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Mom asked if I was busy, and of course, I told her I wasn’t. I never would be when it came to my family.
“I’ll see y’all around,” I told the guys, getting my things. My mom walked away after saying goodbye to my friends, and I let her for a second before facing them. I nodded in a certain direction, and they didn’t even need to look that way to know what I meant. Aspen Davis was still over there flashing her little tummy.
And she was looking at me too. She was, but she was trying not to. She had her arm still draped over her face, but I one hundred percent noticed when she faced my way as my mom approached. Snowflake was aware of me.
Just like I was aware of her.
Wells had something to what he said about her purposely goading me, and she could play her little fucking game if she wanted to. I didn’t care, but what she wasn’t going to do was get herself hurt because she was fucking mad at me.
That was what my nod in her direction told my friends. We all had been keeping an eye on her even though she had my dad’s security. My friends had been doing that casually while going to their classes, and I had too between my own and football practice. There was a reason I knew Aspen had been okay the night I had a fucking panic attack. I parked outside her dorm after washing the vomit and shit out of my mouth.
“Please,” my eyes told my friends, and Dorian and Wolf instantly nodded. They were more mature, older by a year, and though they weren’t particularly happy about the situation with Aspen and me, they were aware her life had literally been threatened. They were, so they’d watch out for her for me. I’d asked them, so they would.
Wells, on the other hand…
He wasn’t as mature. Fuck, neither one of us was. We were both juvenile little assholes sometimes, but I needed him to do me this solid.
And I knew he would. He would because it was me, and we were boys. Wells grunted at first, but eventually, he nodded too.
Good.
My friend could be in his feelings as long as he did what I said. That shit that had happened the other night wasn’t Aspen’s fault.
It never was.
Aspen probably recognized my mom. Mom was there through all that drama shit all those summers ago.
Aspen’s arm lifted from her eyes a bit when my mom and I passed her, but my mom was none the wiser to Aspen’s presence. Mom probably knew about Aspen being around anyway due to Dad telling her, so there’d be no problem there anyway. My parents thought Aspen Davis wasn’t a problem for me anymore.
And that was how I wanted it.
“You said everything is fine?—”
“Yeah, hon. And.” Mom paused after we distanced from the quad a bit, laughing a little. She was a spritely little thing like my sister, Rainbow. Really, the only difference between the two was that my mom was blonde and more outspoken than my sister. Don’t get me wrong. Rainbow Reed could hold her own. I mean, she was my sister, and I taught her well. Mom adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “Everything is good. I swear. That’s actually why I’m here.”
Not knowing what she meant, I couldn’t be completely at ease, and I had to miss more than one football practice this week due to emergencies. I’d had to trek the two-plus hours back to my hometown, Maywood Heights.
Gram needed me.
Mom walked by my side. “I was actually wondering if you could consider coming around when things are good.”
“What do you mean?”
Mom stopped walking, then smiled a little. It was a forced smile, but not necessarily a sad one. It was one of a woman who’d had to give up a lot like all of us. She got to be at home in all of this with my grandma, in the thick of it. She rubbed my back. “It’d be good to be there when things are good. It would help, I think. Couldn’t hurt?”
It couldn’t. Probably wouldn’t. I nodded. “Okay. You and Dad talked about this?”
“It was discussed,” she said, and when I said nothing, she touched my hair. “Thatch, I know how hard this is for both of you. Maybe coming around when things are good will help. She’ll see you. You know, when she’s good.”
“Yeah.”
And Mom put on another one of those forced smiles. She did even though she was hurting. This was all hard for her too. She let go. “If you’re free sometime today, it would be good to swing by. Bow’s going to make her way down today too. It’ll help Grandma to see her too when things are good.”
It wasn’t too bad for my sister. I mean, in my grandma’s eyes. Probably because Bow was a sweet little nonthreatening thing. My gram could be friendly with her, my sister’s face a nameless nonthreatening one in a crowd to her.
I’d come to find out in all this with my grandma that threats weren’t always those of intimidation. Sometimes threats were memories. Ghosts.
My hands in my pockets, I continued my strides beside my mom. I had a half day of classes still, but I didn’t care. I’d wrap things up, then come home. I always went home when I needed to, and if my mom felt that would help, I would. I’d do anything for her and my gram. I’d do anything for my dad.
