Embracing Trouble (Trouble Series) (25 page)

My phone had been placed on the pillow next to me and I opened it to find a note from him.

Zac:
Had to work – text me when you wake up

I knew he kept all sorts of weird hours with his hacking and couldn’t imagine being able to focus without any proper sleep. I had to wonder where he worked, seeming that his laptop was still here at his desk. 

After a shower and putting on one of his T-shirts, I walked back into the room to find Janey sitting on the bed. She looked like the Janey I knew and grinned at me like last night had just been a bad dream.

“Hey babe,” she said with a smile.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, sitting down next to her on the bed.

“I’m cool,” she said with a quick smile.

I returned her smile, a little unsure of what to say next.

“He never has girls over here,” she said, nudging me playfully with her shoulder.

“Really?” I asked with unmasked delight.

“You’re breaking every one of his rules,” she grinned.

“I like your brother so much more than anyone realizes,” I said next.

“We can all see that”.

“The thought of finishing whatever is going on between us in a month, hurts like hell.”

“I did warn you,” she said putting her arm around me.

“I know,” I said in resignation.

My phone beeped and I grabbed it to see an invitation via Facebook for a school friend’s birthday party on Saturday night.

“Back to being popular again at school?” she asked with a wink.

“Well the word BITCH was replaced by BURNER and both have finally been scrubbed from my locker. Maybe if I go Saturday night, it will put a stop to things being thrown at my head and all the bitchy comments.”

“Didn’t Zac warn them to leave you alone?”

“The football team has,” I returned. “To them, I don’t even exist. It’s everyone else.”

Zac

I leaned against the wall just outside the bedroom door and closed my eyes. I hated that anyone had dared to torment her at school. I hated that this was my fault, and that she was still suffering from my actions.

She was getting too close, wanting more than the three weeks we had left. I could never give her what she wanted.

I listened to them laugh, and a part of me liked it that Janey seemed happy when she was with Ava. The other part of me was shit scared of the fall out when it was time for her to go. Admitting that she liked me in a way that reeked of commitment and care made me question what we were doing right now. I had jumped into this fully aware of the threat of her wanting more from me, but I hadn’t been thinking with my brain for the last couple of days.

It was inevitable that I was going to hurt her when it came to an end. Part of me considered if I needed to end it earlier. I had experienced perfection now, and she would always be my every fantasy. But maybe it was time to call an end before she invested any more time and interest in me. Or, maybe it was time to end it before I lost my fucking head in the clouds and questioned everything. In such a small amount of time, she had become a part of me and my survival instinct was to deflect and destroy.

I needed to ruin Antony.

I needed to distance myself from her for good and put an end to her torment.

My mind raced with possibilities.

* * *

Ava

As I turned the alarm off on my phone the next morning, Zac groaned at the interruption and stuck a pillow over his head. I regretfully got out of bed, knowing that another unexplained absence from school would get my father called. I got dressed quickly and grabbed my things, planning on going home first to shower and get into my uniform.

“Take my car,” he mumbled from under the pillow.

“Are you serious?”

“Bring it back in one piece.”

I smiled at the idea of borrowing his car like he was a real boyfriend. I quickly leaned over the bed and kissed his shoulder.

“See you later on this afternoon then.”

He mumbled something incoherently, and I walked out, leaving him to sleep.

His car sat outside, dark, sleek and powerful, just like its owner. I was positive that at full speed, it was quite untouchable, just like him.

* * *

It didn’t take long for me to know something was wrong when I got to school. Something big was being gossiped about, and for a change, it wasn’t about me. In no time, I was being shown a video, a horrible despicable video of my obviously drugged friend with Antony and Nathan.

I watched Antony laugh into the camera and then walk over to a bed, touching Sophie who was sitting and waiting for him. Her actions were slow like she had been drugged as he got her to touch him, and then they started to get onto the bed.

Another person entered the screen, and I could see it was Nathan. I wanted to be sick, as fury riled up in me. Surely, she hadn’t known that there was a camera. I watched as she started to satisfy one with her mouth while looking directly into the camera with a vacant look.

I collected my things and left school behind to go and find her, knowing she would need me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I drove towards her house. I knew she must have been going through hell these last couple of days while I was too busy being happy with Zac. I was livid as I made my way to her house, thinking that Antony and Nathan were completely evil assholes.

I bypassed her housekeeper at the front door and took the stairs two at a time. I quickly opened her bedroom door and saw her sitting on the floor against her bed, hugging her knees.

“Go away,” she said not looking up at me.

She looked pale and emotionally distraught as I crouched in front of her and touched her arm. She pushed me away.

“I know what happened,” I said next. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Because I’m not talking to you, am I?”

“Soph, for the last fucking time, I wasn’t with that revolting asshole by choice, he tried to rape me.”

“Just go away,” she mumbled, tears in her eyes.

“Did you agree to do it?” I whispered.

“I didn’t know there was a camera…at first,” she said crying now.

I held her in my arms and tried to soothe her.

“Did you take anything?”

She gulped.

“He told me it would make me feel happy. But I couldn’t move properly, and then I completely passed out,” she said with a shudder.

I cringed, knowing the sensation.

She cried more, big sobbing tears.

“I think everyone has seen it. I just can’t believe he would do this.”

“Have you told your parents?” I asked.

“No!” she cried. “I don’t want them to know. I can’t report him to the police either, because my parents would find out.”

Her parents were very strict and proper and something like this would tear the family apart.

“I don’t know what to do. Everyone knows. I can’t show my face at school. I can’t even look at the two of them after what they did to me,” she said crying.

I held her tighter and closed my eyes. I wanted to take the pain from her.

“Did they hurt you?” I whispered.

