“But they didn’t,” she hissed back, keeping her eyes fixed on mine. “I’m not a helpless little woman, you know.”
“Oh yeah?” Colton piped back up again. “Where’s your weapon? Because from the tightness of those jeans, I can’t see anything other than–”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I snapped. I really didn’t want him to finish that sentence, for his sake. A soldier versus a soldier never had a good outcome. But if he carried on looking at her in that way, I would take him out, no questions asked.
“My weapon,” Olivia responded, twirling her hair around her finger. “If you must know is six inches of Louboutin.”
“Come again?” Colton answered, bending over and covering his mouth to stifle his laugh. “Who’s Lou Bootan? And why is his dick only six inches? That’s nothing to boast about, sweetheart.”
“She meant her heels, you idiot,” Devon spat back, probably giving the same eye roll that I was.
“Just cut the bullshit,” I said, addressing Colton and Olivia. “Tell me why you’re here. Did you miss me?” I gave her a wink and she groaned, giving her own eye roll.
“I came to tell you to back off. My friends mean more to me than any family, and you have fucking destroyed everything. You’re animals. They think I don’t know what’s going on, but I heard the video Finn listened to that you sent him. I know what you did. And the fire? What the fuck are you lot on? You’re sick. All of you. But I’m here to tell you, it stops. Now. Because if I find out you’ve done anything else to hurt my friends, I will rip all of your balls off and feed them to your rabid dog.”
Colton leant down to cover Tyson’s ears, and joked, “Hey don’t listen to her.” Then he looked up at Olivia and said with a smirk, “Our boy isn’t rabid and he’s very sensitive.”
“Whatever. I haven’t worked so hard behind the scenes for you bunch of twat heads to come along and ruin everything.” Olivia stood defiant as she spoke, and Devon said what was on the tip of my tongue.
“What makes you think we’re still messing with your friends?”
I stared at her, studying her closely, and for the first time, I saw a chink in her armour. She faltered slightly and took a deep breath, rubbing the pendant around her neck before answering. “They’re hurting. They’re going through hell, and I blame you. I blame you for all of it. We know you started the fire at the plastics factory that night. Zak Atwood almost died because of you.”
“We didn’t start anything,” I snapped back angrily. “That’s not our M.O. We heard about the fire, but that wasn’t us. We don’t hurt innocent people.”
The fire at the plastics factory had been the talk of the town since it’d happened, but we couldn’t give a shit. That was Sandland’s problem, not ours. Whatever had happened there that night was on the Renaissance men’s heads. If they wanted to find out who was responsible, they needed to look a bit closer to home. But it wasn’t us. That wasn’t how we operated.
“You don’t hurt innocent people?” she scoffed, bypassing the fire issue. “What about Finn?”
“We might’ve done some shit for Knowles–” I said, but she cut me off.
“Did shit to him more like. He didn’t deserve that. None of them do.” She spoke with such compassion I almost felt sorry for Knowles and his situation. Almost. The kid had also got a win out of us. We took care of his little problem… His sicko uncle.
Seems the Renaissance men really needed to start getting their shit together. Their crew were falling apart at the seams. Not that we cared.
“We told Knowles that it was over the night we came to see the fight. We said we’d back off and we have. If there’s other shit going on with your friends, it’s nothing to do with us. We meant what we said. We are men of our word,” I told her, keeping my own stance strong.
“You could’ve fooled me.” She huffed. “Just… back off. Leave them alone. Leave me alone. And if you ever tell anyone that I came here, well… Louboutin’s will be the least of your worries.”
“You mean, no one knows you came here?” I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me at that realisation. “Some fucking friends they are, letting you fight their battles.”
“They aren’t letting me fight their battles. They’d kill me if they even knew I’d come here. But then, they don’t know about half the stuff I’ve done over the years to help them. You see, unlike you, I don’t feel the need to shout about what I do. I don’t do anything for recognition or some ridiculous kudos. I’m not a scene stealer. I’m a fixer. Only, the things I fix, I keep on the down-low.”
She had me intrigued with that little speech. I couldn’t lie, I needed to know more.
“How so? How are you a fixer?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but Emily and Ryan would’ve never gotten their act together if I hadn’t used what I know to get us into their parties. I even set up fake dates for Emily to make him jealous. As for Effy and Finn, I spent ages setting them up, making sure they’d bump into each other at the park or wherever the fuck they were. It was exhausting. And don’t even get me started on Brandon bloody Mathers. That man pushed me to my limits when it came to helping him out.” She gritted her teeth together then took a breath and carried on. “Zak Atwood isn’t the only one who can use a computer in Sandland. I bloody wished I’d chosen a better username for the chatroom though. But I tell you one thing.” She jabbed her finger at me again. “I’ll be damned if I let all my hard work go to shit because of you five knob heads and some Lucifer-complex you’ve all got.”
I stood there, and for the first time ever, I was speechless. She was a fixer, so was I. I’d thought I found this girl beyond attractive before, but that had just skyrocketed to something way more dangerous. I felt like I’d found my fucking soulmate. Standing here and seeing her all fired up and angry, it was like looking in the mirror, seeing the other half of me. So instead of focusing on the way she was making me feel, or how totally amazing I thought it was that she’d come here to say all that, I went for the slightly less obvious avenue in my response.
