“I didn’t know you liked fishing,” I said as I walked out the door.
He closed it behind him. “I like the quiet.” We walked to the corner of the yard where the fire was starting to burn low. The logs were empty around the fire. Zeke went straight to the wood pile and picked up several pieces. I sat down on the grass and leaned back against a large log. Zeke added more wood and a handful of dry pine needles to the fire. It wasn’t long before he had it roaring again.
He sat down next to me in the grass. Hades moved to his side and flopped over Zeke's legs on his back. Zeke chuckled as he lifted the big lug into his arms and rubbed his belly. I smiled. Hades knew a sucker when he saw one. For a while we just sat there watching the fire; listening to the music from the house.
“How’s your research going?” he asked, his voice quiet as he shifted Hades a little.
“Not bad, I’m getting supplies now, so that should help,” I said. “Or at least, they’re supposed to.” Hades leaned his head back until he was looking at me upside down. He licked my chin. I chuckled and wiped his slobber off.
“You haven’t tried anything but getting rid of ghosts?” he asked.
“I made a sachet to help Miles sleep today. We’ll see if that works,” I replied.
Zeke looked down at me, his ice-blue eyes running over my face. “How are you really doing?”
I looked back to the flames. My scan results popped into my mind. No… “I’m doing good. I have a couple weeks left of therapy.”
“How’s that going?” He shifted Hades until the dog was laying his head on his chest, and his butt in Zeke’s lap.
“It’s okay.” I started to peel the label off my water bottle. “Next session she’s going over what problems I should expect in… you know, the future.”
“Good,” he said softly. I needed to change the subject.
“After my last session we should go for ice cream.” I peeked up at him. His face was hard as he watched the fire. His eyes were dark.
“Whatever you want, Baby.” His voice was low and rough.
“Tough Guy,” I whispered. He turned to me; his face worried. “Does that mean you’ll take me fishing this summer?”
The corner of his lips twitched. “If you want.”
“Yes!” I threw my arms up in victory.
He grinned. “You’re going to end up smelling like fish though.”
I dropped my arms. “Well, at least we’ll smell together.”
He chuckled as his arm moved over the back of the log. His hand found the back of my neck and squeezed gently. Warmth filled me at his touch. He gave me one more squeeze before taking his hand back.
We sat in silence, watching the flames dance.
“You’ve been quiet lately,” I whispered.
“I have a lot on my mind,” he muttered.
I leaned over and rested my head on his arm.
“I’m fine,” he reassured me. I sat up and met his eyes. He gave me a half grin that made me smile.
We were quiet as we went back to watching the fire, the music from the house floating over us.
Ethan stepped into the light of the fire holding a bottle of water and a bag of marshmallows. He handed me the bottle of water. “Zeke, Miles needs you for a bit.”
Zeke stiffened next to me. He glanced down at me then back to Ethan. “Are you staying?”
“Yeah.” Ethan held up the marshmallows.
Zeke hesitated before sighing deeply and getting to his feet. “Where is he?”
“The game room,” Ethan told him before handing me the bag. “I’ll get some sticks for roasting.” Ethan went to the tree line and began looking.
I looked up at Zeke. “Zeke,” I said with my sweet voice. “Can I borrow your pocket knife? I left mine in the Blazer and we need one to make roasting sticks.”
His lips twitched before he fished it out of his pocket and held it out to me. “Be careful, I just sharpened it this afternoon.”
“Gotcha,” I promised. When Ethan came back to the fire with several stick choices, Zeke headed towards the house. I turned to Ethan as he sat down on the log. “What’s going on?”
Ethan made himself look busy and avoided looking at me. Oh, yeah. Something was up.
Asher
I paced in the hallway in front of the game room. Those fuckers were inside at the poker table. I knew those assholes. I played football with those assholes! I rubbed my neck as I took a deep, calming breath. It was still hard to believe someone could be such a dick. Especially to Ally. It’s not as if the entire school didn’t know that Ordin beat the hell out of her. Everyone saw the fucking bruises when she came back!
Needing a distraction, I turned to Miles, who was standing next to the door, waiting patiently. “Are you sure we want Zeke with us on this?” I asked for the fifth time.
Miles' eyes were icy as they met mine. “Yes, I’m sure. There are four of them and we can’t put Ethan into a position where he could hurt his back more.”
Okay, when he put it that way, it made sense. But… “Without Ally we can’t stop him if he loses it.”
“Sure we can,” Isaac said from his spot against the wall across from the door. “We can just drag his ass out like we have before.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know why I was arguing. These guys needed their asses kicked for scaring Ally. For fun! Who does that?
Zeke strolled up the hallway to us. “What?”
Miles started tapping his fingers against his leg. “Thomas Avery ran into Lexie in the hall as we were going outside. It wasn’t an accident.”
“Then what the fuck was it?” Zeke growled, his eyes burning.
“It seems a few of the football players thought it would be funny to scare Lexie. They paid him to run into her,” Miles announced.
Zeke’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “Who?”
“Stuart Hopkins, Kyle Debbins, Blake Price and Nick Harris,” Miles said calmly.
“All football players,” I bit out.
“What the fuck are we waiting for?” Zeke growled.
Miles was disturbingly quiet as he turned and led us inside. The crowd parted as we walked through the room. When the assholes spotted us Harris turned pale, Hopkins shook his head, while Debbins and Price focused on their cards.
We spread out in front of the table. “So, who thought it would be amusing to scare Alexis Delaney?” Miles asked, his voice cold.
Hopkins snorted. “What’s it to you?”
Zeke grabbed the back of his head and bashed his face into the table, then held him there as he bled. “Wrong fucking answer,” he snarled.
The others’ eyes grew wide as Hopkins cursed at Zeke.
“Again, whose idea was it?” Miles asked. The others put down their cards and got to their feet.
“You really want to fight over a fucking joke?” Price asked with a scowl on his face.
“You paid someone to scare Lexie,” Isaac bit out as he stepped towards Price. “You bet your fucking ass we do.” I moved across from Harris. Tension rose and the crowd around us backed up. My phone rang. What the hell? I was going to ignore it, but it was Ethan’s ringtone.
“A little busy.”
“Get back out here,” Ethan snapped. Everything stopped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked instantly.
“Just get out here now.” Ethan hung up. I met Zeke’s raging eyes.
“What happened?” Zeke snapped.
Lexie
I kept pestering Ethan, asking him over and over what was going on. I finally pulled out the big guns. I pouted. He gave in. After he told me what the others were up to, I went back to my marshmallow. My headache was finally gone and I wasn't really worried about the fight. Sure, the guys were going to beat the crap out of someone, but I trusted Miles to keep it to a black eye.
Ethan was laughing as he brought his roasted marshmallow back from the fire. “You pout as well as Sophie, Beautiful.”
“She had a good pout?” I asked with a smile.
“It was awful,” he said as he took his marshmallow off the stick. “She had the big eyes and lip quiver down pat.”
I chuckled as my marshmallow caught fire. I turned the stick so the flame would go all the way around. “Zeke must have been screwed.”
He snorted. “Oh yeah.”
I blew out my now burned marshmallow before carefully taking it off my stick.