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“Oh, shit." That just registered she was that Ringwald's child.
"Yeah." She snorted a laugh. "That one. So. Apparently, the way you get your daughter to do what you want her to do, which is be your idea of perfection, is you hypnotize her repeatedly to not only take away a memory that fucked up a major part of her life and development, but also to just, you know…tweak a few things here and there." She sat back and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to eat a candy bar and drink a soda? I did it every day because at first, it was disgusting, but I was already turning into such a weirdo at school I needed to have some normal."
Damn. That was fucked up. Storm was contemplating too much over there and I knew before he said it what he was thinking, but I still wished he didn't say it.
He asked, "Do you think that would work for me?"
Holly
Did he just ask that question after I told him how horrible things had been? "No!"
"Hey, I'm just asking. If I had a magic wand that would let me erase Essie—"
Essie, Essie. I didn't even get the taste in my mouth this time. I was straight-up angry as I said, “You keep saying that name and I am going to find a way to erase Essie from your present.”
I didn’t even know what I meant, but it was not what it sounded like. However, we were at his spot in the parking lot, so when he turned the car off, they both turned to look at me and waited. I cleared my throat, picked up the bag with our desserts in them and said, “I know you think those texts are the reason I’m here, Stormy. Why he’s here. That’s not the reason. I’m here because after that appointment, I decided to live my life and do anything and everything I ever wanted to do but didn’t because of my father’s little magic trick that signaled bad. Bad sugar. Bad friends. Bad. Bad. Bad. He was so fucking afraid of a teenage girl and yeah. Yeah, that shit happened to me. I was thirteen, and if my memory is correct, and it may not be completely, he was a seventeen-year-old football player. I’m not that kid anymore. None of that was good in my memory and a lot of it was terrifying and not just the sex which I can’t remember. But you.” I looked at Stormy. “You are very good, and you.” I looked at Winston and said, “Are an excellent kisser. And today, at that table, looking at that woman and knowing what she has. People think that’s bad. Not me. Not now. Not anymore. Now. I want. I want. And I want it all. But I’m not sharing what’s mine with that fucking cunt, Essie. And you, Stormy, are mine in writing and I've...paid in blood for that contract so you're going to figure it out. I'm going to figure this out. We." I pointed to him and then me and continued, "Are going to work. At least for this year when that contract is up."
I got out of that car and looked into the passenger window where Winston was sitting and said, "You're supposed to be training me, remember? Ask him what I need to learn and get the lesson plans ready, Teach."
I did not hear them get out of the car behind me, so I presumed Stormy did not murder Winston for kissing me. Stormy arrived in his room twenty minutes later. He looked at the containers on the table and asked, "You want that?"
I was not on drugs tonight. Probably needed to be medicated, but I was not on anything other than my own crazy desire to live by my own rules since I had been living by my father's manipulated ones for over four years of my life. He brought his container with the tiramisu in it over to the bed and took a seat next to me. I gulped and asked, "Are you mad at me for what I said?"
"Nope." He forked a bite and then offered it to me. "Quite the opposite."
I opened my mouth and he put that bite in. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the taste from start to finish. I made a noise of appreciation.
After his bite as he forked another smaller one for me, Stormy said, "I don't have a program in my head that makes me not want things. I always want desserts. Always. I have a sweet tooth that is unstoppable, but I need to stay in shape, healthy, blah, blah, blah. Right? I've been focused on becoming a professional athlete, getting away from my family through sports, most of my life." He took his bite. Once it was down, he said, "Which is a shame because I really only need to stay away from one of them." Then his lips titled in a smile, and he said, "But I won't say her name."
I glared. He laughed as he put the next to the last bite in my mouth as he asked, "You're done being good, right? Behaving?" I nodded. "Me, too." He smiled. "So. Let's be bad together, Holly. I have to finish this football season so there are some things I still have to do and some things I can't do without fucking that up, but there are just so, so many things we can do. Don't you think?"
"Yes." I might actually love him. Like for real not just because my life depended on it. No one has ever just...accepted me. I thought my father did, but he never accepted me. Stormy just gave me everything I needed right now.
And then he said, "Also, you belong to us now. You need training and I realized...I have a lot of needs. So, go talk to...what did you call him? Teach. Yeah. Go talk to Teach." He winked and then said, "Night, Babe."
He got up and went to the bathroom. I sat there a moment and then headed out of his room. Once in the main space of Sophomore House, I found Winston. I said, "Hey."
"Let's go." He motioned with his head, and I followed him back down another hallway and into an office space. "Take a seat."
I sat across from him and watched him as he settled behind that desk. He looked really good back there. Like a boss. It had me thinking out loud, "Where are your glasses?"
His fingers slowed down on that keyboard as he looked over at me with a quizzical brow. "I don't wear those anymore. I had the surgery over the summer."
He went back to typing. I was getting a bit anxious and asked, "He said I belonged to both of you now. How? Um, I signed—"
"You signed saying you agreed to be with him, and you initialed the part about adding approved partners. Meaning he would have to agree, and you would have to agree if either of you had sex with someone outside of the contracted terms. He agreed to that, thanks to your little comment—"
"He read the texts. He knew you were helping me. He knows everything." I gulped. Winston looked up and I shrugged. "He's not going to kill himself. Step one. We made it past more than one day, so one day at a time, right?"
"This contract limits me to you." He looked directly at me.
"And you might not want that." Ouch. That stung more than I expected.
"It fucks up other plans I had, yeah. Now...never mind. It's just a year. I'll manage." He punched a key and the printer started. "Your syllabus is printing."
I shook my head, "It can't be that bad, right? I mean...without all of this. If we ran into each other and I still recognized you...I would still want to get to know you again."
"Oh, you are about to know so much about me. I am going to know everything about you. And at the end of this year, when this shit is over, it is over, Holly. I don't like the idea of sharing someone if I care about them. I don't like being used to train you." He held up his hand. "It was different when it was my plan. When I was in control. Now, it's like he is, and I don't like it. I'm going to do it, but I don't like it."
