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“I’m glad you didn’t get suspended,” Callie murmured as she lay back with her eyes closed and her body glistening in the light as though she’d been dipped in diamonds.
Asha nodded, turning her head to look at me.
Asha and Callie were two friends who’d stuck with me through the past year.
I talked about not having many, or the fact that no one stepped up and had my back at the times I needed them. But these girls, I guess they almost gravitated toward me when I was at my worst rather than standing to the side like all the others. I instantly clicked with both of them.
They were sweet but sassy girls, definitely not what you would call popular, but more like the kind of girls who just liked to do their own thing and not be put into a box or stereotyped—the exact opposite of everything Nick stood for.
Callie and I met during art class and bonded instantly over my love of sketching and her love of painting. Two very different art forms, but the passion behind it was the same. Asha had been my lab partner for a while when we were juniors, and since the both of us sucked majorly at science, the relationship there also came extremely easy.
“When you didn’t come back that day, we thought we were going to have to riot,” Asha added with a smile. The front strands of her thick blonde hair framed her face while the rest was pulled back and into a tight ponytail. “Nick came back the next day with two black eyes, a split lip, and looking like he’d gone a couple of rounds in the ring. I was impressed, but everyone was saying you were suspended or expelled.”
Cab, Asha’s boyfriend, laughed from beside us. Cab and Callie’s boyfriend, Trent, were sitting at a table just to the right of our loungers with a deck of cards, using potato crisps as betting chips. “Personally, I was hoping you’d come back for round two. You let him get off easy.”
The boys were on the football team with Nick. Though they had made it quite clear they didn’t like him from the start, and just like their girlfriends, they weren’t the type to suck up or be fake just because of who Nick was.
I scoffed. “I can’t take credit for all of that. The split lip and others were not courtesy of me.”
Both the girls sat up, obviously intrigued. “Your uncle didn’t finally get a hold of him, did he?” Asha asked, a little weary because well, Uncle Leo was kind of scary, but also sounding a little excited.
“I don’t know if you girls remember Ham—”
Callie cut me off with a burst of laughter. “Remember Ham? That boy followed you around for weeks.”
It was true. When Jayla’s granddad had pointed a gun at me and threatened to take me away, Hadley had protected me. And between her and Kev, they managed to eliminate him while I ran inside the clubhouse and hid.
Ham was the one to find me, and he knew exactly where I would be.
In his room under his bed.
Why I hadn’t run to Uncle Leo’s room was still a question I asked myself. Maybe I was scared I would lead some crazy lunatic to Macy’s room. Maybe I was scared it was the first place anyone would think to look for me.
Instead, I ran to the place where I felt the safest. Having him around me was a feeling I struggled for a long time to understand or explain. It was like warmth or a silent reassurance that things would be okay. It was the one place I didn’t second guess whether I would be okay. I always knew he would fight for me.
“Earth to Meyah!” Asha called with a gentle laugh reaching over and waving her hand in front of my face. “Are you saying Ham went after Nick?”
Blinking furiously, I attempted to focus. “Yep, stupid bloody idiot. He should have just left it alone, you know. I handled it.”
Callie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Ham possibly has a different definition of ‘handled it’ than you do. And, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want a guy like him standing up for you, fighting in your name, preferably without a shirt on...” Her words trailed off, her eyes looking slightly dazed as she mumbled on. I reached over and pinched her causing her to almost jump out of her skin.
“Uh… Hello?” Trent interrupted, waving his hand to try and get Callie’s attention.
She looked over at him and rolled her eyes. “You know I’m joking, Trent.”
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously but turned back to his game with Cab. When Callie looked back to face me, she shook her head and mouthed,I’m not joking.
I couldn’t hold in the giggles.
“So Ham finally stepped up.” Asha met my gaze with a smile. The girls knew a little about him. Obviously, it had been hard to miss the fact that after the shit hit the fan last time, he followed me to and from school for weeks. He was kind of hard to miss.
“Yeah, I guess he kind of stole round two,” I snorted lifting up my hand and rolling my wrist. “Which is probably a good thing since both he and my uncle said my punching technique left a lot to be desired. I ended up with bruised knuckles.”
“Maybe round two could just be you kneeing him in the balls,” Callie commented casually, trying to hide a devious smirk behind her bottle of water as she raised it to her lips. The green color of her bikini was striking, a perfect match for her deep red locks and the light smatter of freckles across her cheeks and nose. “That’s if you can find them. The second Nick sees you, I bet he’ll be so scared that they’ll crawl back up inside himself and hide.”
Trent screwed up his nose, and I couldn’t help but giggle as he squeezed his legs together, looking over at his girlfriend in horror. “Fuck, you’re brutal,” he croaked and leaned away dramatically. He looked over at Cab and shuddered. “Suddenly, I feel the need to find my man card again.”
Callie rolled her eyes waving him off. “Sometimes I wonder whether you can really handle me.”
