Did I drink that much alcohol?
People run into me, as I make my way back inside or am I running into them? My perception is off. I can feel my mind becoming more clouded by the second. With each step I take forward, I become more confused, more unsure, less coherent.
What the hell?
I look up to see if I’m still going in the right direction, but I can’t make out the door anymore, all I see are people dancing, talking, and drinking. The world is carrying on around me while I’m slowly slipping away, and there is nothing I can do about it.
“Changed your mind, sexy?” The creep’s voice from earlier filters into my ears while clammy fingers circle my wrist, pulling me away from the dancefloor. I want to scream, but nothing comes out. I want to fight him, but my limbs won’t move. Panic floods my veins, and all I can think of is how stupid I was to come here.
20
Somewhere in my panic-stricken state, and confused mind, meaty fingers are replaced with soft hands. The smell of sweat and alcohol is replaced with the clean scent of citrus and rain. The terror I feel inside, replaced with an eternal calmness.
Without knowing how or even why, I know that I am safe.
“Don’t ever touch her again…” A familiar voice growls the sound vibrating through me as my ear presses against a warm, firm chest.
“We were just having some fun, Oliver. Don’t get so butthurt.”
“You are lucky there are people here, if it was just you and me, your jaw would be broken right now,” Oliver threatens the creep. “Maybe some fingers too…”
He doesn’t say anything else, just wraps his arm around me and starts leading me somewhere. My legs barely work, and I know he is half carrying me. At one point he just picks me up as my movements become more sluggish.
The music and the noise of the party fade away until it is almost completely silent around us. The only thing remaining is the steady rhythm of Oliver’s beating heart.
I’m not sure how I got there, but the next time I open my eyes, I’m in the backseat of a car. My body feels heavy and useless, my limbs weak like they have boulders tied to the ends of them. When I try and sit up to look around, I realize I’m not alone. Oliver is with me, and I’m lying across his lap, his arm cradling my head.
“Hey there,” he whispers, his fingers brushing over my face, making my skin tingle and something deep in my mind sparks with life.
“You want us to make you feel good?” I can hear Oliver’s voice in my ear, but I’m not sure if this is real or a memory.
He runs his hand up and down my inner thighs. My heart starts to beat rapidly desire pooling deep in my gut.
“Yes,” I say breathlessly, my tongue darting out over my bottom lip to wet it.
“I want to touch you,” Oliver purrs.
“You are touching me,” I tease, even though I know exactly what he means.
Grinning he uses his hand to nudge my legs apart.
“I want to touch you here,” he murmurs and lets his thumb ghost over my shorts covered pussy. Taking the hint, I spread my legs further for him. He takes the invitation and trails his fingers over the fabric before he dips his thumb into the waistband of my shorts and starts to pull them down...
“Are you okay, Harlow?” Oliver asks, dragging me back to reality. “You’re breathing funny… please, tell me you are okay.”
“I’m okay,” I say, my voice comes out weird and broken, but at least I got the words out. Trying to keep my eyes open, I want to look at his face, but my vision is blurry, and I can’t make out all of his features. So I close my eyes and try to remember him instead, but when I do, it’s not Oliver I see… it’s Banks.
“You want us to make you come?” Banks asks, his voice unnaturally deep as he pulls away just enough to speak.
I’m so confused… is Banks here? No… I think I’m dreaming or remembering something. Unable to hold onto reality, I let my mind pull me under, drawing me in, deeper and deeper.
“Yes, please,” the words come out on a gasp because right as I’m speaking them, Oliver slides one of his thick digits into my slickness.
“Fuck, Banks, she’s tight as hell.” Oliver’s voice is strained, the muscles in his neck tight. He looks like he’s ready to explode.
Slowly the puzzle pieces fall into place, painting a larger picture in my head. I was with both of them, Oliver and Banks. I was lying across their laps, while they were touching me… and I liked it. I wanted it, even asked for it.
I try to open my eyes once more, I want to ask Oliver what happened between us, but my eyelids are just too heavy, my head too muddled. I feel his hand cup my cheek, his thumb running over my skin gently, and I take comfort in that. His touch is tender, kind, and before I know it, I’m drifting off to sleep.
The next time I open my eyes, the fog circling my head has lifted a bit. My mind is clearer, my thoughts sharper. I’m still in the back seat of a car and Oliver is still holding me in his lap, although his eyes are closed now, his head tilted back resting on the backrest.
For a long while, I just lay there staring at his sleeping face. It is completely dark outside, but there is a streetlamp not far from us that shines enough light in the car to let me see how peaceful he looks. So angelic, I don’t want to wake him, but I also want to talk to him. Need to talk to him.
“Oliver,” I whisper calling out to him. Stirring lightly, his eyes blink open and like two magnets drawn together, our gazes collide.
“Hey, you. Feeling better?” His sleepy voice is gruff, but the hand cradling my head is warm and gentle.
“Yeah… I don’t know what happened, I think I drank too much,” I admit. Only then do I remember the creep who got handsy with me earlier. “Thanks for helping me with that guy earlier.”
“There is no need to thank me.” Oliver’s voice drops, and I involuntarily shiver at the deepness of it. “We’re friends, and that’s what friends do, they protect each other.”
