My eyes stay closed up tight and my legs like jelly under me; they don’t stop fucking wobbling as we walk.
The Mounty smells really fucking good.
She feels good too, tucked up tight under my shoulder, and I decide this is the best type of torture. The type where I know it’ll bite me in the ass later but, for now, I don’t want it to end.
I almost pitch over when we stop abruptly, the Mounty cursing viciously under her breath and then Avery snaps, “Move, Summers.”
Ugh. Annabelle again.
“Give him here. We came together and we’ll leave together,” she calls out, which is a complete lie but if I open my mouth, I will puke all over Avery’s shoes and I like my balls where they are, thanks, so I’ll just have to plead my innocence later.
Avery huffs and wriggles until she has a better hold of my waist, my stomach roiling at the movement… wait, no, that’s me moving. Fuck. How do I stop the rocking? I can’t. Fuck.
I start swallowing, praying I don’t puke again, but no one notices. Avery and Lips are too busy trying to get rid of Annabelle.
“He’s done for the night. We’ll see him back safely,” Lips says and I tuck my face into her neck and breathe her in a little more, the scent distracting me from the bile creeping up my throat. I just need to keep it together until we’re back up in the dorms; Avery will hate me puking in her bathroom but it’ll be better than her shoes.
“You? Fuck no, if he goes home with you he’ll be tied to a fucking bed and forced to play out all of your stalker fantasies.”
“If he goes home with you, he’ll wake up naked and an expectant father. Now fuck off,” Avery hisses at her and we start moving again.
I stumble over my feet again, and when Annabelle starts screaming at us, I lift my head away from Lips’ neck and yell out to her, my eyes still shut tight, “I told you to leave me the fuck alone, Summers.”
Nope.
Gonna puke.
I tuck back into her neck and breathe deeply to ride out the waves of sickness.
I think I pass out for a minute.
I don’t remember arriving back to the main building or the stairs at all, only coming aware again when we stop and I sway forward, Avery grunting and cursing at me like a fucking pro which means I’m on her last goddamn nerve before she smothers me in my sleep.
Then the loud sound of the door unlocking, the extra locks the Mounty put on aren’t exactly subtle, and they shuffle me inside. I try to open my eyes or thank them or fucking something but then I’m pitching forward without them stopping me until I’m face down on the couch.
Thank fuck it’s as soft as a fucking cloud, the blanket that’s thrown over me is also one of Avery’s cashmere ones, and I’m in fucking heaven.
The last thing I hear before I pass the fuck out is Lips mumbling, “Fucking rich kids,” and Avery’s laugh.
Ash and I became friends in grade school and I’ve known all along that Joey was trying to kill him and his beloved twin sister. One look into the older sibling's eyes when he’s raging out and you know without a shadow of doubt that he’s desperate for blood, destruction, and oblivion.
Boom.
Doesn’t matter how fucking drunk I still am, I know exactly what that noise is. There’s no one else who’d be showing up to Avery’s door in the middle of the night and trying to kick it in, so my brain doesn’t even have to come online before I’m moving.
The light comes on in the room and Avery calls out to me but I’m storming toward the door, tearing it open and finding Joey, raving and screaming, with his leg raised to kick out again.
Fuck him.
I dive at him, taking him to the ground with ease because he’s nothing but a drugged-up psychopath, and no matter how fucking wasted I am, I can take this asshole out. He bucks and flails wildly to try to flip me off of his body, but I can hold my own in the ring with Harley and Ash so this is fucking nothing.
There’s nothing more satisfying than beating the fuck out of Joey, just fucking whaling on the asshole until his face is a bloodied mess. Ash never lets it get this far when he’s around so I take my chance and fuck him up. The Mounty stalks out behind me and distracts me for a second; the savage look on her face isn’t anything new but the fact that she’s here ready to back me up is.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have lost my focus, now my stomach is aching and cramping so fucking bad.
Joey’s out cold so I move to pin his arms to his body with my legs so he doesn’t catch me unaware and then I say, my voice all types of fucked up, “Mounty, I’m gonna fucking puke.”
She startles and bolts back into the bedroom for me, thank fuck, and Avery cusses me out with her phone pinned to her ear, reinforcements on the way.
I’m sweating by the time the Mounty shoves a bowl under my nose and finally, finally, I empty my guts up. Fuck, when I start puking I just can’t fucking stop and I’m feeling miserable until the Mounty runs a wet washcloth over my forehead.
I’m about to say something really fucking stupid, like how much I like her, when Ash and Harley arrive.
Chapter Five
Harley
Morrison is straddling Joey’s limp and bloodied form, dry retching as the Mounty scrubs at his face.
I’m fucking livid.
What the fuck is he doing here and why the hell is Joey showing up here in the middle of the night again? I thought we sorted this shit out with him last year but the psychopath just doesn’t learn.
Morrison’s only saving grace is the fact that he wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t help defend the girls, but I’m ready to rip his fucking arms off over the way that Lips is fussing over him.
“What the fuck, Morrison?” I snap, when she starts rubbing his back gently, the sorts of soft touches she gives exactly no one. I can hear Avery in the bathroom emptying something in the toilet and gagging, so he must have already been sick.
Fucking pathetic.
He needs to control his drinking before it gets him in shit again.
“This is what death must feel like,” he moans and Lips scoffs at him, rolling her eyes because we all know he’s gonna start whining over his hangover.
Ash glares at them both as he grabs Morrison under the arms and pulls him off of Joey’s unconscious form. Avery appears in the doorframe, her robe tucked tight around her body and looking queasy, and she stalks over to scrub at Blaise’s face with a clean washcloth. “If Blaise wasn’t here Joey would have gotten in. Lips would have had to stab the asshole.”
Lips crosses her arms with a frown, muttering under her breath, “I fucking would’ve, too.”
Fucking Joey.
I don’t know how the fuck to get rid of him without having Ash and Avery pitching a fucking fit at me, but we’re almost at a breaking point. He needs to be dealt with.
I give Avery a quick hug and then I grab Joey’s legs to drag him back to the boys’ dorm. I make sure Joey’s head slams into every bump and chair leg on the way because I’m almost fucking jealous of Morrison for getting to beat the shit out of him.
I’m also fucking seething with jealousy over all of the soft touches he was getting from Lips but if I start shit with him now, Ash will pitch a fucking fit and make a big deal out of it. Lips is too fucking… jumpy. Every time I think I have a handle on her she throws something new at me and I’m back at square one.