Page 21 of Fall

“Definitely. I need to tell you about this secret trip Blake has planned for us. He seems really nervous about it,” Izzy says with a frown.

“Ooh, I wonder what it is,” I comment.

“Me, too,” Allie replies, and her phone starts ringing in her pocket.

“Damn it, I need to go, but love ya both and see you soon,” she says, walking off and pulling her phone out of her jacket.

“Anything else you want to tell me before we go and shop for some maternity clothes? No wonder you didn’t want to buy any clothes from the other stores,” Izzy comments.

“Not me, but I want you to explain the fighting, The Cage, and what the hell happened to your brothers,” I say, and she nods with a sigh, waving a hand toward the bench.

“This is going to be a long story,” she begins.

I sit down as she explains about Arthur and her father. She tells me how her brothers are fighting to pay off a debt, and how they’re close to being free. She tells me everything that’s happened since she moved here, and what has recently happened to Tristan. By the time we leave our spot on the bench, I feel sorry for Harley, everything he’s been through, and how he’s always been the one to protect them all. He’s a good man, and I hope when he and his brothers are free of this debt he can live a healthy life.

Only, I want to be in that life, too.

Chapter Ten

Harley

“What the hell do you want?” I ask as I walk into my father’s room after he called me to tell me it's urgent. I stop in my tracks when I see Hazel, my ex-girlfriend and the only girl I’ve ever cared about, in bed with my father. They are kissing, ignoring me completely, and when my father moves away, she sees me and covers her naked body with a sheet.

“What the fuck, Hazel?” I ask her, and she nervously looks at my father and me.

“This is my new girlfriend, and she is moving in here,” Father says.

I walk out of the room, ignoring the pain shooting through my chest. I expected it from him, but not her. Not the first girl I’ve ever slept with, the first girl I actually cared about. I run down the stairs and out of the house, and I just keep running through the trees, having no idea where I’m going. I trip on a rock and slam onto the ground just as it starts raining. Half of me wants to stand up and keep running, but the other half of me knows I can’t do that. I can’t take my brothers with me, I would never get custody at seventeen. I lift myself up off the ground and tighten my jaw as I look up at the dark clouds.

Only a few more years and we can all leave this shit-hole of a town, and our heartless father with it.

“Hey, what are you doing in here?” Tilly asks me, snapping me from my memories of a night I’d rather forget.

Hazel was my father’s girlfriend until he was killed, and she never left me alone the entire time. She played on my feelings, making me hate women until recently. Until Tilly, who understands me with one look. She doesn’t push me, she doesn’t hurt me.

I turn around and see her standing at the entrance to her bedroom. She walks in and places her laptop on the bed; she must have been working all day editing a new book she was sent last night. Tilly looks way too beautiful today, she seems even more stunning every day, and it’s so difficult to stay away from her. Not to kiss her, to take off the tight clothes she has on, which show off her amazing body. Not to finally run my fingers through her soft hair.

“The roses in the garden needed cutting, I thought you might like some,” I say, moving to the side so she can see the massive vase full of at least twenty red roses. I hate cutting them, but sometimes you have to cut the beauty away from something to let it bloom.

“Oh, Harley, they are stunning,” she says, coming over and touching the flowers’ petals. I look down at her and, at the same time, she stares up at me, an awkward silence between us.

“They aren’t the only thing in the room that is stunning,” I say, and she laughs.

“You have a high opinion of yourself, Harley King,” she says, moving away as I laugh.

“That could have been a romantic moment between us, and there you go . . .” I say, both of us still laughing.

“Damn, totally ruined it.” She chuckles.

I go to sit down next to her on the bed and move a book I find. It’s a children’s fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea.

“It was my favourite growing up. I used to get scared my dad would go back to prison and I would wake up crying, and my mum always read this book to me. It was the only story I would fall asleep to,” she tells me. I didn’t know her dad went to jail.

“Why did your dad go to jail? If you don’t mind me asking?” I ask her.

She sits and crosses her legs, her little bump showing through her tight, white top. “My dad wasn’t always a good guy. He is now, but as much as my mum tried to hide his past from us as children, it didn’t work. Can you remember that as I tell you everything?” she asks gently, and I nod.

“He was one of the five leaders of a major drug and illegal weapons company. Basically, they moved things from Africa, and other countries, into Europe. My dad told me his father and his grandfather ran the business before him and he was born into it. That’s not an excuse, but it’s hard to escape what you’re born into.”

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