as she wrenches her arm out of my grasp and gets out of the car, pausing for a second before walking up to the bench and sitting down.
It goes against all of my instincts but I stay put.
There are at least three men sitting in the Escalade. I can see just enough movement through the tinted windows to make that assessment, and I have no fucking clue who they are or what weapons they have. I’m assuming the Mounty has that little knife of hers, but I don’t carry.
Mostly because I know if I do, I’ll fucking use it and Joey would be the first to die.
Senior has already made it clear to me what he’ll do if I kill my drug addict brother.
The little meeting lasts ten minutes at most and I spend every last one of them watching everything. Watching the car, watching their backs, watching the three cars that drive past like there isn’t some clandestine meeting happening here in fucking Haven of all places.
It doesn’t matter how hard I look, there’s nothing I can see that’ll tell me what’s happening here. The person she’s meeting is a guy wearing all black, and he’s a lot bigger than her. It’s dark enough that I can only tell that he’s probably got dark hair and that’s about it appearance-wise.
He doesn’t so much as breathe in her direction.
Fuck, he doesn’t even face her for most of the conversation and it’s only toward the end that he moves at all, turning slightly to face her.
I tense as she stands, but she just gives him a curt nod and walks back to the car, slow and steady like this is nothing to her and, fuck, maybe it’s not. Maybe I’ve been sitting here watching her back and expecting the worst and she’s just catching up with an old friend.
Fucking Mounties.
My eyes flick back to her mystery contact but he doesn’t move an inch, just sits there on that bench, even after she slides back into the car and the door gently slams shut.
He’s clearly not going to move until we’re gone.
I start the car to get us out of there and it’s only then that I notice just how badly she’s shaking. Whatever this was, it was terrifying for her.
She did it for Avery.
It’s that fact that keeps my mouth shut even though there’s a lot I could say right now. I don’t say a fucking thing the whole way back to Hannaford and into the buildings, up the stairs and down the hall; I wait until she’s inside the room she shares with my sister and handing the keys back to me before I finally break.
“Whatever you’ve done, if he finds out—”
She cuts me off. “He won’t. He won’t the same way Harley’s grandfather can’t come after him. I’m not going to explain it, you’ll just have to trust that it’s taken care of.”
There’s this tired look in her eyes that tugs at my chest, even as I push the sensation away.
“Go get some sleep, Ash. Just forget tonight ever happened.” Except there’s no fucking way I can do that.
No way.
Chapter Ten
Blaise
When Harley arrives back to our room and threatens me to get me to distract Avery, I think about arguing with him until Ash gets on board with it and decides he’s going to fuck off to Haven with the Mounty.
I decide it’s worth a night of pain to get him to change his mind about her.
I don’t realize just how fucking jealous I’m going to be over the two of them spending the night together in my Maserati. Fuck, if it were any other girl I’d be betting on him fucking her over the hood because there’s something about cars that just gets him climbing over a piece of ass, but I don’t want to think about that.
It makes me really fucking jealous.
Jealous of him fucking the Mounty, the one we all spent freshman year hating and taunting and throwing every little bit of abuse at because she was below us and, worse, she was a danger to Avery because she caught Joey’s eye.
Now she’s a danger to us because Harley might kill us all if we try fucking anything with her.
So instead of dealing with any of this spiraling fucking bullshit, I do what I do best.
I get fucking wasted.
I drink so much that Avery has something new to bitch me out about, because she has to make sure I don’t choke on my own puke all