Page 95 of The Pact

21.

Bare

Ashton

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I GET TWO GLASSES OF bourbon from the open bar. Thankfully this is a private party and the bartender doesn’t even try to card me.

Ausra seemed upset and all I can think is that I hope I didn’t do something wrong. I hope that asking her to work for the team wasn’t too much too soon. But we all agreed with Bode’s idea, we all wanted to help Ausra and keep her close.

I get the drinks and quickly return outside, taking care to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes so that I’m not stuck in a conversation with any of my parents’ friends.

When I open the full-length door to the balcony, I immediately notice that Ausra isn’t alone. There’s a man out there with her.

I immediately recognize him. It’s that preacher, the leader of that weird cult. The man who tried to get back at Holden for fucking one of his daughters by trying to get him fired and destroying our team in the process. I thought we’d gotten rid of his influence once we graduated high school but he’s gotten tenure at Bridgeport and he’s part of the athletic department committee now too, so we have to deal with him again. I told Dad that he’s fucking bad news and to be careful but for some reason, this time around the asshole seems to be playing nice. He didn’t even object when Dad pushed to get Holden hired as the college windsurfing team coach.

If I’d been wondering why Pastor Winthrop was being nice, I get my answer by listening to his conversation with Ausra. He wants a TV deal that only my dad can give him. He’s appeared on national television before but he wants his own channel.

All of that should make me furious, especially when he asks Ausra to use me to get my dad’s help.

But in all honesty, the thing that hits me like a wrecking ball is hearing her call him “Dad.”

For a second, I think I misheard her. Winthrop had two daughters who went to my school. One is McKayla. She got knocked up by the quarterback of the football team my junior year and dropped out of school. I saw her a few times at some of our parties before that and lately I’ve seen her hanging out with Holden.

The other one was that strange girl that started dressing like an extra in The Little House on the Prairie crossed with The Handmaid’s Tale. That girl disappeared too senior year, shortly after winter break. Does Winthrop have a third daughter?

I’m confused for a couple of minutes but then between listening to the rest of their conversation and looking at Ausra, it dawns on me. Holy shit. Ausra is the preacher’s daughter. The one that covered herself head to toe and never uttered a word, never met anyone’s eyes. She acted like a scared little mouse. And to be honest, I’d never even noticed her before she started dressing like that. I guess we didn’t run in the same circles?

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Why did she lie to us? We’ve gone to the same school for years and she led us to believe that we’d never met before.

Could she be scheming with her father to destroy our team? Pastor Winthrop has never made a mystery of his hatred for us.

Just the idea of that makes me sick to my stomach. That the girl we’ve been hanging out with for weeks could be some kind of double agent who’s working with the guy who tried to get our team shut down more than once.

But the more I listen to their conversation, the more I realize that I’m wrong. I don’t know why Ausra lied to us but it’s obvious that she’s uncomfortable in her dad’s company. Now all the stuff she said about her family, about why she moved out of her parents’ house makes sense. It isn’t hard to understand how she had never even kissed a guy. Because her father made her dress like a freak and kept her basically under lock and key.

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