Page 45 of Beneath the Surface

The video attachment I’d inadvertently opened made my blood run hot and cold simultaneously. It was only a five-second clip, a little shaky and grainy, like it had been taken from a distance and zoomed right in. There was a slight reflection of a window in the foreground.

The clip was of Ava and Micah. Together. Properly. Nothing like the kiss Ava had shared with me in the library. This one was hot and urgent and full of passion, like they were devouring each other. From what I could make out, Micah had his hands up Ava’s top, and when she arched back, I could see the outline of Micah’s erection.

Fucking hell. It was so hot, seeing them together, and very fucking scary, because it meant…

It meant that someone was watching them. Someone had been close enough to film them undetected and was now taunting me with the footage—or us—if the others had received the same message.

“What do I do?” I whispered into the empty room, feeling completely useless and so helpless. As I gripped my phone tightly, breathing in and out rapidly, it vibrated again.

Another message.

This one was a picture.

It was the outside of my house. The house I was in right now, although the picture had obviously been taken on a different day because the sky was dark and foreboding, rather than the weak sunshine currently dipping behind the clouds.

My phone buzzed again.

A pumpkin emoji.

Then a message.

Happy Halloween, Grayson.

28

AVA

Spending more time with my father shouldn’t feel like a bad omen, but the fact that lately he was trying harder to be home for me was concerning. He had wanted to have lunch with me today, but I had been otherwise busy.

A shiver went down my spine, thinking about how busy I had been earlier. I almost giggled, thinking about what drove me to visit Micah’s house. I mean, I got what I wanted—kind of. Micah could kiss, and I hated myself just a little bit for not letting myself explore this pre-lake incident.We could have been fucking by now.God, did I want him to fuck me. Things had been so hot and heavy that I cursed Mr. Pierce more than I had before.

His interruption aside, now that I have witnessed firsthand how he treated Micah, I didn’t think I could ever forgive the man. People in this town worshiped him as much as they did the hockey boys. Their respect for him was blasphemous, as if the man were some saint. Mr. Pierce had a good eye for picking talent for the Blackwell Lake team, but doing this while being a single father was wondrous to some. Poor Mr. Pierce had to raisea son all alone after his wife left him. All that man did was the bare minimum.

I never got the whole hero worship single fathers got just because they were a parent and, in Mr. Pierce’s case, a shitty one at that.

Part of the reason I didn’t get it was that my father was the opposite of Mr. Pierce. He stepped up after my egg donor left. He made sure I had everything I needed, even if, at times, it wasn’t what I wanted.

People judged my dad for working long hours, but he only had to do so because I had fallen in love with skating, and no one wanted to admit that anything to do with blades was a privilege. It was the number one reason there was no diversity in hockey teams. Paying for blades and ice time was one hell of a bitch, but my dad busted his ass so I could have it.

What I now regretted was joining my sorority house. My dad could do without that extra expense for a year. The only reason I didn’t drop out was because I was stubborn. If I dropped out, Livy would win and honestly, fuck that bitch.

I bit my lip when a thought came to mind. Would Micah want to go with me to the Halloween party? My core tingled with all the possibilities.

Maybe it was my immediate demise that was making me this horny.

“I kissed Cruz.”

Did that bother me? Not really. I mean, the thought of Micah kissing Livy was maddening, but him kissing Cruz was…shit, it was hot.

Yeah, the possibility of going to jail was definitely making me hornier. I had to be honest; I was not cut out for that life. I would end up becoming someone’s bitch.

“Get a grip, Ava,” I told myself.

My overactive mind was wondering if I was getting much-needed time with the only parent I had before he got taken away from me.

Not that I wanted to think about depressive shit, but would my father stand by me if I got sent to jail? My heart raced faster at the possibility of that happening. The embarrassment that would follow my father around would be immense, ruining his business. Who would trust anyone with their car if they couldn’t trust that man to raise his daughter?

Instead of thinking of depressing shit, I pulled open the fridge and got the sub I had made my father. Before I closed it, I grabbed the second one I had made just in case Cruz was working.

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