Make My Move (Hannaford Prep, #5)

by J. Bree

It’s like I can watch the respect she has for him doubling by the second; the more he talks about protecting his cousin in the most violent ways, the more he reels her in. Maybe it is a Mounty love story for the ages.

She sighs and, shuffling Blaise’s papers, replies, “Yes. His older brother is insane and his sister would destroy your will to live without breaking a sweat. Ash, here, could beat the life out of you and then run a marathon for shits and giggles. Or just pay someone else to bury you, he’s richer than god.” No other student at Hannaford could have come up with a list that good, and I've attended school with most of them since kindergarten. Suspicious.

Absolutely not. I'm not having him play the macho bullshit card on her. I might fucking loathe her but she could break him in half with one arm tied behind her back.

She’s too fucking… nice. I mean, she’s not nice but she’s nice to me without ever asking anything from me in return which is… nice. Fuck. How can I write entire albums about the trauma of my father and hopelessness of the world but I can’t fucking unpack what the Mounty is doing to me except to say she’s fucking nice?

It’s like the Mounty kid trauma toolkit; we all have weird issues about food, money, and loyalties. Don’t ask us to snitch on shit and don’t ever, ever touch our food. I once broke a guy’s skull in three places in juvie for touching my hamburger, and it tasted like garbage. But food is food.

I’m going to have to work hard for her. That’s fine. I’m playing for keeps this time.

So I’m a grumpy fuck about it. The grumpiest fuck, which is saying something because Ash exists.

I kiss her like I've never kissed a girl before. I kiss her like she's the only fucking drug I'll ever need pumping through my veins, like I don't fucking care that she's going to be my downfall and that doing this is the end of everything I love and covet in my life. I kiss her like it doesn't matter that I'm betraying two of the most important and vital people in my life. I kiss her like I love her.

If he tries fucking anything, I’ll show him exactly how Beaumont I really am.”

If I keep showing up, being here for Lips and proving I’m not the next guy just trying to get into her pants for money or some sort of weird agenda… hopefully she’ll come around.

And this is why Harley is my favorite.

I tuck Avery into the front seat with Blaise and then sit in the back seat with Lips between Harley and I. She sits so stiffly, it’s as though she thinks we’ll kill her for touching us. Really, I’d kill to have her touch me.

Avery is fucking psychic and if she sees me around the Mounty, she’s going to know every last detail of what went down and ruin my life with it just to amuse herself… or because I breathe in her direction with attitude, which is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve heard, but it doesn’t stop her from saying it to me regularly.