“For fuck’s sake, Olivia. Has no one taught you anything? You don’t come out late at night on your own, especially not in a neighbourhood like this, and if you are out, you tell someone where you are.” I needed to start keeping very close tabs on her. This wasn’t going to happen again.
“Why do you care?” she replied, shaking her head and looking tired and ready to turn and walk away.
“He likes to protect what’s his,” Colton said without a hint of humour in his voice. He might be a joker, but he knew when to turn it off. He also knew that this wasn’t just any girl stood in front of us. She was something else entirely.
“I’m not his,” Olivia spoke softly, and it surprised me that she didn’t shout it with more venom. Everything else she’d said tonight had been delivered with maximum impact.
“You will be,” Colton whispered under his breath, but I’m not sure she heard him.
“Ugh. I’m done.” She sighed. “I’ve said my piece. Now maybe prove that you are men of your word and leave my friends alone. They’ve been through enough.”
She spun on her heels to leave, and I stepped forward to follow her, pulling Tyson along with me and growling at the others to stay put.
“What are you doing?” she said over her shoulder, scrunching her nose up in disgust at me as I fell in step behind her.
“I’m walking you home.”
“No, you’re not.” Her eyes went wide, but I just stared straight ahead and kept walking. This was one fight she wasn’t going to win.
“Okay,” I decided to compromise. “I’m following you home. But either way, you’re not going back on your own. Not at this time of night.”
“Do you think you’re some kind of gentleman?” I could hear the sneer in her voice, but it didn’t bother me. The sooner she found out who I was and what I stood for, the better for both of us.
“Nope. Not a gentleman. Never claimed to be and never will. But I refuse to let you walk away from me into the dark and whatever’s lurking out here at this hour.”
“You’d know all about what’s lurking,” she whispered.
“If you got to know me, you might like what you find.” I knew that’d push one of her buttons. Thing was, I liked pushing her buttons.
“I highly doubt that.” She laughed to herself. “There’s algae in our pond that holds more attraction than you do.”
I let her ramble on about all the ways she could think of to describe how much she despised me, and all the while I couldn’t keep my eyes off her ridiculous heels that were way too high for walking these uneven streets, but fuck did they make her legs look incredible. And don’t even get me started on her tight ass in those jeans, and how much I wanted to throw her over my shoulder, smack that ass and then bite it to shut her up. Then there was her hair. The perfect blonde ponytail swishing in the wind, begging to be grabbed and have me wrap my fist around it as I showed her exactly what it meant to be owned by a soldier. Which she was. She could argue all she wanted, but I was marking this girl as mine. I wanted her. And I’d make damn sure no one else had her.
“Why didn’t you drive?” I questioned her.
“Why don’t you mind your goddamn business?” she snapped back, and I laughed. Sparring with Olivia was opening up new avenues of fun for me. I’d always thought violence was the only thrill I had. Now I had another one to add to the very short list of positives in my life.
“See, Ty,” I said, tugging on Tyson’s lead. “This is what a real woman looks like. Take a good look, boy. You need to protect this one for me.”
“I feel sorry for the dog.” She turned to look at Tyson and then gave me another one of her glares before turning back to face the way she was walking. “It must be hard work being dragged around with you losers all night. I should call animal protection. Mind you, they might get confused about which animals to take into custody.” She laughed, thinking she was funny.
“One night, I might show you how much of an animal I really am,” I growled back and that seemed to shut her up for a few minutes.
We walked through the deserted streets of Brinton, right into Sandland, and then I kept pace with her as the condition of the pavements improved, and small townhouses turned into neat little box-like homes with immaculate gardens. Eventually, we made it to the richer side of her town, where the homes were either hidden behind gates or set so far back from the road it was like they were trying to distance themselves from the filth of the streets in front of them.
Olivia stopped outside a huge white house with pillars outside and enough green space that it’d take Tyson a year to piss over it all and mark his territory.
“You can go now. I’m home.” She turned and faced me, folding her arms over her chest as she did and tapping her foot on the floor.
“I’ll go when I see you walk through that door and not before,” I answered back.
She took a few steps towards me, then bent down and started to pet Tyson, scratching his head with her nails and making him whine in appreciation. He didn’t like many people, but he’d certainly taken a shining to her.
“He likes you.” I smiled down at her, feeling a strange warm sensation spread through me from watching her fuss over my dog.
“He’s gorgeous,” she replied. “I guess you have one thing going for you. Your dog is cute.”
Cute? Tyson had been called many things. But cute? My gnarly Rottweiler? I loved him but he wasn’t cute. Maybe there was hope for me after all, if that was what she found attractive. And suddenly, I desperately wanted to know what she found attractive. I wanted to know everything. I had to know.
“I would say I’ll see you around, but I really hope I don’t.” She kissed Tyson on the head then stood up and walked off towards her front door without giving me a backwards glance.
“Oh, you’ll be seeing me, Olivia,” I said to nothing but the air around me. “You can count on that.”
Three days ago, I met a girl I thought would be a welcome distraction from life. I knew she’d be a challenge. But now, I felt like I’d just been run over by a ten-tonne truck. She wasn’t a distraction, and to call her one was an insult. She was everything, and she would be my everything, whether she liked it or not. My interest in Olivia Cooper had just moved to a whole other level. She was my new obsession. She was mine, and I couldn’t wait to claim her.