I don’t understand why if everyone is telling me to stay away from them, why he would protect me, or even say we’re friends. Am I dreaming still?
“Are we friends?” I ask, sitting up, and slowly turning to face him. “Everyone keeps telling me to stay away from you and your brothers because you are trying to hurt me.”
“We’re friends.” He answers, his voice clipped. “And hurting you is the last thing any of us want to do.” The sincerity of his voice causes a slow heat to unravel through my lower belly.
“Were… were we ever more than friends?” I stutter over the words, asking the question. Do I really want to know the answer? All these memories, and thoughts, the things that guy said to me earlier about wanting three… cocks. It was almost as if he was implying that I was sleeping with all three of them.
“It’s complicated… just know that we care about you and we are trying to watch out for you. No one is going to hurt you, not ever again.”
“And by we you mean you, Banks, and Sullivan?”
“Yes, we all care about you.” His eyes dart away, and he looks out the window into the darkness of the night. There’s a long pause before he speaks again, and it’s almost like he’s gathering his own thoughts. “I should take you back to your dorm, now that you’re feeling better.”
I’m about to object, but he’s already out the door, leaving me alone in the backseat. He climbs into the front and starts the car, the engine roaring to life, and filling the quiet space.
The entire ride back to the dorms he’s quiet, and so am I, unsure of what to say or do. I should ask more questions, investigate him and his brothers further, but as soon as I open my mouth to start speaking, we pull up in front of the dorms. The two goons my father sent with me walk up to the car as soon as Oliver puts it into park, almost as if they expected us to be here.
One of them opens the door for me, a somber look on his face. “Miss Harlow, you should have stayed in your dorm. That was very dangerous, and because of your reckless behavior, we have to report this back to y
our father.”
“Oh no, anything but that…” I say, sarcastically, letting out an exaggerated gasp and rolling my eyes. “You do realize that I’m an adult, right? That I’m in college, and that I’m not actually required to listen to you or him?”
“Your father just wants you to be safe.” So he keeps saying, almost like he’s trying to convince everybody around me that his intentions are pure, but not everyone knows the things I do, or the gut feelings I’m experiencing.
“Goodnight, Harlow,” Oliver calls from the front seat before I get out of the car, obviously having heard the entire exchange.
“Goodnight,” I respond and shut the door behind me. As soon as I do, he speeds off. I guess he couldn’t wait to get out of here. Shrugging, I walk back into the dorm, ignoring the two lugs that follow behind me until I make it to the door. Escaping inside, I walk up the stairs, stopping once I reach my dorm room door.
I realize then that I never did find Shelby, and the thought of her alone at that party is unsettling. Maybe I can go back and get her? No, I’m too exhausted for that. I’m seconds away from having a breakdown when the door to my room opens, and Shelby appears before me, her thin arms wrapping around me, pulling me into her chest. I’m briefly aware of her tugging me inside the room and closing the door behind us.
“Oh my gosh! I was worried sick, Harlow. I went looking for you, and someone said they saw you leave with Oliver. What happened? Did he hurt you?” The panic in her face has my knees buckling. All this time I was worried about her, while she was here looking for me.
“He didn’t hurt me,” I mumble as she helps me to my bed. There’s a throbbing directly behind my eyes that makes it feel like I’ve been beaten over my head half a dozen times with a brick. “He saved me,” I add.
“Saved you?” Shelby says, completely baffled.
“Yeah, some guy was getting handsy with me, and he told him to go away. He helped me out to his car and then I fell asleep for a little while. When I woke up, I felt better.”
Shelby looks, well, like she’s about to be sick, “Oliver didn’t protect you, Harlow, he set you up. The entire time I was inside, it was because he refused to let me come out to you. I went in to make you a drink, and he blocked the exit when I tried to come back outside. Then he put something in the drink I made you and gave it to some guy, told him to bring it to you saying it was from me, but I would never do that to you.” Shame fills her eyes. “He drugged you, Harlow! He wasn’t trying to save you, he was trying to use you, hurt you, and this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened. I think it’s time I tell you the whole truth.”
“What whole truth? What the hell are you talking about?”
Shelby sits down on the mattress beside me, “I wanted to tell you, but your parents thought it would be too stressful, so I’ve tried not to say anything, but you have to know about the Bishops for your own sake, and apparently, your safety now too.”
My stomach drops, and I stare at her, waiting for her to start speaking.
“Before the accident, the Bishops followed you here, to Bayshore. They wanted revenge, and I’m pretty sure, though, I don’t have proof, I’m positive, that it was one of them that hit you with the car. It wouldn’t surprise me, at all. They tried to kill you once before, by pushing you off a boat we were partying on. You almost drowned!”
“Why? Why would they do that? Why do the police not know about these things?”
Shelby scoffs, “They’re not stupid, they covered their tracks, but if you are looking for proof that they’ve tried to hurt you, I can give you a lot of that and then some.”
“Proof? What proof?” My chest hurts simply thinking about Oliver trying to hurt me. He was so nice earlier…so kind, and tender-hearted, and I felt safe with him. Can I really be that bad of a judge of character?
