Page 74 of The Forgotten

“I never said I haven’t,” Orla sniffs. “I said that I couldn’t listen to your songs. How the hell was I supposed to know that you were in love with me?”

“How did you know we were talking about you,” Noa asks, brow raised.

“You literally describe me!” she yells at him. “Hair black as night, eyes that glitter like sapphires, the girl we used to carry like a backpack? Do not fucking gaslight me.”

“Damn,” Noa breathes. “You did listen to our songs. Granted, that song is one of our first.”

“I have been avoiding the radio as often as possible,” she mutters. “Sometimes, you’d show up on television or social media.”

“We looked on socials, and couldn’t find you,” I say, shaking my head. “How the hell did it take so long to find you?”

“I only look at social media through a fake account. My lease has been under Mickey’s name,” Orla shrugs. The three of us have very big feelings about that name, and she rolls her eyes. “He’s very gay and my best friend. I answered an ad to become his roommate when I was planning to leave Wisconsin, and he helped me find a job too.”

“You really planned this out,” Harris mutters.

“I had to,” she explains. “I couldn’t stay. That town made no sense without you. The girls were so fucking mean, between taunting me about riding your dicks, to finding ways to jump me when they thought you weren’t around.”

“We were always around,” I gripe. If she had to walk to the corner store, one of us was with her. We definitely noticed the way people were treating her.

God, we are so dumb.

“You weren’t going to be there anymore,” our gorgeous girl reminds me. “My parents were talking about how I needed to grow up and go to college to find a pack, and I just couldn’t face it. I had to go.”

“Did you ditch your phone?” I ask, gazing at her intently.

“I did. I didn’t want to be tempted to call,” she admits.

“That’s why when I tracked it through the app, it was sitting at your house,” I grumble.

Orla’s lips part in surprise, and I want to face palm myself.

“Are you surprised that we were stalking you?” I ask. “Ever since we found you playing at the park when you were three, we were smitten. We were just a few years older than you, but you talked our ears off in that special way of yours. We were done for.”

“I never had a clue,” she whispers, unshed tears glittering in her eyes. This is why Noa wrote that lyric about her. We weredepressed she was nowhere to be found after our first album was released, and we decided to jam out with a bottle of whiskey.

The alcohol definitely fueled the creative process, but it was also chaotic and full of anger and frustration. Maurice found a recording of our writing session and ran with it. The studio was excited by how “edgy” it sounded, and the rest is history.

Dammit.

“None of you ever kissed me,” Orla continues accusingly, dashing her tears away. She’s gaining speed, and getting pissed off instead of sad. I’d honestly rather see her this way, because I hate that we made her cry. “My first kiss was terrible. What was I supposed to think! The girls in town also couldn’t wait to tell me all about how they fucked you.”

“Wait, seriously?” Noa asks. “Who was your first kiss? I heard the rumors about us, but brushed them off. They never fucked me.”

“They knew all about the piercings, Mr. I tattooed my dick,” Orla says, annoyed. “Why the hell did you do that anyway?”

“I was sad and needed a tattoo that would hurt,” he explains. “I got very addicted to the feel, and now I have the names?—”

“Ew!” she squeals dramatically, covering her ears. “I will implode if you say that the names of your conquests are tattooed on your dick.”

Rolling my eyes, I pull away her hands.

“Do I count as a conquest?” I ask. “My name is on his dick. So are yours and Trick’s. No one else’s. He has other things on the monster he keeps in his pants, but there aren’t any other names.”

“Did you really think that’s what I was going to say?” Noa asks, aghast. “I can give you an up close and personal experience with my cock if you need it.”

“I have a feeling that she was very well fucked by it over the last few days,” Harris chuckles. “I doubt she was reading your ink though.”

“I had very little idea about where I was,” she says honestly. “My meds have caught up with me, and that’s why it was so bad. We aren’t talking about me, though.”