there.”
She gets on the phone and calls for help.
“How did you manage to get him tied up?” Coach Thompson asks.
“Oh, he helped me out by getting started with the ropes and the tape. I just turned it back around on him.”
“I’m so sorry, Chels,” I say, hugging her.
“It’s all right,” she says. “At least I know how to tie a good knot. Unlike Christian here.”
“Was it a Palomar knot?” I ask, unable to stop a grin from spreading across my face despite the situation.
“Yes. So I see you did retain something you learned during our fishing session,” she laughs.
It feels so good to see and touch her again, and to be laughing with her, although this circumstance was not at all how I would have preferred for our reunion to have happened.
“Really though, it’s not your fault,” Chelsea says. “It was all Christian’s doing.”
“But I was supposed to rescue you,” I protest. “And you went and rescued yourself.”
“It takes a strong woman to change a bad boy,” she says, with a grin.
“Is that what you think you’ve done?” I ask.
But I have to admit that she’s exactly right.
Chapter 50 – Chelsea
My dad swoops in and says, “Now it’s my turn for a hug.”
“Yeah, I see you brought Wesley to crash our fishing trip weekend.”
“Yes, once again I’m in the way up here,” Wesley jokes. “And overstaying my welcome.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” my dad says. “But really. It’s okay. I needed his help. I originally figured out Christian’s connection to all of this but he’s the one who realized that now you might be in danger, too.”
So that’s all it was. My dad needed Wesley’s help to determine what was going on and save me from Christian. I hope this means he won’t be mad when he finds out the full truth.
“Wesley, I’m sorry I doubted you,” I tell him. “I know now everything that’s been going on. Christian told me as he was preparing for my demise.”
“You asshole,” Wesley says, approaching Christian and waving a fist in front of his face.
“Wesley, don’t,” I tell him. “On the phone, they said there would be an investigation. We don’t want to make it look like we’re the ones at fault here.”
“I wish I could bash his face in,” Wesley yells.
“Let’s concentrate on more pleasant things,” I say to him. “Dad, I have something to tell you.”
“I know what it is,” he replies. “And I approve.”
“You do?”
I squeal and hug him again.
“Now listen,” he says. “I can’t say I’m totally used to the idea just yet. It might take me some time. But what I’m saying is that I can’t exactly disapprove of the guy who helped me come rescue my daughter who didn’t end up needing rescuing, now can I?”
We laugh.
And then Dad says, “And I have something to tell you.”
“I know what it is,” I tell him. “And I approve.”
My dad says, “Really? I mean, I know you know that Ms. Hudson and I have been dating. But I don’t know if you know exactly how serious it is compared to…”
“Yes Dad, I know,” I say, groaning. “You don’t have to go into details. And please just don’t call her Ms. Hudson. She’s been Sherry to me since I was about thirteen years old and dropped the whole ‘miss’ thing that kids have to say.”
“All right, all right,” my dad says. “Sherry it is then. That’s an easy promise to make.”
“I might need some time to get used to it too,” I tell him. “But someone’s already helped me work through the acceptance part of it. And I really am happy for you guys.”
I wink at Wesley, and he smiles at me.
“And I’m happy for you guys too,” Dad says. “And as long as I get a father- daughter fishing session in this weekend, I’ll be fine. Because I don’t think I’m going to have to be a third wheel or anything…”
He’s peering towards the hill that slopes from the front of the lake house to the back, where, as if on cue, Taylor and her mom are coming to join us.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
I nod at Taylor, hesitantly, and she nods back with a confused look on her face as she looks from Christian to me and then back to Christian.
Wesley says, “I needed Taylor’s help with something. And I figured her mom might be interested in joining us for her own reasons.”
Taylor says, “And I’m left out again. Poor Taylor.”
“You’re never left out when you’re with me,” I tell her. “We’ll watch more scary movies. Wesley can’t handle them, so you’ll have to comfort me.”
“This looks like the scene of a horror movie right here,” Taylor says. “You’ll have to tell me all about it, especially how the spunky heroine made it out in the end.”
“I can definitely do that.”
As the ambulance and cop cars pull up, sirens ablaze, I pull the tape off of Christian’s mouth for the sake of appearance.
“Great,” Christian shouts. “I’m glad they’re here to arrest me finally. It’s better than having to sit around listening to this fucking love fest.”
Chapter 51 – Wesley
I’m alone with Chelsea in the spare bedroom. Finally.
But she’s still understandably distracted by everything that’s gone down today. She peeks out the blinds on the window to make sure the cop cars and ambulances are all gone.
