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“Hey,” Rocky said. His smirk looked off from earlier. Lopsided. His eyes were glassy. Had he been drinking? “You taking my girl? Leave her alone.”
Silas froze, turning back. “What?”
Rocky smirked, strolling forward. “What do you mean, what? You were going to break up with her anyway. She told me she would go out with me.”
“Silas,” I said, “don’t listen to him.”
Silas’s face twitched. He snatched up my hand, heading toward the porch steps, purposely turning away from Rocky. “Come on.”
Rocky pushed someone aside and jumped the porch rail, landing on the concrete walkway that led around the house, cutting us off. “I said let her go.” He rounded his shoulders, clenching his fists. “She’s staying with me.”
Silas’s big brown eyes flashed, and I felt the same way, surprised Rocky would go this far. He was asking for a fight. Silas squared off his shoulders at him. “Get out of the way, Rocky.” He wasn’t backing away. He was giving Rocky a chance to get his senses together. Silas was a mass of muscle, and every bit Greek, and he was holding himself together with the last shred of willpower he contained.
“No.” Rocky shot out his hands, shoving Silas in the shoulders. “Let go of my girl.”
“She’s not yours,” Silas said, in a deeper tone. “Get out of our way.”
“North kisses her, and you keep her,” Rocky said. “Nathan sleeps with her, and you keep her. Now she told me she wanted to go out with me and you think you can walk off with her? I’m not done with her yet.”
Silas rolled his eyes, starting to step around Rocky. Rocky’s hand shot out once more, shoving at his shoulder. “Rocky,” he said in a flat tone. “That’s the second time you’ve touched me. There won’t be a third.” Silas tugged me until I was standing in front of him, his hands on my shoulders. “Sang is leaving with me. If you want her to tell you she’s coming with me, she will. I’m not taking her somewhere she doesn’t want to be.”
“If she wants to leave, she can come with me,” Rocky said. His hand shot out again, but this time he flung my hair back, revealing my neck. “We were just getting started.”
I was facing Rocky, but I felt Silas’s gaze on my neck, bearing down on the spot where Rocky had been sucking. I didn’t need a mirror to know the flesh was still tender and probably bright red.
In a split second, I was nudged aside and out of the way. Silas flung himself at Rocky. His massive fist shot out, making contact with Rocky’s face.
Rocky reeled back, covering his face with his hand. He held up one arm protectively as he stumbled. When he pulled his hand away, his lip was split and blood pooled and dripped down his chin. He pulled a fist back, ready to punch.
Silas launched himself at Rocky, taking him down in a tackle hard to the ground. After that, it was a flurry of fists and kicks as Silas barraged Rocky again and again.
“Silas!” I cried out his name. This was crazy. I’d seen fights before, but this was one on one, and Silas was dominating. It felt horrible, even though I didn’t blame him for getting angry. “Stop!”
Someone else was shouting, too, but it was different. Happy. A crowd was forming on the porch. People were clapping and hooting, encouraging them to keep fighting.
“Think you can touch her?” Silas bellowed at Rocky. “Fucking try it again, dumb shit. Skatofatsa. Touch her again and see what happens. Poutanas gie!” The Greek continued to flow from his mouth mixed in with the cursing, and I was pretty sure they were all the same words, more or less.
Rocky launched a fist at Silas’s face, but Silas caught it quickly, holding Rocky’s knuckles and crushing them as he pushed it back.
“You motherfucking shit,” Rocky screamed at him. “You’re going to call me out for what? You’re going to jump all over me for that? You let everyone else touch her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silas said.
“She was going out with you and North took her in the closet. Nathan slept with her and you didn’t fight him. What now? I’m taking her off your hands.”
“Your teammates forced them into the closet. I heard the whole story. They weren’t even kissing. They faked it. And you made that shit up about Nathan. Everyone knows it. Think you’re going to claim her?” Silas bellowed, and he launched another fist, making contact with Rocky’s chest, and another coming up against the side of his head. “Think you can mark her and she’s yours? Is that what it means?” Silas stood up, hovering over Rocky. “Come near her again and I’ll finish this.”
“Sang!” North arrived, splitting apart the crowd. He started toward me, and then stopped, spotting Silas and Rocky.
“Get her out of here,” Silas called to him, booming over all the other voices. “Take her out.”
North glanced again between us for a moment. Then his jaw clenched and he nodded before barreling toward me.
Rocky breathed heavily and wiped at his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. Then he tried to get up but Silas put a foot on his chest, pushing him back down.
