Page 26 of Baby Girl
Oakley nods cautiously, eyes wide. “That’s true.”
“If they had fucking talked to me instead of acting like big babies behind the fucking coffee shop when everything went to shit, we could have worked this out together. We are all freaking adults. I am sure we could have spent time together without losing our clothes along the way. If they couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants around me, that says more about them than it does anyone else. But no”—I slash a hand through the air, thumping the blankets over my lap—“they didn’t even bother asking for my opinion about my own freaking life. My entire existence has been about handing over my autonomy to the authority figures in my life, and it was the one thing I asked of them from the very beginning—let me make my own choices. Instead, they took all my choices away and tossed them in the trash.”
“Ems, I—”
“So, no. I’m not going to give them another chance. They didn’t give me a single fucking second to explain or try to work things out. They were supposed to be mine, and I was supposed to be theirs. But then they left me behind the coffee shop, alone. Discarded. And after I worked my ass off to get them back, I find out about this secret plan to deliberately keep me away but on the hook, like they were doing me some sort of favor after fucking with my feelings for weeks? Fuck that. No. I’m done being their little plaything. They can all go to hell for all I care.”
Once all my steam is gone, the resounding silence is heavy and thick. My cheek tickles, and I reach up to rub at it, only to find it is wet.
Fuck. Great. Now I’m crying over the assholes.
And, yep, Oakley has a look of concern on her face.
I glare at her. Again. “Don’t look at me like that.”
She immediately looks away and readjusts to sit up, mimicking my pose as we both stare at my dresser, me crying and her just being there.
The sound of the dorm’s door opening captures both of our attention. I snap my head toward Oakley, and I have no idea what expression is on my face, but she immediately starts to scramble out of bed.
“I’m on it.”
Through my open door, I see Xavier enter our dorm, a brown paper bag nursed in one hand. His blond curls are a little messier than usual, but other than that, he looks like the place I want to rest my head at night.
My heart pangs in my chest like I’m a heroine in a historical romance novel.
Oakley gets to my bedroom door and slips out as Xavier glances my way. Our connection is severed when Oakley pulls the door shut behind her. Murmuring comes through the door, but I couldn’t give two shits about what they’re saying, as long as he doesn’t come in here.
He’ll get the memo, eventually.
Slumping down, I roll over onto my side, back to the door, and try to go to sleep.
When I wake up an hour later, my pillow is wet beneath my cheek, the white gift box with the pale peach polka dot bow, the yellow envelope, and two of my bears are on the bed next to me, and there is a bowl of food with a drink on my desk.
Fucking Xavier.
Chapter 14
Emery
I stare at the screen of my laptop, my brain not quite comprehending what I’m looking at.
Is that…Is that Oakley? In her pajamas? With my daddies, dressed in their club clothes while on the steps of our dorm building? What the fuck?
My stomach churns as I stare at the photo, with Xavier holding my phone out to Oakley at the top of the steps, and Derek, Darcy, and Hudson all down on the path, staring up at her like she hung the fucking moon.
The Monarchs thread is going absolutely crazy with wild conspiracy theories about who Oakley is and what she is to The Monarchs. The post has been pinned, for fuck’s sake. It absolutely does not help that there have been very few sightings of any of The Monarchs over the last couple of weeks.
The previous post is just as bad, but also, from an artistic point of view, it’s impressive. Someone has managed to snap photos of Xavier leaving the dorm building multiple mornings in a row and has stitched the images together to make it look like he is walking down the staircase. The only relief I feel about this is that he is at least wearing different outfits in each picture.
Well, kind of. They are variations of all black.
Even if he was wearing the same outfit every day, it doesn’t matter now. Connections have been made with his comings and goings, and the photo of Oakley posted on Friday night while I was passed out in the back of Tray’s piece-of-crap car.
Oakley and my daddies.
Taking a deep breath, I click on the comments, because at this point, why not? As soon as they load, I have deep regrets. The comments are…horrible. Gone is the fun, almost playful, tone of the forum and—
Oh my fucking god, is that a death threat?