Shelby grabs onto my hand, a frown overtaking her lips, “They didn’t just try to hurt you physically. They bullied you the entire time you were here. You can ask almost any student at the university. Most of them know about it or have seen it first-hand. They spread rumors about you, saying you slept with a bunch of guys, and even worse they told people you liked threesomes, kinky sex, and that you were pathetically lovesick over them because they rejected you.”
Shelby shakes her head and pulls her phone out, searching for something on Facebook. “As if that wasn’t enough, they even made a banner and hung it up on campus with your number on it.” She hands me the phone. There are some photos pulled up from a profile of some girl named Tiffany. The first one is of her sitting on Oliver’s lap nibbling on his neck. Jealousy floods my system, and I don’t know what to make of that. I hold no claim over him, and apparently, I never did, so why the hell do I feel this way?
Scrolling down the pictures, it only gets worse. More of her and Oliver, others of her with Banks. Then Banks with another girl. Sullivan is in some as well. All of them make me feel the same way. Jealous and betrayed, neither one of those feelings is justified or explainable.
Then I find one picture that hits home. Tiffany, two other girls, and the Bishop brothers are standing in front of a banner, posing with it and laughing. It reads Harlow Needs More Dick- Send Pics If you’re DTF! A number, which I assume used to be mine is written with it.
“It was terrible. Your phone wouldn’t stop ringing, you had to get a new number. Guys would harass you walking across campus. I don’t know why they were so cruel to you.”
I don’t understand. I can feel my heart struggling to beat. It feels like I’ve been gutted, and I’m struggling to hold myself together.
“I’m sorry, Harlow. I tried to stop it, but it was pretty much the whole school against us two. Then the accident happened, and I was so worried about you.” Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
“Thank you for being a great friend, Shelby, you’ve always stuck by my side… through everything, even when I didn’t remember who you were,” I force a smile because honestly, I feel like crying right now. I’m not sure why, but I do. It’s like the very thought of them doing those things taints the perfect images I have of them inside my mind.
“Well, what are friends for if not to protect those that they care about. You would have done the same for me. Now let’s try and get some sleep before the sun comes up.”
I nod in agreement, while Shelby gets up and starts to put on her PJs. I don’t even bother. All I do is slip out of my shoes and skinny jeans before curling up in my bed. When the lights are out, and the room is blanketed in silence, I wait for sleep to come, but it never does, and instead, I find myself staring up at the ceiling wondering why if the Bishop brothers were so mean to me, if they bullied me, why do I feel so connected to them? Why does it physically hurt to think about them being with someone else?
21
It’s been two days since the party, but the ache in my chest from what Shelby shared with me hasn’t stopped throbbing. It feels like a bruise that’s continually being prodded at, never getting the chance to heal. Luckily, I haven’t seen any of the Bishop brothers, and I’m more than okay with that. I’m not really sure how to approach them now that I know the truth. Hell, I don’t even really understand all of this.
My emotions are a rollercoaster ride, up and down with each curve, then a loop as the final blow. I want to hate all three of them, but deep down in the pit of my stomach, there is this flicker of doubt that I could ever hate them. If I could just get my stupid memory back, maybe I could finally make sense of everything.
Walking into class, I’m reminded of Shelby’s words, “They followed you here to get revenge.” Those words alone, coupled with the ones Matt told me, “I think you would much rather kill each other than screw.”
Then there are the pictures on the phone… the things they did.
Everything points to what everyone has been telling me… we have been nothing but enemies, rivals.
Pushing the thoughts away, I find a seat at one of the empty tables at the back of the chemistry class. Th
ere are small lab stations already set up in the center of each table, and the look of it makes me nervous. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here, hopefully, whoever decides to sit beside me knows what to do.
A petite looking girl with short brown hair appears out of thin air, sliding into the seat beside me. She smiles blissfully, and as I stare at her, maybe a little too long, I can’t help but think she looks like an adult version of Tinkerbell.
“Hi, Harlow. I’m Caroline.”
She must know me.
“Hi,” I try and make myself smile back, but there’s no point. There’s too much going on inside my head, and honestly, I’m not happy enough right now to muster up even the tiniest of smiles, and faking it just isn’t cutting it anymore.
“I’m guessing we knew each other, and that’s how you know my name?” I try not to sound annoyed, because truly I’m not, but this memory loss thing is starting to weigh on me, among other things.
“Yes, we are friends, or at least I hope we still are,” she raises an eyebrow as if she’s awaiting a response.
“Maybe… I guess we have to start all over again. My brains a little like scrambled eggs right now.”
“I’m up for that,” she smiles and extends her hand out to me. “Hi, I’m Caroline, it’s nice to meet you.”
Taking hold of her hand, I give it a gentle squeeze. “It’s nice to meet you, Caroline.”
“I’m so glad that you’re okay, minus the memory issues and all.” She smiles again, and I wonder how she does that, appears to be happy all the time.
“Hi, Harlow,” another girl says, as she saunters up to our table. Looking up at her, I realize she’s the Tiffany chick from the pictures that Shelby showed me the other night. My mood sours even further then.
The Bayshore Rivals: The Entier Series Page 19