This Fearless Girl (St. Clary's University #2) - E. M. Moore Page 0,90
guy. That’s it.”
Stone blinks, his mouth dropping open. “You asked him to look for my mom?”
“We need someone who has reach,” I explain. “We can’t trust your dad to tell us the truth. The investigator you hired isn’t finding anything. Cole’s obviously got power and pull. He has the resources that we don’t. When you’re playing with bad people, you have to utilize bad people.”
Wyatt tosses me. For a split second, I’m free falling and fear crashes into me. I hit the surface and sink. Despite the shock of it all, the water feels divine as it coats my sweaty skin. I regain my footing on the bottom and push up. I splutter as soon as I break the surface, pushing my hair back from my face. “Fuck you, Wyatt.”
He laughs but quickly stops when Stone says, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Dude, it’s only water. It was the shallow end.”
“Not you. Dakota.”
“We need to find your mom so your father doesn’t own you anymore,” I remind him, my soaked clothes clinging to me.
Stone shakes his head. “He’ll always own me.” He reaches toward the screen and disappears. Lucas shoves the phone back in his pocket, and I walk toward the steps, bypassing Wyatt and Lucas as they watch me head to my room.
“Aw, come on, Tits,” Wyatt coaxes.
I shake my head. They didn’t even give me time to gather my thoughts. I wasn’t keeping shit from them. I was going to tell them everything. And I don’t care what Stone says, we didn’t have another choice. His father is like a cancer: the more he’s tied to him, the harder it is to be free.
A racing thought speeds by that I hate to dwell on. It makes my head hurt and my heart ache and I don’t want to acknowledge it, but it’s kind of hard to see it any other way.
The moment my dad wasn’t around, my life got better.
My stomach rolls. Now with that thought tattooed on me, I’ll let the rain showerhead wash it away along with the tense muscles and sweat from that work out.
But not until....
I act like I’m leaving, opening the sliding doors and everything. When I glance behind me, Wyatt and Lucas are still standing by the pool, talking quietly. As quick as I can, I face toward Wyatt, my feet noiselessly hitting the pavement. Then, I shove his fucking ass into the pool.
I don’t wait for his reaction. I turn right around and head for my room, closing the doors on his laughter.
When I get out of the shower a half hour later, I expect one of the guys to be in my room, but they aren’t. I tiptoe toward my door and peer both ways down the hall. It’s pretty quiet. The only light on is the one that’s in the hallway that’s always left on. I’d rather crawl into bed since exhaustion is pulling at me, but I’m also fucking starving.
I make my way into the kitchen in my pajamas as quiet as I can be. There’s no one there, and my shoulders relax when I find myself alone. I pull out the bagels from the cupboard and put them in the toaster.
“Hey,” a quiet voice calls out behind me.
I immediately tense. I haven’t spoken directly to Lucas since he got so pissed about Stone and I having sex this morning—a problem I tried to fix by having Cole work with us. “Hey,” I say.
“Hungry?”
“Starving,” I admit. My stomach tightens. It’s like I’m a little kid, worried about what my father is going to say when he finds out I’ve done something wrong. I try to fight the feeling, but I can’t help it either. It comes from worrying about someone you care for being mad at you. But if he’s mad at me, I have reason to be mad at him, too.
“Listen, I’m man enough to know when I fucked up. It’s absolutely not my place to tell you when or if you and Stone have sex.” The shadows of the one lone light play over his face as he shifts on his feet. “It wasn’t jealousy,” he tells me. “Well, it wasn’t jealousy that you fucked him, it was more like jealousy that he always gets everything.” He shrugs and sighs like he hates saying any of this. “It was kind of nice when I had you all to myself. I’ve never had anyone....” He acts like that’s the end of the sentence, but he trails off, leaving