Make My Move (Hannaford Prep #5) - J. Bree Page 0,61

the back steps to our house. It was too hot to move and I kept crying and pissing her off so she filled a bucket with water and dumped me in it. I think she was trying to be cruel but it was the best feeling ever.”

What a cunt.

But bonding over shit parents is what I do best. “My father’s office. A modernist nightmare of cold steel and crisp white boxes. I’ve fallen asleep on his weird couch, that doesn’t even have cushions, under his suit jacket. I wake up but I keep my eyes shut because even at five years old I know that when my parents talk in that hushed secret way they’re talking about me. My mom is telling my dad that ‘normal’ children can’t read by age five and to lower his expectations. My father says he’s sure I’m actually retarded. His ethics board would shit themselves if they knew how he speaks to me. He has a whole list of words he likes to use in my direction because he was born with an IQ of 190 and I’m…so fucking average. I remember I cried and he looked so disgusted at me. Said I’d probably turn out to be a faggot too. Imagine every derogatory word in the book and that man has thrown it at me and the worst part…the fucking stupidest thing is I still care. I still hate that I don’t measure up.”

She stares at me for a second and I lose it, I lose the last tiny scraps of my soul that she didn’t already own because when Lips Anderson looks at you she sees everything. Every-fucking-thing. And the terrifying thing is that she likes what she sees in me. All of the cruel and handsome and broken and true—every little piece of it that she finds, she likes.

She fucking owns me.

Arbour is going to murder me.

“Eat your fucking ice cream, Morrison. Do we need to hug? It’s not really my thing but I'll give it a go for you.”

I burst out laughing, because I’m fucked and if I hug her I’ll end up kissing her too, so I dig into the ice cream.

It doesn’t taste like heartbreak anymore.

When I finish the bowl, and I have more control over myself again, I sling an arm around her shoulder and whisper in her ear, “How about a song, Mounty? Sing me something with that voice of yours that's so good you can beat me in choir.”

Because there’s nothing I want more than to finally hear this voice of hers, the one that even Avery fell in love with while she was on her warpath.

I’m shit out of luck there though because she blanches, the color seeping out of her skin entirely as she gulps and squeaks out, “Ah, sorry. I have severe stage fright. Avery and I are working on it.”

I groan, but if I’m not going to hear it for myself then I want to at least enjoy the rest of our afternoon together so I hunt down my guitar and lyric book instead and watch the light start up in her eyes when I sit back down.

“I’ll have to give you a private concert then, Mounty. I’ve been working on some songs, tell me what you think.”

She fucking melts.

I’m doomed.

Chapter Nineteen

Harley

Morrison comes back from the girls’ room with an attitude.

The type of attitude that’ll get his fucking face broken if he’s not careful and Ash takes note of it too. When I get back to the room on Monday from my swim practice, he’s already awake and messing around on his guitar, his lyric book out in front of himself on the bed and a pick tucked behind his ear. I sling my bag onto the bed and he glances up at me with a glare, not even attempting to hide how fucking confrontational he really is, so I stalk into the bathroom for a shower.

He’s always been an asshole, but not like this.

When I get back out, Ash is back from his run and gulping down more water in the kitchen. He’s spent more time than ever pounding the pavement and I think we’re all a little too fucking pent up for our own good because he glares at me too.

“If either of you have something to say then just fucking say it. This bullshit moodiness is getting on my last fucking nerve.”

Ash slowly lowers the bottle to the kitchen counter, his eyes fucking savage, but it’s Morrison who