“They’re still going to do a further investigation that may involve interviewing us again but they believe my version of events rather than Christian’s so that’s good,” she says, before coming to sit down beside me in the bed.
I wrap my arms around her.
“That is good,” I tell her. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
She sighs.
“I was so pumped full of adrenaline earlier that I didn’t even realize how scared I was. I can’t believe everything that happened.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” I massage her shoulders. “But I’m so glad you’re okay. And I’m glad we’re together again.”
Me too.
She shifts closer to me, and I kiss her.
Oh how I’ve missed those lips.
But then I pull away.
“I need to explain some things to you,” I tell her.
“It’s fine.” She puts a finger against my lips. “I know you weren’t with that hot algebra tutor. Taylor confessed that she set it all up. And I know you didn’t sell drugs. Christian confessed to that, and a bunch of other crazy shit too.”
“I know,” I tell her. “But there are still some things left unexplained. And I want you to know everything.”
“Okay,” she says. “B
ut first there’s something I want you to know.”
“Shoot.”
I can’t help but worry what it is. My mind fears the worst. She got tired of waiting around on me and hooked up with some other guy, and now she’s pregnant…
“I came to watch you play Ultimate Frisbee,” she says, with a smile. “But you had already left. I just want that on the record.”
“Duly noted,” I laugh.
“I’d told Christian I was coming but might be late. He said you guys would be going to Caddyshack’s afterwards but when I got to the field, some guy named Stan said they’d decided on Buddy’s instead.”
“The plan had been Buddy’s all along,” I tell her. “But now everything makes a lot more sense. Christian clearly didn’t want us to hook back up.”
“That bastard,” she says. “Out of all the horrible things Christian tried to do to me, making me traipse across town to try to find you in that god-awful bar that you’d never even planned to go to would have been the worst.”
“Good thing you outsmarted him every step of the way.”
We laugh.
“And hey,” I tell her. “I left the game right after it ended because I was so bummed you hadn’t shown and I obviously hadn’t gotten the message that you were going to be late. I was being a fucking pouty emo asshole. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she says. “It all worked out in the end.”
“It did,” I tell her, and I can’t help but kiss her again. “But now I want to clear something up.”
“Shoot,” she says, just as I had a moment ago.
“At my old school, I was in trouble for selling drugs. You may have heard that through Taylor.”
“I did,” she says. And then she says, “And honestly? While we’re putting it all out there, I first saw it on my dad’s computer.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t mean to snoop. It was just… there. And I couldn’t resist it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I know how confusing everything must have been. It makes sense that you’d feel the need to seek out your own answers.”
She nods, not seeming entirely convinced that she’d done the right thing. But I’m sure she’ll get over it.
“Anyway, I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. Okay?”
“Okay,” she says, nestling her head back down onto my shoulder.
“I didn’t really sell drugs.”
She turns her head to look at me. “But the contract said…”
“I know. It says I admitted guilt. And I did. But I didn’t do it.”
She’s silent, so I continue.
“I took the fall for my sister.”
“What?”
She sits straight up again and stares at me.
“My sister has struggled with drug addiction for a long time now. And she’d been in some trouble with the law previously so she was facing serious time. She told me that she realized the magnitude of her situation and wanted to change. I agreed to say that I had done it if she would agree to go to rehab.”
“And she went?” Chelsea asks, looking hopeful.
“She did. I paid for what the insurance didn’t cover. So I didn’t have money to pay to stay at Huningdale without my scholarship. And that’s another reason I’m glad your dad agreed to the deal where I could come play at Calton.”
“That was so nice of you.”
“Yeah, well. You know that time you wanted me to meet up with you and I never texted you back? And later you saw me at the Moon Howl Grill with a woman…”
“It was your sister,” she finishes the sentence for me.
“Yes. It was.”
“Oh my god, Wesley. I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot.”
“No you’re not,” I tell her, rubbing her back. “You had no way to know. You’d never seen my sister before. And I wasn’t expecting her. She just showed up at practice saying she needed to talk to me right away. I didn’t want people to talk, so I just rushed off to the restaurant with her, and left in such a hurry that I left my phone in the locker room. So I didn’t get your message until much later that evening after we’d sorted everything out.”
“Of course. That makes sense,” Chelsea says. “So is she okay now?”
“Well, she told me she was dangerously close to using. She had successfully completed rehab and was living with our parents. As I’m sure you can believe, that wasn’t a great environment for her. She was stressed out by their fighting and she had been close to calling her old contacts so she could score. But instead she called me. When I didn’t answer— because I was in practice— she just drove to the campus to see me and tell me what was going on.”
