Zayn chuckles, but his sister’s presence doesn’t stop him from wrapping his hand around the back of my neck and dropping his lips to mine.
“Ugh, please,” Harley whines before he releases me and walks up to her.
“It’s like you don’t want me to be happy, Sis.” He rustles her hair and manages to dodge her fists when she tries to punch him in the stomach. “I’ll be in my room,” he says, shooting me a heated stare before disappearing around the door.
“You missy, have some explaining to do.” She places her hand on her hip and pins me with a stare.
“You fancy going for pancakes?”
She opens her mouth as if she’s about to rip me a new one but clearly thinks better of it.
“Yeah, actually. Let’s go.”
“I just need to tell Za—”
“No,” she huffs. “If you go in there, I’m never getting you back. Sneak past his room, put on...” Her gaze drops to his jersey before she rolls her eyes. “Some of your own clothes and send him a message. You’re mine for the rest of the day. He had you all night, it seems.”
My cheeks burn bright red at her tone.
“Oh don’t give me that innocent look, Thorn.” Her eyes narrow but her lips twitch into a smile that I can’t help but return. “I’m going to need the details, but I should warn you that if you so much as remind me that it was my brother you were banging, you might end up wearing your pancakes.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Call Ruby. See if she can meet us?”
“Sure. Be quick, and do not make me come up to find him doing... you know. I still need to bleach my eyes from last night.”
As predicted, I don’t manage to get past Zayn’s bedroom door without him coming to find out why I didn’t walk inside and come good on my promise from earlier. Instead, I forced him to sit on the end of my bed while I got ready to go out with his sister. He wasn’t happy about it, but I think he kinda understood when I reminded him that she caught him balls deep inside me last night. That’s not an image any little sister needs of her brother and best friend.
“Go out with the guys or something. Go and do something normal, hell knows we deserve it after yesterday,” I say, dabbing at the tender bruises around my eyes and jaw in an attempt to cover them up.
“Poppy, are you ready?” Harley calls up the stairs.
“Yeah, hang on.”
I turn to look at Zayn who sits with his muscles pulled tight and his eyes trained on me.
“Stop looking so worried. For the first time in... ever, I can go out without having to look over my shoulder. He’s gone.”
“I know, I just... worry.”
“Aw, bad-boy Hunter is going all soft,” I tease, stepping into his spread thighs and cupping his rough jaw in my hands.
“Trust me, Pops. There’s nothing soft about me.”
I glance down at his tented sweats and laugh.
“You might want to take care of that before you meet the guys. I’ll see you later, yeah?” I lower down and brush my lips against his. His fingers curl around my hip but I manage to slip out of his hold before he can distract me too much.
“Finally,” Harley huffs when I hit the bottom step.
“I just got dressed and tried to fix this,” I say, pointing at my face.
“It makes you look like a badass. It’s kinda hot.”
“It’s very hot. Stay away from my girl, Har. She doesn’t swing that way.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Harley barks up the stairs before threading her arm through mine and pulling me toward the front door.
It’s not until I step out that I remember I left her car at school.
“Shit, your...” I pause when I spot it parked outside the house. “How’d that get back here?”
“Jake and the guys sorted it. Seriously, I can’t believe he’s your brother.”
“That’s the most normal of the things that have happened in the past couple of weeks.”
“Yeah but still, you’re Jake Thorn’s sister. You do realize how high up the social scale that’s pushed you at school right.”
“And you know I don’t care about any of that stuff.”
“I know, just be aware that people will probably treat you differently.”
“Yeah, they’ll be more obvious about trying to use me to get to the top instead of keeping it hidden.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” Harley says with a wince as we drop into her car.
“Well, whatever happens. I’ve got your back.”
I turn to her before she puts the car in reverse. “You’re not mad?”
“I...” she starts but cuts herself off. “I was... then Zayn came to talk to me.”
“He did? When?”
“He said you’d fallen asleep.”
“Oh.”
“When he talked about you, about how much you meant to him. He looked... he looked different. Happy. He told me that...” She turns to look at me, her eyes soft and full of emotions. “He said he loved you.”
“He told you that?”
“Shit, hasn’t he told you?” she asks in a panic, thinking that she’s just put her foot in it.
“Yeah, he has. I still can’t quite get my head around it though.”
“Why? It’s the most normal thing out of everything that’s happened,” she says with a laugh, repeating my earlier words back to me.
“Playboy Zayn Hunter making declarations of love, that shit isn’t normal,” I say.
“Fucking hell, you’ve whipped him, haven’t you?”
“There’s been no whipping, but I can confirm the school gossip because your brother has mad skills in the bed—”
“Stop, stop, please. I take back what I said earlier. I don’t want any details. You’re going to have to tell that shit to Ruby.”
I bark out a laugh as she hurries to reverse out of the drive and heads toward the oceanfront for Aces.
Usually, I’d avoid the place, but today, despite the gossip that I’m sure is rife around town, I want to walk in there with my head held high.
I’ve done nothing wrong here. I’m the survivor in all of this. It’s about time people learned the truth about what’s been going on in the hope it stops someone else suffering like I have.
Ruby is already waiting for us when we walk toward Aces. The second she spots us, she flies at me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and holding me tightly.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she breathes in my ear.
“I’m good, Rubes,” I say, accepting her embrace.
The three of us walk inside as if this is just a normal day, and I guess it is to everyone else. No one looks up, no one narrows their eyes at me or gives me any indication that they know what happened yesterday. I’m sure they must, I can’t imagine something as dramatic as that has been kept under wraps in a gossip-hungry town like Rosewood, but I’m grateful that I’m not under the spotlight right now.
The second our asses hit the booth, Bill is there, ready to take our orders. Unlike everyone else, he studies me for a second too long, taking in the bruises that I tried to cover.