“Mom?” she asks but Jada just swallows nervously.
“I... uh... wasn’t expecting you back yet.”
I’m half expecting some half-dressed man to emerge from the hallway. Harley has never said anything about her mom having a boyfriend but I’m sure she must date. She’s young and hot after all. But when a guy does emerge, I have my suspicions that she isn’t having a relationship with him. He’s obviously older than us, but not by much.
His eyes immediately land on Harley before they narrow in anger.
Harley tenses beside me and reaches for my hand.
What the hell?
“I was just helping Kane with a few things,” Jada says as a way of explanation as the tension in the room only gets heavier. She turns to him and smiles softly. “I’ll call you once everything is in hand.”
“Thank you,” he says coldly, his voice rough and... dangerous, much like his appearance.
His eyes never leave Harley as he moves around us to the front door.
“Mom?” Harley asks the second the door closes behind us, her voice full of accusation.
“It’s nothing, Harley. I’m just helping out. Everything is fine.”
“Really?” she asks, a humorless laugh falling from her lips. “You really believe that after everything?”
“Yes, sweetie. I do.”
“I can’t believe you.” She shakes her head at her mom and marches toward the stairs.
“Harley,” Jada calls as my best friend bolts up the stairs. But it’s too late, she’s gone.
Jada turns her sad eyes on me. “I’m sorry, Ruby.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I say, although seeing as I have no clue as to what the hell just happened, that could all be lies. “I’ll just...” I trail off, pointing to the stairs and following behind Harley.
When I get to the top and turn into her room, I find her pacing back and forth in front of her bed.
“Har, what’s going on?” It takes a good few seconds for her to look up at me, and when she does my breath catches at the look in her eyes. She looks terrified. “Harley?” I warn, my own heart rate picking up a notch at her obvious fear. “Who was that guy?”
She looks back down at the carpet and blows out a breath.
I start to think she’s going to ignore my question and I’m getting ready to ask my next when she finally responds.
“You remember after Halloween, after what went down with Ash?”
“Yeah,” I encourage.
“And no matter what Poppy or I did, you refused to talk about it.”
“Yeah.”
“Well... this is kinda like that.”
“You let him go down on you at Halloween?”
Her eyes widen in shock. “What? No. I didn’t mean like that. I meant that I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, I was gonna say, he’s hot, I’d imagine you’d want to scream that from the roof—”
“Stop. Please, just stop.”
“O-okay.”
“I can tell you that he’s not touched me, there’s nothing like that at all here. He just...” She shakes her head. “I can’t.”
Her shoulders drop in defeat as she falls down onto the end of her bed.
I watch as she tries to deal with whatever it is that involves the dangerous looking guy downstairs, wishing I could do something to help, and equally appreciating for the first time how annoying it must have been for both Harley and Poppy when I refused to talk about Ash.
Deciding I need to distract her, she’s got a date to look forward to after all, I turn to her wardrobe. “So... what do you want to wear?” I ask, looking back over my shoulder at her.
“I’m going to cancel,” she admits quietly.
“No. Harley, you are not going to do that. Whatever is going on here, don’t let it ruin your time with Nathan.”
She stares at me for a beat as if she’s battling with her decision.
“Y-you’re right.” She pushes from the bed and comes to stand beside me. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Whatever you need, Har. I’m right here.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her into me.
Thirty minutes later and we’re back in Harley’s car so she can drop me home before going to meet Nathan. I’m pretty sure he was supposed to pick her up, but she changed her mind and insisted that she wanted to drive. Something tells me that she just needed her own company for a bit to digest whatever that was with her mom in the foyer of their house.
“Call me if you need me,” Harley says before I climb out of her car, my eyes locked on Ash’s bike.
My stomach twists knowing that he’s inside and possibly waiting for me. But I can hardly avoid my own house.
I could go to my dad’s. He’s not in town, but I’ve got a key. I could move in with his housemate. I laugh at myself.
Man up, Ruby, a little voice says in my head as I take a step toward the front of the house.
Harley gives me a little wave as I turn back before she reverses out of the driveway.
I let myself in and drop my bags by the stairs as I make my way through to the kitchen to where I can hear Mom and Stephen talking.
“Hey, sweetie, did you enjoy the rest of your day?”
“Y-yeah, it was good. We just celebrated,” I say with a wince. Not winning hurts, I can’t deny that. But I know Chelsea is right, it just wasn’t our time. Maybe next year.
“As you should, you were incredible. The whole squad was.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Would you like some food? I can heat up the leftovers.”
“No, I’m good. We went out for pizza. I’m just gonna go and do some homework.”
“Okay.” I turn to leave but her voice stops me. “Ruby?”
“Yeah.”
“Ashton is home.”
I nod, unable to get any words past the lump that has suddenly appeared in my throat.
“I’ve told him to give you space. I suggest you do the same for him.” She doesn’t need to tell me twice.
“Sure thing.”
“He’s starting at school tomorrow,” Stephen adds.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, I’m not about to ask you to be his chaperone or anything.”
“Good.”
“Okay, well...” I back away from them both, not giving them a chance to say anything else before I lock myself in my room for the night.
They watch me leave, but they don’t say anything else. I’m surprised, I was expecting a lecture about Ashton and what we can’t do under their roof. Although I’ve been so sad and angry the past week, they’re probably pretty confident that I don’t want to be anywhere near him. And they’d be correct.
With a sigh, I collect up my bags and make my way to my room. My footsteps falter as I pass Ash’s door. I know he’s inside, I can feel it and it annoys the shit out of me.
But I keep my head high and walk straight past.
The second I step into my room, I can’t help but smile at the huge bouquet of red and white—our school colors—flowers that are sitting on my dresser.
Dumping my bags on the bed, I walk over to admire them, plucking the card from the holder as I do. I find a typed message, which is odd because Mom always prefers to handwrite to make it more personal, but I figure it’s Sunday and was last minute.