“That was a really wise choice.”
“Yes, it was very smart of her. Rehab really helped her a lot. In fact, after we called them together and explained the situation, they hooked her up with a scholarship to transition to a sober living facility. They hadn’t realized how tenuous her living situation would be after she completed the program.”
“That’s awesome.”
“She’s doing really well so far. The sober living facility is a much more peaceful place for her than our parents’ house.”
“I’m so glad it’s working out. And I’m sorry I jumped the gun and thought you were…”
“…back to my old ways.”
I laugh. She laughs. And then we kiss again, with a passionate intensity stronger than any other kiss we’ve ever shared together.
“I need to be inside you now,” I tell her.
“Take me. Now.”
I love it when she lets me know how much she wants me.
I rip off her clothes and then mine.
“There’s that gorgeous body I’ve been fantasizing about touching again,” I whisper.
I stand by the edge of the bed, my cock hard and throbbing for her.
I pick her up and carry her, with her legs around me, to the wall. Placing her up against it, I tell her, “I bet we have to be really quiet, huh?”
“Probably,” she says, with a hushed laugh. “My dad’s cool with us now, but not that cool.”
“I bet it would drive you wild if I tease you just a little bit.”
I put the tip of my cock at the entrance to her pussy and play with it for a bit as I slowly lick one of her nipples, and then the other.
“Oh my god. Wesley. You’re already making me want to scream.”
I slide my cock further inside her, my elbows beside her head. She holds onto my arms and says, “I can’t believe how perfect your body is. It’s not fair how you’re making me wait.”
“I want you to beg me to fuck you,” I tell her. “Because you’ve made me wait so long to be able to have you again.”
“Please fuck me, Wesley. Please.”
She’s whispering it.
She traces my chest and my abs with her fingers, then kisses my tattoos while I thrust myself all the way inside her.
She whimpers.
My strong, beautiful woman is reduced to weak putty in my hands. I grab her breasts with one hand and her ass with the other while I stake my claim to her, pounding into her so hard that the pictures on the walls shake.
“Shhhhh,” she says, but she soon lets out a soft coo. “Oh my god.”
Her pussy tightens around my cock and I can feel her juices dripping onto me.
“You’re making me come, Wesley.”
I hold onto her hair and pull her head back a little bit, up against the wall, and kiss her neck while she comes all over my cock. I take one of her nipples in my mouth and suck on it as I cram my cock all the way into the back of her pussy.
She squeezes her legs around my ass and says, “Oh my god. Oh my god.”
I can’t take it anymore, and I let myself go with a powerful release of mind and body.
We come together, literally and figuratively, further proof that we fit together exactly right.
Chapter 52 – Chelsea
After an exhilarating night with
Wesley, it’s my birthday, and I’m sitting around a campfire with him and Taylor, two of my three favorite people. We’re grilling fish that I caught a bit earlier with my other favorite person, my dad. He’s on a walk with Taylor’s mom.
The police have finished their investigation, and have cleared me of any wrongdoing. They’ve also assured me that Christian is going to be behind bars for a very long time.
“This walk that my dad took your mom on is really lasting a long time,” I tell Taylor.
“I guess it’s extremely romantic,” she replies.
“Well, I’d wanted to wait until they get back, but that might never happen,” Wesley says. “And perhaps it’s a good thing that it’s just the three of us.”
“For what?” I ask, looking at Taylor’s face to see if she’ll reveal anything, but she’s just smiling her wide, beaming grin.
“For your birthday present,” Wesley answers. He reaches into the backpack by his chair and pulls out a wrapped gift. “This is from Taylor and me, together.”
“Oh you guys,” I say. “You shouldn’t have.”
But I’m smiling.
I peel back the paper, and squeal in surprise.
“Oh my god,” I shout. “Is that what I think it is?”
My Spanish still isn’t that great, but Pablo Neruda’s name is the same in both languages, and I know that a loose translation of the book’s title from Spanish to English is The Lost Poems.
“This is the only book my mom didn’t have in her collection!” I exclaim.
“I know,” Wesley says. “You told me about it. And I happened to know that your BFF Taylor here is a Latin American literature major…”
“…who is doing a research work- study job with a Chilean professor,” Taylor finishes for him. “So it all worked out quite nicely, to be able to have my boss call in a special favor with some family members of his back in Chile. Apparently this book is all over the used bookstores there. All I had to do was ask.”
“Is that all?” I say, with a grin still filling up my entire face.
The missing connection with my mom was right there within my reach the whole time. I just had to have Wesley and Taylor’s help to get it.
Out of Line: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance Page 31