Make My Move (Hannaford Prep #5) - J. Bree Page 0,28
about anything this… honestly before.
All of us carry our secrets, even as protective and close as we all are. Fuck, it’s because we’re all protective of each other that we don’t. Harley never talks about the ticking time bomb hanging over him thanks to his grandfather, I never talk about what happens in the Manor, and Blaise… Blaise never says how bad shit is back home with the Morrisons when Harley isn’t there to chaperone.
None of us want to admit how close we all are to plummeting off of the edge into the fucking abyss.
And that honesty in Harley is how I find myself leaning against the Maserati when the Mounty appears in the darkness, almost falling over her own feet at the sight of me.
Interesting.
“Harley sent me.”
She huffs at me in frustration and snaps, “You can’t stop me; I have to go. I’ll explain later.”
So Harley obviously didn’t have the same little heart-to-heart with her as he did with me. I unlock the car. “I’ll drive.”
She stares at me like she’s waiting for the punchline and I stare right back at her, but there’s no fucking way I’m going to just trust her.
There’s nothing she can do about Senior… but I want to know who the fuck she’s going to be meeting out here and who the fuck it is that she thinks can go against Senior and survive.
Finally, she sighs and slides into the car, a frown on her face that looks different to the one she wears at school.
It catches my eye.
When we’d gone down to the docks in the slums of Mounts Bay to pick Joey up from her the night before school started, she’d been the same way. There was nothing glaringly obvious that was different about her, but there was this hardness, this fierce blankness to her that hadn’t just shocked me when I’d seen it, it had changed something.
I’m watching her too much.
I’m thinking about her too much.
Even when I was getting the shit kicked out of me by Senior, I only really had two thoughts in my head: protect Avery.
And what is the Mounty girl doing to us all?
Because Avery is a different person now. I was fucking terrified of what that meant at first because she’s been the one true thing in my life, the one person who is unshakably mine, and the idea that anything could hurt her or even come between us is unacceptable to me.
Harley is in love with her.
Blaise is a little too fucking interested, no matter how much he’s fighting to ignore it.
And no matter how hard I fucking try, I can’t stop thinking about her and I’ll hold onto this hate I have for her with everything I have because if I let it go? What do I have then?
Nothing but the fact that she might just love my sister like I do.
I keep my eyes on the road the entire way to Haven, no matter how tempting it is to watch her as she struggles to stay calm.
As the lights of the town come into view, she sighs again and says, “You have to stay in the car. I’m just going to talk to someone about a job. You can’t be seen with me.”
There’s a black Escalade parked up the street with blacked-out windows that couldn’t look more out of place in this little falsely idyllic town, with the bullshit fairy lights and the cookie-cutter boutique stores.
This place used to be called something normal and had the usual stores of a small Cali town, but when Hannaford was built and wealthy privileged students started shopping down here, everything changed until it became a bullshit town that caters to bullshit teenagers spending their trust fund dollars.
The only good thing here is Rita’s bar.
The Mounty’s unwavering stare at the silhouette on the park bench is all the confirmation I need. There’s silence in the car for a second but when she unbuckles her seatbelt, I grab her wrist to stop her.
I might not know who she’s meeting, but no one can take Senior on and survive. His pockets are too deep and there’s too many politicians, feds, and cops in there for anyone to survive him.
“You can’t have my father or my brother killed. Harley seems to think that’s what’s about to happen. You can’t.”
She stares me down with that perfectly blank face, and it pisses me off that she’s not taking this seriously. If only she knew.