She sobbed, “No, they weren’t rough. They just made me do things I wouldn’t have normally done.”

I felt sick for her. I wanted to go and find him and seriously hurt him.

She continued to cry, wiping her tears with her hands.

“I thought I was so cool, trying to experience things and change my boring life, but it’s all backfired!”

“I know,” I soothed. “But, we’ll fix this.”

“How?” she gulped. “It’s a video that can’t be undone. It will forever be on someone’s phone or computer.”

I didn’t say anything, because she was right. No matter what we did now, the damage had already been done.

“I’m so stupid,” she cried covering her face.

“You’re not,” I said. “They are just assholes who took advantage of you.”

She shook her head.

“I just want to take back the last two months and start all over again.”

I curled some hair behind her ear in silence. I didn’t. They had been the wildest and most amazing weeks of my life.

After I calmed her down, we sat and talked, just like we used to do before everything had happened.

“So, why only for a month? Is that his stipulation or yours?” asked Sophie.

“His,” I said unhappily.

“You’ve fallen for him,” she said next.

I moistened my lips and admitted, “Yes. Completely.”

Sophie slowly nodded.

“So, what’s he really like?”

“Intense, a little crazy, possessive, loving, caring, sexy, wild,” I said shaking my head. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m on fire whenever he’s around me. And I know I only have the month and he made it so clear at the beginning. But I can’t stay away from him, not then, and definitely not now.”

“So are you hoping he’ll change his mind at the end of the month?”

“Secretly I am, but I know deep down that he won’t. He’s got this whole other life going on and probably wouldn’t want me hanging around anymore. They go out a lot and there are always a lot of girls.”

My phone beeped with a text message and I pulled it out.

Zac:
Going to Asylum tonight – you interested?

Ava:
I’m interested. Can I bring Sophie?

Zac:
Sure…

I looked over at Sophie.

“Let’s go out tonight. Zac is going to a club. We can have a few drinks and maybe try and forget the problem for one night.”

* * *

After I parked Zac’s car in Noah’s driveway that night, Sophie got out and reluctantly looked over at Antony’s house through the large trees.

“Don’t even think about him,” I said closing my door and locking the car.

I walked around to her side and took her hand.

“He’ll get what’s coming to him eventually.”

I led her up the steps and then knocked on the door.

Noah opened it and smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I said and walked in, still holding Sophie’s hand. “This is Sophie. I don’t know if you remember her.”

Noah held out his hand.

“Noah, welcome to my humble abode.”

Sophie giggled and shook his hand.

“Hi, Noah.”

I looked over and saw Zac sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette. Will was in the kitchen mixing some shots. His eyes locked with mine and my heart rate sped up instantly. He didn’t smile or acknowledge, just looked at me intently, like I was going to be his dinner.

I headed over, still holding onto Sophie’s hand.

“I’m Will,” he said with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Hi, Will,” said Sophie.

She sat down on the spare couch across from Zac and looked over at him.

“Hi.”

“Sophie,” he said in his deep voice, his hand going to my thigh and then he pulled me down next to him.

I looked at him and knew something was wrong as he leaned in and kissed me. I could feel the tension coming from him and I didn’t know why.

Noah sat down beside Sophie as Will came over with a stack of shots in his hands.

“So, girls, we have a plan,” he said, handing out the shots to everyone.

“I told you, I don’t want her anywhere near it,” growled Zac.

“It’s the best way,” returned Will.

I looked to Will and then to Zac, unaware of what they were talking about but understanding now where the tension was coming from.

Noah sat forward, putting his now empty shot glass on the coffee table.

“We will be there with Ava and Sophie. Nothing can happen to them.”

Zac shook his head.

“I don’t want him near her.”

“What’s going on?” I asked looking at Zac.

He didn’t meet my eyes.

“Just get them separated from the party, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“It won’t work like that,” said Noah looking to me and then at Sophie. “We want to help with the Antony and Nathan situation.”

Sophie gasped.

“Oh, my god, you’ve seen it too?”

There was silence in the room as I turned to Zac with narrowed eyes. He had seen it? I wanted to know whether it was today like me or had he known about it earlier and not told me. I looked at Sophie and watched her close her eyes in humiliation and sadness. My heart went out to her.

“They filmed you willingly drinking the GHB,” said Zac seriously. “They knew what they were doing. You were seen as going into it willingly.”

“I didn’t know it was that. They just said it would make me feel good,” she said starting to cry. “I didn’t know the full extent of their plans.”

Noah squeezed her hand.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’re going to make them wish they had never done it, I promise you.”

“I didn’t even know they were filming it at first,” she cried.

“Saturday night, you’re going to your friend’s party at Kingdom,” interrupted Will.

“I can’t show my face anywhere,” she gasped.

I knew the last thing she would want to do would be to go to Amelie’s party.

“You need to go,” said Will. “You’ll have one task for the night, and that will be to slip some GHB into his drink.”

Sophie looked over at him in disbelief and wiped her cheeks.

“We’ll take care of the rest,” said Will. “Your problem will be solved by the time you wake up in the morning.”

“What am I doing?” I asked.

“You will slip the GHB into the other dickhead’s drink,” winked Will.

I felt Zac tense beside me, but he remained silent. He didn’t want me to be part of it, but I needed to help. I raised my chin.

“I’m in.”

“What will you do once they’ve had the drug?” asked Sophie.

Will smiled, his eyes fierce.

“We’ll show them the same courtesy that they showed you.”

“So all three of you will be there?” Sophie asked looking at Zac.

“Will and I will be there with you as your partners, and Zac will come later,” said Noah. “We need to work within a certain timeframe so it runs smoothly.”