Broken Trust: A Dark High School Romance(21)
“Come on,” I said, stuffing the last mouthful of pasta in my mouth. “Let’s get out of here before I catch a plate of spaghetti on my head or something terribly clichéd like that.”
She laughed, following me to drop our dirty trays. “There wasn’t even any spaghetti on the menu today, so that’d be impressive!”
“There are resourceful bullies at the rich kid academy.”
Apparently, I was dabbling in foresight because the afternoon was just as irritating—and creative—as the morning had been. As hard as it was, I kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself throughout all of it. Lashing out at silly high school bullies wouldn’t solve shit. My issues were with Beck, and they weren’t going to magically solve themselves overnight. So in the meantime I would simply ignore, ignore, ignore until—hopefully—the bullies got bored.
10
After school I rushed straight home. I needed to, in order to shower off the chocolate sauce and feathers crusted into my hair. At least it hadn’t been something totally gross like fish guts or dog shit. Still, the expensive sort of chocolate sauce they’d used had hardened into clumps, and even as I ran my shower to warm the water up, I was cringing at the thought of picking it all out. Maybe I could just crank the heat up and let it melt out?
My phone buzzed on the vanity, and I gave it a death glare. Considering Eddy had just dropped me off and Dante had said he was “doing shit” tonight, it could only be Beck. I mean, sure, it could have been Jasper or any of the other guys but my Spidey sense screamed Beck. Especially when it buzzed again a scarce thirty seconds later. Then again. And again.
“Fuck off.” I groaned, ignoring the vibrating device and stepping into the massive double shower.
I took my sweet ass time in the shower, opting for the melt-it-out technique, so by the time I got out, my fingers were pruned and the bathroom was thick with steam.
“Woops, forgot the fan,” I murmured to myself, feeling just a tiny stab of guilt that this was technically my apartment that I was potentially water damaging. It probably wasn’t something rich people ever noticed but my Mom had been a stickler for using the fan when we showered. Mold and buckling from moisture were expenses we couldn’t afford.
My phone flashed its annoying little light at me while I towel dried my hair, and I glared at it. I should just change my number. That was the sane thing to do, right? When you got played by a sociopathic nutcase who now won’t leave you alone, you changed your number. It was only smart.
And yet, my fingers were itching to check those damn messages.
“Nope, no moments of weakness for this chick,” I scolded myself, quickly picking my phone up and rapidly swiping all of the unread messages into the trash. It was safer than leaving them there begging to be read when I couldn’t sleep later.
I dried off and dressed in my comfiest pajamas, then ordered my very first pizza to my very own apartment. Okay, technically it was Richard Deboise on the deed, but he’d made it clear that he was putting my name into some clause that would see it transfer to me on my eighteenth birthday ... only three weeks away.
When I’d eaten half my body weight in pizza and dusted off a full family sized bottle of coke, I dragged my bloated self through to the bedroom. Not that I was going to be able to sleep, but at least I could say I tried.
A shadow appeared in my bedroom as I stepped in the door, and I let out an ear-shattering scream, already bringing my hands up to defend myself.
“It’s just me,” Beck said quickly, stepping forward, and wrapping his hands around my biceps.
I sucked in some deep breaths, in and out, trying to calm myself. “Jesus fucking Christ. How did you get in here?”
His eyes darted to the double glass doors of my bedroom which led out onto the balcony, and I blinked at him. We were three stories up … could Beck have seriously climbed up the side of the building like Spiderfuckingman?
“What are you doing here?” I asked now that we’d both established he was insane and liked to pretend he wore tights in his spare time. “I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Beck narrowed his eyes, taking a step back so he could look me over closely. My hair was still damp, the ends curling across my white tank top. I wore no makeup, my pajamas were not that fancy, and I was out of fucks to give.
“Have you checked your messages?” he asked.
My phone was sitting in plain view on my bedside table. Flashing its obnoxious light at me. “No,” I said what we both already knew. “I haven’t had time.”
Beck’s chest rumbled, and I knew I was pushing him too far, but I still was on the no-fucks-to-give thing, and I wasn’t about to start worrying about Beck’s temper now.
“You’re in danger, Riley,” he said.
I scoffed. “Right, and what could possibly be more dangerous than your crazy ass scaling three stories to stalk me in person?”
“How about a direct threat delivered today to the Deboise estate?” he said, voice like ice. “A threat that detailed how they were going to kidnap you. Torture you. Rape and murder you.”
I choked on my next words, fear slicing my body like cuts from an actual blade. The mental images his blunt words evoked were strong and soul shattering, and I found myself almost stumbling forward. “Are—” I cleared my throat. “Are you serious?”