be. Neither mother nor son has much of a conscience.”
Harlen let out a low whistle and shook his head. “When you said things were going to go sideways when Ollie moved in, you really meant it. This is some crazy, soap telenovela shit we’re talking about, Huck. None of this sounds like real life.”
I snorted and started for the door. “The three of us are very aware that sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. We wouldn’t have found each other if we lived easy lives.”
Vernon was a runaway genius. Harlen was an abused kid who ended up as the only witness to the horrific murder of his mother by his father. He and Fisher found each other at the same foster home, from which they both eventually ran away. I was the bastard son of a billionaire who was unwanted and unloved. I barely survived that military academy I was forced to attend, and spent the years up to graduation enduring some of the harshest punishments known to man. All of our childhoods could be a made-for-tv movie.
“I guess that’s true.” Harlen muttered the words as Vernon suddenly sat up on the bed.
“Do you think we’re all in danger, or is he just going to come after Ollie?” His too-pretty face looked worried, so Harlen reached out to ruffle his pale hair comfortingly. Vernon dropped his head onto the beefy football player’s shoulder, and I watched as Harlen’s big body stiffened.
It was my turn to shake my head. I hid a grin as I stepped through the door. “All he wants is Ollie. She’s the one thing he could never really have. He crashed his car and nearly killed all three of us the last time he felt like he was losing his hold on her. So there’s literally no line he won’t cross to get what he wants.”
And he very well might have resigned himself to being in a wheelchair he didn’t need just to manipulate her guilty conscience and to keep her under his control.
One thing was certain about this fucked-up situation: Sawyer was the last person in the world I was ever going to underestimate.
Ollie
They say practice makes perfect.
I was determined to be as good as Huck in bed. I didn’t have his wealth of experience, so of course there was bound to be a learning curve. But I was over feeling like a bumbling novice while he came across as a slick and seasoned professional. I’d been following his lead and learning from him since I was young. It was only natural that I fell into the same habit now that I was older.
It might be weird for anyone else, but Huck took it in stride when I asked him to teach me how to blow his mind, as well as other parts of him. His only condition was that whatever I learned, I wasn’t allowed to use that knowledge on anyone else. All his tips and tricks of the trade had to stay between the two of us. At first, I thought he was joking, but his gaze told me he was serious. He hadn’t said if he was sleeping with anyone else while we were hooking up on the regular these days, but it was clear he didn’t like the idea of me sleeping with someone who wasn’t him. I was too chicken to ask him what exactly he considered our relationship to be now that he had welcomed me into his bed. I was pretty sure the fact he came after me and caught me the minute I tried to run meant he might want to keep me.
The last couple of days, I’d barely been in the attic room. I was still creeped out by the shadows on the wall when it got dark, and it felt too isolated from the rest of the house. Plus, the slanted ceiling was too low for Huck. He hit his head more than once trying to navigate the odd room when he decided to crawl into bed with me after his shift at the bar. The next morning, he woke up with a knot on his head and was fighting a headache. He grumpily told me to just sleep in his bed and wait for him in his room. At first, I didn’t want to overstep, so I told him to call me when he got home and I would come down. But I found it impossible to sleep or study when I was alone