I need to figure out how the hell to get her attention, but the fact I’m even thinking this is pissing me off.
I’ve never had to work for a girl’s attention before. I’m not being an arrogant dick by saying that, there’s never been a shortage of girls wanting to chase after me and I’ve never found one that I wanted enough to go after before so, naturally, I find the most fucking difficult option possible to lose my head over.
Fucking typical.
I make it out of the girls’ dorm and down the hall toward the junior boys’ rooms before Ash catches up to me, seething and spitting in anger.
“We need to get a fucking camera on their door, an alarm, fucking something.”
I turn another corner and smirk at the loud thump noise of Joey’s head hitting the stone wall. “Floss will smother you in your sleep if you try to pull that shit on her. They were lucky Morrison was in there.”
The sarcasm is dripping from my words and if Ash wasn’t so fucking livid about Joey, he’d be giving me shit about it, but the very real danger that Avery is in trumps our petty arguments.
We’d never fucking forgive ourselves if something happened to her again.
“Fuck this, I’m going back there to her. I’ll stay there tonight and we can work out a roster so there’s always one of us with her.”
I give him a look. “She’s with the Mounty, who took on a football player to keep her safe, and even fucking wasted Morrison had her back. She’s as safe as she’ll ever be while Joey is around.”
Ash scoffs, “She’s a Mounty, not a fucking killer. There’s no way she could go up against Joey and survive; if she’s as genuine as you think she is, then she’s also a naive little girl who’s going to get herself fucking butchered.”
I’m not going to let that happen.
I already watch Avery’s every fucking move, it wasn’t that hard to keep Lips on my radar, and this little foiled attack by Joey only makes me more convinced. Lips is not the enemy here.
I just need to get that through Ash’s stubborn fucking head.
I’m about to start the same fucking argument we’ve been having for months when we finally get back to Joey’s room only to find half of his dumbass friends waiting there for us.
I fucking hate these poser elitist dickheads and this stupid pretentious fucking hellhole.
Devon looks me up and down and sneers, “He’s going to fucking kill you for this. The second he wakes up, you’re fucked.”
I drop Joey’s legs to the ground and enjoy the drunken grunt that falls out of him. He still doesn’t wake up though. “He knows where to find me, unlike you ass-licking dickheads I’m not afraid of him. Drunk, high, or sober—I can take him.”
Ash stares them all down like he’s planning their deaths out in the most detailed way and some of the newer flunkies start shaking in their fucking loafers. They might like the infamy of hanging around Joey and having access to his supply of narcotics but one look at the deadly ice in Ash’s eyes is enough to have them running.
He is a Beaumont after all.
Devon smirks at us both, staring back at Ash as he replies, “Can Avery take him, though? Can she beat him? Because from where I’m standing, your weakest link has always been the little bitch in the skirt. Fuck, I’m waiting for the day that you all drop the ball and she gets what she deserves.”
And that’s how Devon finds himself out of school for a month, only returning once there’s a metal plate holding his skull together.
He’d be dead if I weren’t there to peel Ash off of him and remind him that we’re playing the long game.
I finish up my morning swim training late, thanks to my coach pulling me aside to talk about scholarships and colleges again. He’s fucking hell-bent on me using my talent to get ahead and it’s not a secret that I’m only at Hannaford because my wealthy and connected cousins made it happen.
I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ll be dead before I graduate.
I haven’t let myself believe that maybe Lips is right and she’ll be able to get me the hell away from my grandfather. No matter who her friends are down in the Bay, they won’t be able to take Liam and Domhnall on. The O’Cronins might have lost the majority of their business to the Twelve but they’re still dangerous, plentiful, and fucking crazy. She’d have to have a direct line to someone with a reputation to have half a chance, and what slum lord of the Bay would bother with a kid like her?
We’re all just children in their eyes.
My mind always goes back to that diamond she’d handed over to Diarmuid like it was fucking nothing. Fuck, she came back from the summer break at least twenty pounds lighter than she’d left, and she didn’t have the pounds to lose in the first place.
Is she a thief? Did she make all of these friends of hers by stealing shit for them?
That might be a theory worth looking into.
Fuck, it’s either that or she’s fucking a crime lord like Blaise thinks and, stupidly, I refuse to believe that’s what’s going on with her. She’s too… genuine. Her reactions to all of us throwing those insults around at her last year—the indignation was real. She always looks fucking horrified at the thought of fucking any of them which means she’s smart enough to know that those girls are disposable.
More disposable than any other Mounty, I mean, which is saying something because no one gives a fuck about the gutter rats in the Bay. I know that for fucking sure because no one gave a fuck about me until Avery and Ash showed up with their fat wallets and unforgiving moral codes.
People here give a shit about the Beaumonts’ orphaned cousin. They really, really started to give a fuck about me once they knew I have an inheritance and the unwavering loyalty of my cousins.
Everyone wants a Beaumont, no matter the cost of getting one.
Another reason I came around to Lips, she doesn’t give a fuck about their last name… she only started giving a fuck about it once Avery was her friend and she needed to know how to protect her. Fuck, she took up residence as Aves’ protective bestie like a fucking pro and it only sealed the deal for me.
My mind is whirling with all of this and more when I almost trip over Lips on the way to our literature class as she stomps out of a fucking storage cupboard like her ass is on fire.
My first thought is she’s fucked someone in there, but she’s so fucking enraged that I immediately move onto someone attacking her and I’m ready to start fucking swinging.
Then Ash walks out.
Fucking Ash because, even though I wasn’t expecting it to be him, of course he’d be the one going after her. He won’t go after Joey, fuck knows why, so instead he’ll go after the Mounty.
I frown at her and open my mouth to ask what the fuck is going on between them now, but she cuts me off with a savage snarl, “You need to keep him the fuck away from me until he decides to get his head out of his ass.”
Right.
I’m a little bit smug that she’s completely immune to him thanks to his shitty attitude.
If only she was the same way with Morrison.
Ash scoffs at her, derisive and arrogant, and calls out over his shoulder as he stalks away, “Stay the fuck away from my friends, Mounty.”