He nods, chest rising slowly with the deep breath he pulls. “Come give me a hand to get down, huh?”
Like he needs it. I oblige anyway, eager to get going.
The second I hold my hand out, his smile spreads wickedly across heavenly lips. Strong fingers wrap around my wrist, an undeniable strength pulling me forward until I crash against the crates.
“I wish you’d stayed at the weekend,” he murmurs, his free hand fisting the back of my hair.
I pull away, yet he holds me firm. “I had to leave.” If not for Libby, it’s become apparent it would have been because of Barrett.
“You don’t have to leave now.”
“What’s happened to you?”
His dilated eyes harden. “What do you mean? Nothing.”
“You’re different.” My scalp burns with the opposing pressure I put against his hand. “You were always so quiet and gentle.”
He hooks a heel behind my calf. “That’s what you thought.”
“Barret. Stop.”
His hands fall away, eyes blinking as I free myself from his reach.
“What the heck got into you?”
He swallows before answering. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“To be manhandled like a toy?”
He frowns, sliding off the crates to land on the concrete below with a thud. “I guess I heard wrong.”
“Wait.” Heard from where? “Heard what from who?”
“Nothing.” Firm hands dust off his blazer before he lifts his gaze to my dishevelled hair. “Trust me a second?”
I laugh, low and mocking.
His eyes soften, features pained as he takes a half-step closer. “Please?”
I stay in place in silent acquiesce.
He lifts his hand—so damn gently and so opposing to how he handled me just now—to smooth the ruffled strands of my hair.
I want to cry. For him, for me, and for everything in this messed up world of privilege that makes us how we are.
“Barrett?”
His dark eyes find mine. “Yes?”
“Can we be friends?”
A lazy smile ghosts his lips, eyes hooded. “Why not? I’ll probably be the only one you’ve got soon.”
I force a smile despite how my heart breaks. Barrett hits the nail on the head with his statement, delivering a truth that others like Greer would have me not believe.
My father is in jail on charges of fraud and who only knows what else. How the heck did I think I could walk away from this unscathed?
Any prestige my name carried, any respect? It’s gone.
Drifted away from beneath my feet like sand pulled out on an ebbing tide.
I reach out and snag Barrett’s hand when he freezes on the spot, enamoured with a fantail dancing on the eaves. “Come on. Let’s get to class.”
He nods, turning his head to look me square in the eye. “Don’t let them change you, Lacey. You’re already so much better than they ever will be.”
If only good character were enough to get by.
Then I’d have this world made.
Colt still locks the Explorer as I bound inside, done with the week at school. Monday seemed to be the day everyone tested boundaries, seeing how far they could push me. By today, Friday, it appeared that only the hardcore wanted to keep up the taunts and mockery after I showed no sign of surrender.
The Chosen. My so-called friends.
I ditch my school satchel in the foyer and backtrack two steps to poke my head around the parlour door. The hush of men’s voices and the scrape of something papery has me pushing inside to check what’s going on.
“Excuse me,” Colt asks, barging past where I stand mute. “What are you doing?”
Two men in monogrammed overalls lift their heads from where they’d been wrapping our claw-foot sofas with protective cardboard, both as lost for words as the other.
“Colt, honey,” Mum croons, sweeping in from the sun-filled dining room, sherry in hand. “Leave the men to do their job.” Her hip bumps against a lamp table, and she swings lazily around to check nothing fell.
She’s drunk. In the middle of the afternoon.
“Why is our furniture being removed?” Colt asks her firmly.
I turn away from their conversation, well aware of what her answer will be given I’ve just read the men’s logo—Taylor’s Auction House. We’re selling the assets.
“…much quicker than anticipated. Liquidation starts today.” I fade back into Mum’s announcement as she lifts her sherry high over her head.
“This is such shit.” Colt shakes his head, storming from the room.
I take a step back as the men shift my favourite armchair to the clear space in the centre of the room to begin work on it next.
“Wait.” They both turn their attention toward me. “Can you give me a minute?”
The older of the two men looks to the younger and gives him a nod. While they busy themselves boxing the expensive ornaments shelved to my right, I take one last seat in my favourite chair.
Mum cups an elbow to the opposite hand and watches me, crystal glass held beside her cheek. “You’ve spent hours in that chair, reading,” she muses. “Ever since you were small.”
It’s the most motherly thing she’s said to me in a long time. We don’t do warm and nostalgic; it’s not her style. I can’t take any joy from it, not when it’s the alcohol being sentimental, not her.
“Do we have to sell it?”
“It goes with the chaise,” she states flatly. That’s more like it. “So, yes, we do have to sell it.” She near chokes on the words.
I open my mouth to ask her another, much more important question, yet the answer presents itself.
“Where is everyone?”
My feet fling to the floor, arse springing out of the chair. I cross the parlour in three long strides and launch myself out the door.
Dad welcomes me with sturdy arms, groaning under my weight as I catapult myself into his embrace. “I didn’t know you were coming home today.”
“I told your mother yesterday.” The elation slides from his words. “She must have wanted to surprise you.”
We both know that’s a lie, but it sounds so much better out loud than the truth.
“Is this it? Are you home for good? No more court?”
He sets me
