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I’m back to picking at that thread on my leggings. “I didn’t want you to worry, Des.”
“I am your older sister and it’s my duty to worry about you,” she says fiercely, like she would tear everyone apart that had dared to hurt me.
“I am going to kick all of their rich asses. I swear to god, I am flying back with you and we’re going back to that fucking school and I’m going to kick all of their asses.” Her eyes are vicious and with each word he slams one fisted hand into the palm of the other. I’m laughing by the time she’s finished, leaning over the sink to wrap her in a hug.
“Oh, Des, I miss you so much.” I lean back. “But it’s already done. I sent in the paperwork. All my stuff is back home with Mom. I’m out.”
She winces. “How did she take it?”
“As well as you’d expect.”
She bites her lower lip. “So, why are all these boys here now?”
I hesitate. “They’re my friends.” It’s weird to say. I’m not sure if it’s entirely true. “They were trying to help me with the bully issue. And they’re friends of Hardin’s, so they sort of tagged along when he came up to see his parents and Sam.”
She smiles just the slightest bit at the mention of her girlfriend’s name. “Mom would be so pissed if she knew I left you in the hotel with four men all by yourself.”
“I’m an adult. And it’s not like anything happened.” It’s obviously a lie.
Desi knows it’s a lie. She points at my face with an accusatory finger, giggling like a schoolgirl.
“With who?”
Face flaming, I grab her finger and push it down. “That’s none of your business.”
“It’s exactly my business, Rosalind Juliet.” She looks at me for a minute. “It was Hardin, wasn’t it? That’s what you meant when you said that we had very similar tastes. He looks like the male stripper version of Sam.”
I lift a shoulder in a non-committal motion. Technically, I’d hooked up with Fielder too and just had a very heavy make-out session with Gideon. I’m surprised she hadn’t noticed that my lips are swollen and my skin is flushed.
“Actually,” I say in a whisper. “I’ve sort of… done things with all of them.” My sister’s eyes widen. She looks stunned for a second.
“When you say things, you mean…” she waggles her eyebrows at me.
I choke on a laugh. “No, we haven’t gone all the way, but it’s been close.”
“With all of them?”
“Not with Ezra. Fielder and Hardin, yes. And Gideon, it’s just been a lot of kissing.”
Des shakes her head. “And they’re all friends and they all know and they don’t care?”
Do they all know? Did Fielder tell the others about what happened in my room the day he’d called in his favor to have me leave the university? They’d all been physically affectionate with me just now in front of each other, but that didn’t mean that they knew.
It’s entirely possible that beyond the few kisses they already know about, they aren’t aware of everything else.
I drop my face into my hands and moan. “I don’t know.”
Desi makes soothing circles on my back. “Well, you’re going to have to figure that out.” She pats my knee and hops off the counter. “Come on. Introduce me to your four boyfriends.”
My face flames. I should tell her it’s never going to happen, that they hurt me in a way that I’m not sure I’ll recover from. Yes, they’ve explained things, yes they apparently had good reasons for what they did. And they did not perpetrate the worst of the offenses against me, but I still can’t trust them. Not by a long shot.
I would be a fool if I did.
I don’t say anything, instead I follow her out into the room and stop dead on the other side when four pairs of eyes turn to look at me.
Desi stops too, taking them all in, taking in the way they trace my movements. “Yeah, you’re definitely going to have to figure it out,” she mutters to me, before turning her most radiant smile on the boys.
Only fifteen minutes after meeting Desi, Fielder wins her over entirely by stating that they’ve secured my admission with Seven Stars again. This is news to me, and I may inhale the water I’m drinking when he makes the announcement and end up coughing until tears come out of my eyes.
