words replay in my mind, filling me with an unwanted warmth. He thought I was adorable.
But why the fuck did I care?
9
The rest of the week dragged. I'd taken to only speaking with the guys when I absolutely needed to; otherwise they may as well have been as invisible as my father's household staff. Not to say I didn't physically see them—they seemed to be around more than ever—but I simply pretended they weren't there. It was driving them insane, I was fairly certain, but they fucking deserved it.
I needed to work out what the fuck was going on, and as badly as I wanted some petty revenge in the form of cling film over their toilet or salt in their toothpaste or something equally amusing, it wouldn't get me out of my current predicament.
I mean, some of those things might have happened as well... but they weren't the main focus of my attention.
As expected, Cherry and my father had disappeared again by the time I got home from classes that day and hadn't even left so much as a note. I would have ripped it up even if they had, but still, it was odd. One of many odd things that just added to the mystery around the three boys acting as my jailers.
The one saving grace to the whole dirty situation was that I still had my phone—the new one Bree had gotten me and linked to her plan. I'd been texting her all week, and we'd taken to skipping lunch in the dining room to hang out in the library. It was a location I'd never seen any of the boys. Shocker.
"So, have you had any more ideas?" she asked me on Friday as we shared the take-out Chinese she'd had delivered to the librarian. "They can't honestly keep you locked up forever. Something’s gotta give."
I wrinkled my nose, chewing a piece of pork. "I agree, in theory, but I also wouldn't have thought them capable of all this in the first place."
"So, aside from making their lives a living hell by withholding your magical, coveted vagina—"
"Ha-ha," I cut her off sarcastically.
She grinned wickedly. “What else have you been doing to make them break? Come on, MK, if anyone can drive them nuts enough to give up on this whole house-arrest bullshit, it's you."
I scowled. "Gee, thanks."
She snickered, stealing the last spring roll. "You know what I mean. Have you tried shifting gears? Getting one of them on your side?"
I sighed. "How? Those three are the walking dictionary definition of bromance, girl. They give all new meaning to the phrase bros before hos." I frowned. "Not that I'm a ho. But it rhymes."
Bree laughed harder. "Uh, well, I was going to suggest you use your magical vagina to sway them to your side, but now I feel like I'm calling you a whore."
"Thanks," I deadpanned. "Come on, I need to think bigger. Why are they doing this in the first place?"
Bree took a sip of her soda, thinking. "Are you totally sure it's them, not your dad? He tried this before, remember? Just after your mom died."
I shivered at the memory. I'd been a wreck and would have posed a much better case for committal then than I currently did. But my psychiatrist—knowing I didn’t need to be drugged and locked up—had talked him out of it. When it came to Samuel Danvers, it didn’t matter what the doctors said, if it went against what he wanted. But somehow my doctor had managed to convince him to put me into regular therapy until I showed "improvement" by his standards. I was lucky my father hadn’t just paid off another crooked doctor to do what he wanted.
"I know," I said, feeling sick at the reminder, "but I also know what I heard after I left the room. He did it all on Archer's orders, then literally left the country after one suggestion from him about a cruise. Archer's up to something. They all are."
Bree let out a long sigh, ruffling a hand through her hair. We were sitting on top of a table in the middle of the dead silent library, thanks to ninety-nine percent of students doing their research and homework online these days. They could call SGU a mixed university all they wanted but I had seen very few students from lower than middle class.
"Have you wondered if maybe they really are doing it to protect you?" she suggested in a gentle tone. "I know they