Page 71 of The Spotlight Effect

“I guess that leaves you two to share,” Charlie says, raising his thick brows.

I feel like this is planned. “I promise to stay on my side,” Alexia says, grabbing her bag from the backseat and following everyone into the house. In our room, I take the side of the bed by the window, and Alexia takes the side by the bookshelf. I never thought I’d be sharing a bed with her but here we are. After I unpack in silence, only listening to Alexia move around the room, I lay down on the bed and stare at the ceiling.

Before too long Alexia lays down beside me. “Do you wanna talk?” she asks me. This takes me by surprise as I’m not expecting her to try and talk to me, but I open up.

“I don’t know what to do now.” I sigh.

“Do you want to leave for good?” she asks.

“Yeah, but he’s my dad and he controls part of my career,” I tell her.

“I get that,” Alexia says, trying to sound understanding. I’m not sure why but I feel safe opening up to her.

“I don’t want to make Bea come or ruin her life because of this. This will make my life really hard,” I say.

“Then let it. Anything is better than what you are going through,” she tells me, reaching over and holding my hand. I let her, intertwining my fingers with hers.

“I will be here if you want to talk, always,” Alexia says. I flip over to face her.

“How do you know it will be okay?” I ask her.

“I have faith. You got away this time, you can do it again and take your dad down,” Alexia says. Alexia turns over to face me.

“You think so?”

“Yes, and you can stay at the fortress while Beatrix stays with your mom.”

“I’m scared.” Alexia moves closer to me and puts her arms around me, holding me. Without saying any words, I know she’s trying to say everything will be okay. I place my arms around her as well. This is comforting. I let myself relax as we just lay here.

“Wake the fuck up, love birds!”someone shouts while the bed shakes.

“Whoever the fuck is jumping on the damn bed, get off,” I say to the person.

“Then get the hell up!” they yell. I groan and open my eyes to find Raven jumping on the bed like an idiot.

“Why the hell are you waking me up?” I ask her.

“You two fell asleep and it’s time for trivia, hide- and go- seek and then the s’mores fire pit,” Raven says.

“Fine, just get out and we’ll be up soon,” I say, waving Raven off.

“What is going on?” Alexia moves around in my arms, waking up.

“We have to get up,” I whisper to her.

“We’ll leave you two; by the way, I have the cutest picture of you two,” Raven says before getting off the bed.

“I’m going to kick your ass once I’m up!” I yell to Raven. I hear the door close, and I go to remove myself from Alexia.

“Come on, we have to get up,” I tell her.

“I don’t wanna,” she groans, pulling me back into her. I would love to spend my night with her wrapped up with me, but I have a feeling if I do Raven will only come back.

“If we don’t get up, Raven will come back and probably pour water on us next,” I tell her and Alexia groans but gets up.

“Fine, let’s go.”

“Finally, you join us,”Charlie says as we come downstairs. I ignore him. First, we play trivia and the theme is bands. Alexia somehow wins knowing more about our band and the history of bands in general than we do. Lia says it’s because she’s our biggest fan.

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