“No,” Silas said. “Not until she leaves. You’re staying down until she’s gone.”
“Wait,” I blubbered out, realizing I’d been crying. I didn’t like seeing Silas like this. I wasn’t sure I should go. What about Marie? What if the cops came and I was gone? What about this crazy party and Rocky and Jay and everyone else?
North ignored me. He hauled me up over his shoulder before I could back away. I became limp as he cut through the mass of cars, taking the long way around the side of the house and toward the woods.
I cried the whole way.
THE NORTH SHORE
North kept me over his shoulder until his boots crunched down on the gravel in front of Bob’s Diner. He shifted me, and then put me down. Blood rushed from my head and I swayed. He kept his hands on my shoulders until I steadied.
“Silas,” I breathed out. I wiped my hand over my face to wipe away the tears. “The fight. He’ll get in trouble.”
“Silas did what had to be done,” North said. He repositioned the sleeve of his black T-shirt that had twisted from carrying me. “Rocky’s been asking for this.”
“I know he started it, but did he have to beat him up?”
“He’s on the decline,” North said. “And he’s crossed the line so many times. Especially with you. The team saw it. We saw it. He waited as long as he could for Rocky to straighten up.”
“It’s wrong,” I said in a weak voice. Even as I said it, I wasn’t totally convinced because North was telling me it was okay. Still, I didn’t think anyone deserved to be beaten like that. Defensively was different. This time, Silas threw the first punch. “We could have walked away. I should have backed up. I should have stayed away from him.”
North frowned, shaking his head. He focused on me. “This,” he said, motioning to the woods and my house beyond it, “wasn’t you. It had nothing to do with you. Rocky’s been on Silas ever since he joined the football team. The other guys accepted him. Rocky’s been a bully all his life and everyone’s finally tired of it. The whole team has been itching to get at him. When the push came, Silas finally shoved back. I’ve been telling him to do it for a while.”
My hand slipped up, cupping around the tender spot Rocky had created on my neck. Rocky did something I never thought he’d do to me. He was arrogant, abrasive, but he’d never before been this way. “Something’s wrong with Rocky,” I said. “Jay said it. He’s not himself.”
“Maybe Silas knocked whatever’s wrong with him out of his system. Whatever it is, it can’t continue. And Rocky can’t keep coming after you. If he wants to take on Silas, he’s going to have to face him head on and not use you as a pawn in his game.” His motorcycle was parked alongside a few cars close to the edge of the diner’s parking lot. He turned and heade
d for it.
“Where are you going?” I asked, starting to follow.
“I need to take you out of here. This whole day has been a disaster. It’s about time I kept my promise to you.” He opened up one of the hard saddlebags on his bike and pulled out a black leather jacket and a helmet. He returned to me and hooked the jacket around my shoulders. I slipped my arms into the sleeves as he zipped it up. “Keep your legs close to the bike and you’ll keep them warm.” He plopped the helmet on top of my head and clicked the strap under my chin. He released me so he could straddle the bike. He pushed his foot on a lever and the bike roared to life. He kicked the stand away and when he had the bike balanced between his legs, he held a hand out, palm up in invitation.
I wanted to stay. It felt wrong to run off with North, when Silas was out there and needed me, and Nathan ... I didn’t want to leave him alone with my mess. What about Kota and the others? I wanted to help but didn’t know how, didn’t know what to suggest. The terrors of the evening had gotten to me.
It was North’s intense eyes that lured me. He’d asked me to trust him. I needed to.
I hadn’t been really alone with him for a couple of weeks. The last time we were alone together for any length of time, I had slept at his house, and ever since we had been so busy. Nervousness threatened to consume me but I tucked it away. I couldn’t hesitate now.
I dropped my hand into his. He guided me to sit behind him. I wedged my hand into the helmet to let the hair loose from the hair clip from the back of my head and twisted my hair into a bun at the base. I tucked it back up into the helmet. I just managed to reclip it to hold it when he started backing up. With a loud roar of the engine, the motorcycle zoomed out of the lot.
I held on, my hands finding his chest. When the bike straightened on the road, North’s hand found mine. He dragged each one down until I was holding him around his stomach. I guessed he was telling me he preferred I held on there.
I felt his black T-shirt billowing a little. I imagined he must have been cold. His jacket kept my back and arms worm, and the bike did warm the inside of my legs. The breeze blowing around us stung at my cheeks and at my calves. I tucked in close.
