Priceless (Forbidden Men #8)(9)

And then suddenly he was moving all his younger brothers and sister in with her. But I couldn’t connect the dots as to how that came about.

I immediately typed, Wait, wait, wait. ASPEN was Noel’s TEACHER? No f*cking way.

My mind spun. How was this even possible? Aspen—or Noel for that matter—didn’t act like people who’d do something so wrong.

But Sarah typed, Oops. Did you not know that?

NO! Of course, I didn’t know that, because— It can’t be true. Aspen’s way too young to be a college professor.

And my brother wasn’t the type to f*ck a teacher.

Was he?

No!

No way.

Reese said she was like a genius child and finished high school when she was fifteen or something, and she looked really young on top of that, so...

I reread Sarah’s words about five times before typing, Are you shitting me right now? Please don’t lie to me, because I can’t believe this. Noel really f*cked his teacher? How do you know?

I am so sorry I blabbed. She sent me the sad, begging eyes icon before adding, I heard Mason and Reese talking about it once. I guess she taught one of their classes too.

You HEARD them? I asked, needing a firsthand account and not hearsay to believe such a claim.

Yeah, Sarah confessed. I’m a master at listening in on conversations. No one ever tells me anything directly so I just...eavesdrop.

Un-f*cking-believable.

I was so busy gaping into space that I didn’t realize I hadn’t responded to Sarah until she wrote, You’re not going to tell anyone I told you, are you? I really didn’t mean to spill the beans. I thought you already knew.

No. I won’t tell, I assured her. I’m not sure I want them knowing I know, anyway.

Good idea. They might torture you for your source and I don’t want you rolling over on me. I might have to kill you then.

I laughed and typed, LOL. You’re funny.

She sent a smiley face before asking, So are you going to tell me why you guys moved in with Noel and Aspen?

I sighed and ruffled my hair before typing, There’s not much to tell. We had a shitty mom and Noel practically raised us. He thought we’d be okay if he sent home money while he went away to college, but...

You weren’t okay, Sarah guessed.

I’m not sure what overcame me, but I just started typing all my family shit to her. I have no clue if she wanted to become my confidante or not, but she’d asked to know, and I guess I needed to gush to someone because it felt really good to get it all out.

No. We weren’t okay. My little brother Colton got really sick. Then my sister Caroline got knocked up by a douchebag, but she lost the baby or something, I don’t know, but it scared the shit out of us when it made her sick, so Noel came, saw how bad off we were, and just took us back to school with him.

Wow. Sarah added a frowny emoticon and asked, So if something bad happened to your brother and something bad happened to your sister, what bad thing happened to you?

I swallowed, wondering how she knew. Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, I cleared my throat and wiped my face. Then I began to type, Nothing. But at the last second, I wrote, I tried to kick Caroline’s ex’s ass, but his boys gave me a black eye instead.

There, maybe she wouldn’t guess what had really happened if I told her about that.

Sucks, she said, and I blew out a relieved breath, glad she hadn’t picked at the subject.

Feeling more honest than I probably ever had, I wrote, I don’t know how to think about all this.

Oh my goodness, can’t you PLEASE try to forget what I told you about Noel and Aspen, she begged. I’m so sorry. I have no idea why I thought you already knew.

No, no, I answered. That wasn’t what I was talking about. Though I am surprised he didn’t tell us himself, but I guess...why would he? He probably didn’t want us to think bad about his girlfriend.

Which suddenly made me realize why Aspen was being so nice to us. She probably felt guilty and this was her way of redeeming herself.

For some reason, it made me a lot less suspicious of her. It was a relief to find her imperfection.

What are you not sure what to think about then? Sarah wondered This entire move, I answered. Noel didn’t even ask us. He was just like, get in the truck. We’re leaving. So we all just got in the truck. I lived in that town and went to that school my entire life. I should be pissed he ripped us away from our lives.

It took a few minutes for Sarah to respond, but just as I was sure she’d had to log off, her reply popped up.

I don’t know. Waterford, Florida was the only town I’d ever lived in before. But I didn’t like it there, and would never want to go back. I wouldn’t have been mad if my brother had moved me here...which is kind of what he did, but not really. He moved here to be with his girlfriend—the hot brunette with the nose ring—but my mom just kind of came with him. I live with her. He lives across town with Reese. But it’s kind of close to what you went through. Sort of. Okay, not really! But anyway, the point is, I’m really relieved for a fresh start.

I grinned. Good. Because I’ve mostly been feeling relieved too. I hated that shithole. Everyone thought we were trash because of who our mom was, so only these gangbangers would talk to me. When they tried to get me to join them, they kicked my ass because I said no.

Sounds like your butt gets kicked a lot.