Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
He closed the door enough that I guess he felt safe. “Drucella is not seeing you anymore.”
“Bullshit.”
“Young man. You need to leave. Now.” He went to close the door the rest of the way, but I slapped a palm over the heavy wood, halting it.
“You may make decisions for her, but you don’t make decisions for me.”
Some of his color drained from his face. “I’ve put in for a stay-away order. If you choose to show up on my property again, I’ll have you arrested.”
“Like getting arrested is anything new…”
He attempted to close the door again, but I didn’t budge. Drew was the best thing that had happened to me, and like hell I was going to let this asshole rob me of the last few weeks I had with her.
“You’re rich,” I said. “So I’m sure you understand what determination is, which means I’m sure you’ll understand me when I say, I’m determined to see your daughter.” On a smirk, I removed my hand from the door, then turned my back to him and started to my car.
I hoped that asshole let that statement resonate.
* * *
The next morning, I stared at Mr Morgan’s text while I waited at Drew’s locker.
That must have been the hundredth time I’d read it, and it still sent a flash of red dancing across my vision.
The halls began to thin out, the bang of locker doors fell silent just before the tardy bell rang. And Drew wasn’t there.
She wasn’t at lunch.
Or biology.
And when Smith didn’t call her name on roll, I knew the dick had pulled her out. He’d paid Brown to keep her in this shithole school through the theft and vandalism and drug dealing, but one look at me in her bed, and he unenrolled her.
Because her dating a guy like me was so much worse than any of those other things...
A cyclone of emotions ranging from anger to defeat swirled through my head as I crammed my books into my backpack. With a slam of my locker door, I shouldered my book bag and started toward the exit.
A light drizzle of rain fell from the overcast sky, and I ducked my head on my way through the parking lot to keep it out of my face.
“Bellamy?” Nora called my name just before I reached my car. The splash of her shoes through the puddles sounded before she stopped beside me, a frown on her face.
“Did Drew get kicked out or something? She wasn’t on the roll and she’s not answering my texts.”
“Yeah, because her dad probably has her phone.”
The rain began to fall a little harder. “What? Why?”
“Because he’s a dick.” I unlocked the passenger door, then tossed my book bag into the back seat. “He texted me last night from it. So my guess is, he took it.”
She wasn’t enrolled at Dayton anymore. He’d threatened to have me arrested if I showed up at the house again. And he had her phone. There was no way for me to even talk to her at this point. Unless…
“Do me a favor,” I said, leaning into my car to open the glovebox. I rummaged through papers for the burner phone and its charger. “Take this to her.”
I held out the device, but all Nora did was stare at it, confused.
“Dammit, Nora. He won’t let me talk to her or see her. Would you please take it to her so I can at least check on her?”
Slowly, she took the phone from my hand. “So...this is your fault?”
“My fault. Her fault. What does it matter?”
On a sigh, she crammed it in her purse. She took a few steps around the back of my car before she paused. “You like her. Like you actually like her, don’t you?”
“No shit.”
She held my gaze for a moment. “Okay. I’ll take it to her.”
“Thank you.”
I climbed in my car, scooted across the console, and sank behind the wheel, watching the drops of rain splash against the windshield.
I don’t know what I expected to come from this thing between me and her anyway. We were worlds apart, and even if she wasn’t jetting off for college in New York come fall, I’d known since day one her family would never approve of me.
The people of Barrington lived in the castle on the hill, and I was nothing more than a peasant. And that shit only worked when it was a poor girl after a rich boy.
This thing with Drew was never supposed to be anything more than a little fun, a deal. A sordid exchange. She was supposed to be a one-time high--something I could easily walk away from and quit, but wasn’t that how all addictions started? The thought of being without her sent a crippling sense of hopelessness creeping through me. Which meant, like all addicts searching for that high, I was probably about to do something really stupid to satisfy my craving.