Page 14 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Four

“Oh my God.”

“Wow.”

“You’re stunning.”

“I knew this dress was the right choice.”

These are four distinct voices and they belong to three of my very best friends and my sister Snow.

Who are all camped out in the small bedroom of my apartment, helping me get ready for my date.

Yes, I’m going on a date. It’s not the first one of my life, but it’s close enough and important enough that I needed to call in reinforcements.

And I’m glad I did because I do look stunning, thanks to all the effort from my friends, who did my makeup.

My green eyes appear smoky and my freckles somehow compliment my skin rather than make it look ugly.

Not sure what Tempest—one of the friends present; she was the one who commented about the dress—put on my face but it’s amazing.

My untamed hair doesn’t look all that bad either, shiny and bouncing with curls.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I pat my emerald dress. “You guys really think so?”

“What Snow said,” Meadow, another one of my best friends, says. “You’re freaking stunning.”

“But then again, you’ve always been stunning,” says Echo, the third friend present.

“She’s right,” Tempest says, smiling. “All these things, this dress and that make-up, they only highlight how naturally gorgeous you are.”

When we moved to Bardstown nine years ago, I never thought I’d make so many friends, let alone such nice friends.

But despite being a socially awkward redhead whose skin tells the truth no matter what my mouth is saying, I did manage to find some really good friends who remind me of how lucky I am to have them in my life.

My luck may be questionable in the parents department, but I lucked out with friends who feel like family.

Smiling at Tempest in gratitude, I turn away from the mirror and face them.

They’re all situated on the bed, with Snow and Meadow, propped up by the headboard, and Echo and Tempest lounging on the foot.

They also each have a glass of pina colada that I made for them as my thanks for helping me out tonight; Snow’s is of course virgin.

Wringing my hands, I address all of them. “But are we really sure I should do this?” My eyes find the clock on my nightstand. “I think I can still get out of it. I know it’s not the best thing to cancel, like, thirty minutes before. But if I make a good enough excuse, I think?—”

“No.” Meadow sits up straight, her brown eyes stern. “Absolutely not.”

Echo shakes her blonde head as well. “You’re going.”

Tempest agrees, her red-painted lips pursed. “I did not just spend an hour on your gorgeous hair and your beautiful face for you to sit at home and watch movies with us. You’re going .”

No, they’re right. If for nothing else, I should go just because all my friends dropped whatever plans they had for tonight—probably with their men; they all have significant others—and came over just because I told them I was finally taking their advice.

There’s a specific reason why these girls are here in particular. It’s because they all know my secret. Or rather, secret s . They know who I am, who Snow is. What our connection is to the Thornes. And they know, despite everything, what I feel for one specific Thorne.

First, it’s super surreal that anyone knows at all when I had no intention of telling anyone ever, not even Snow.

But Snow and I, we lived in a very volatile environment.

And like I overheard our mom and stepfather fighting and thereby pertinent information from all that, Snow did too.

One day, she overheard them arguing over my biological dad and why he ended up leaving and of course, her name and her birth came up.

This was after we’d moved to Bardstown and so when she came to me crying and betrayed, I told her the truth.

I had to. There was no other choice. And then I told her it didn’t matter who her father was.

We were still sisters and I loved her to pieces.

As for the rest of these girls, I realized there’s something to be said about sharing your burden with people you can trust, and I trust these girls with my life.

Meadow used to be my neighbor when we first moved to Bardstown, and since we both went to the same school and were both outcasts—me because of being the weird new kid and her because of her weight—we hit it off right away.

She was the first person I ever told and she’s kept my secret all these years.

I met Echo when I changed schools. Or rather, I had to change schools.

In my sophomore year, I was sent to a school called St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers.

It’s an all-girls reform school where people are sent as a punishment for the crimes they commit on the outside.

Crimes like stealing money from your guardian so you could run away from them; or driving your ex-boyfriend’s car into the lake because he broke your heart; vandalizing your boyfriend’s best friend’s room because he caused your break-up and so on.

I went there because of my neighbors. Not Meadow and her family but my other neighbors.

Or more specifically, their son. He caught me lounging in their pool one night—it was unauthorized and completely my fault—and thought he could hit on me whenever he wanted.

I kept rejecting his advances until one night he got handsy and I had to get physical.

As in, punch him in the face and push him into his pool.

Of course, he didn’t like that and accused me of attacking him and ratted me out for using their pool that one time .

Sometimes I think I’ve never felt safe anywhere.

Not at home, not in the world. But anyway, long story short: his parents pressed charges against me and the cops were called; after a lot of fighting and discussion, a deal was struck.

I was to go to St. Mary’s in exchange for them dropping the charges.

A mediator was called in the morning to make it all official, and then I had to leave.

My mother was secretly very happy about it.

I was worried, however. I didn’t want to leave Snow alone in that house, but since Meadow had known about my home situation, she agreed to take care of her and let Snow stay with them if things got bad.

See? Lucky.

Anyway, I spent two years at St. Mary’s and while I hated that school and worried over Snow constantly, I can’t hate the fact that I made some lifelong friends there, like Echo, who was my roommate.

Not to mention my stepsister Callie. I met her at St. Mary’s too.

She later introduced me to the third friend here: Tempest.

While it’s still understandable that I told Meadow, my neighbor growing up, and Echo, my roommate while at St. Mary’s, it’s beyond surreal that I told Tempest. Mostly because Tempest has an actual relationship with the Thornes.

She’s married to the youngest Thorne brother, Ledger.

But she’s always been so warm and kind, so open, that telling her didn’t feel as hard as I thought it would.

Not to mention when I did eventually tell her, she was so supportive, such a champion for me and Snow—going so far as checking in on us; helping with taking Snow to doctor’s appointments and such—that it felt like the right decision.

She accepted us into the fold so easily, made us feel like part of the Thorne family, that sometimes I think I should’ve told her sooner.

“And let’s face it,” Snow says, raising her eyebrows. “We won’t be watching movies. We’ll be watching soccer.”

Okay, that’s true but it’s also a low blow, especially coming from Snow, who loves soccer more than me.

My sister is on the shy side. Shy and quiet.

Although that is not to be confused with being docile.

She can be quite sassy when she wants to be.

She just doesn’t like to be like that in front of other people.

It probably comes from having a mother who uses her to make her older sister feel bad.

And from all those assholes at school who make fun of her teenage, growing body.

My Snow has struggled with her weight most of her life and this world is evil for making her feel embarrassed about it.

As a result, she likes to keep to herself.

Soccer and books are her life. In fact, she reads books about soccer.

And of course, she’s the biggest fan of the Thornes—especially his—and watches all their games.

Just for the record, when Snow found out the truth about her birth, I did ask her if she wanted to tell the Thornes.

Because I didn’t want to be the only one to make that decision.

But she told me I was all the family she needed and that she didn’t want to take the chance of telling them and be rejected.

Like my biological dad rejected her. So we both decided to keep it to ourselves and be there for each other.

But like me, she’s tried to find out about them as much as she could from afar.

“You love soccer,” I remind her with narrowed eyes.

“I do,” she agrees. “But if I have to watch the championship game from two years ago where he scored the winning goal one more time, I’ll lose it.”

I blush instantly, and I’m sure it’s plain for all to see because no amount of makeup will ever help with that. “I do not just watch it for the winning goal. And you’re only bitching about it because your guy’s team lost.”

At this, it’s Snow’s turn to blush. She’s a redhead like me—with brown eyes that come from the Thorne side of the family and zero freckles; so jealous—so unfortunately for her, it’s also plain to see as she mumbles, “He’s not my guy.”