CHAPTER 108
JAX POV
We could all tell that Skylar was pretty upset by the visit of her grandparents. She went straight down to the basement and started practicing in the shooting range and practicing with her knife throwing.
We didn’t disturb her while she was doing that. But we did go down occasionally just to check that she was alright.
She kept insisting that she was and I knew that she’d tell us if there were any real problems.
When she calmed herself down and came back upstairs, I got her something to eat and we went to the living room to watch a few movies.
We just wanted to chill out for a while and Skylar laid down on the couch like she always did. Her head was in my lap and her legs were laying across Lucas’.
It didn’t seem like she was paying much attention to the movie, but we didn’t pry or anything like that.
We watched a couple of movies before Skylar got up and grabbed her laptop.
She wanted to register for online classes before she got too left behind and wouldn’t be able to catch up.
Even with everything that was going on at the moment, she was still determined to graduate high school this year.
None of us really knew how she was able to do that. But then again, we’ve never really had to live in a situation like hers before. Where she was living with her father and then came to school without telling anyone what her dad was doing. And then get bullied at school and not go home and be able to tell anyone about that.
I think she was great at compartmentalizing.
It’s a great trait to have. And even though us three have it, none are as good as she was.
She managed to sign herself up and had to answer a million questions about where her schooling was already at so they could take over from there. So there was a lot of folders to fill out and then she looked at all of the units that she needed to complete in order to get her diploma.
She skimmed over them all pretty quickly and she looked happy about it. But she didn’t get started straight away.
She went upstairs to her room and we were all worried about her.
She wasn’t talking about anything that happened this morning. Not even after realizing that her grandparents are as bad as her father. Which actually explains a lot.
I stayed downstairs for a long time before I finally went up to her room and she was getting dressed from having a shower.
“Hey. What’s up?” She asked.
“I’m just checking to make sure that you’re alright.” I said.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked.
“Because of those assholes this morning.” I said, leaning on the wall.
“Jax. I’ve dealt with assholes my whole life. Why the hell would you think that those two have bothered me? I couldn’t care less about them.” She said.
“So, you’re really feeling okay that they were here?”
“Yes, Jax. Would you please stop treating me like I’m going to break at every little thing that passes my way?” She asked, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“I can’t help it. I don’t want anything to happen to you. And I don’t want to see you lose everything that you’ve been working so hard to build.” I said, leaning down and kissing my forehead.
“It’s gonna take more than those two to fuck me up now.” She said. I started chuckling as I wrapped my arms around her.
“Do you think they’re going to keep hanging around?”
“Yeah. They don’t give up easily. And whatever pop is after, he’ll stay until he gets it.” She said.
“What’s he after?”
“Well, that’s the million dollar question. He could be trying to find out who killed my dad.” She said.
“And it was a car accident. No one can prove otherwise.”
“But I was driving. Everyone is going to blame me.”
“Well, they aren’t going to get anywhere near you. You’re staying right here with us and from what I saw today, you don’t look like you need too much saving from your grandparents.” I said.
Skylar started chuckling when I said that because she knew that it was true. She knew that she showed a lot of courage when she kicked them out.
But it was something more than that. She proved to herself that these people are just people. They aren’t the monsters that she had built up in her mind.
I knew that was going to make a whole lot of difference to her.
I convinced Skylar to come downstairs to get something to eat when we heard someone knocking on the door.
Skylar stood near the stairs while I opened the door and there was a teenage girl standing there.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Claire.” Skylar said, sounding surprised.
“Skylar. Just the person I was looking for. How are you?” She asked, pushing past me and she hugged Skylar.
Skylar stood there really stiff and didn’t return the hug, looking at me like she was really confused.
“What are you doing here?” Skylar asked.
“I came to see you. I’ve missed you.”
“How? We were never friends.”
“How do you two know each other?” I asked, closing the door.
“We went to middle school together. I know that I wasn’t always there when Skylar needed a friend, but you know how school is.” Claire said.
“You were never there for me because you were one of the ones that was always bullying me with everyone else.” I said.
“I know. And I am really sorry. I didn’t mean for things to go so far with them. I really didn’t want them to. Can we talk for a minute?” She asked, gesturing outside.
I saw her looking at me out of the corner of her eye and she was obviously getting very nervous as I was glaring at her.
It didn’t get any better when Harry and Lucas walked into the foyer and she realized that it wasn’t just me there with Skylar.
Claire did take her time looking at each of us up and down before she raised her eyebrows at Skylar.
“What do you want to talk to me about?” Skylar asked.
“Just about a lot of stuff that I think we need to clear the air on.”
“I think you made your feelings about me pretty clear.” Skylar said.
“Please? I’m just asking for a couple of minutes?” Claire asked.
Skylar looked around at all of us before she finally nodded her head and she walked out the front door with Claire.
We stood near the front window and made sure that Skylar didn’t go downstairs with her, they stayed on the veranda.
“What’s the story?” Harry asked.
“Not sure. Claire bullied Skylar in middle school but I think Claire is trying to reflect the blame on someone else.”
“Okay. So she could be a sneaky bitch that we need to keep an eye on.” Lucas said.
“We’ll see.” I said.
Skylar was outside for a little while with Claire and we saw when Claire left and Skylar walked back inside.
“So? What happened?” I asked.
“She wants to see if we can be friends. She claims that she was always just going along with the bullies because she didn’t want to get bullied herself.”
“Do you believe her?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know. And I don’t know if I will be giving her a second chance. She said that she’ll call me later in the week.” Skylar said.
We could all tell that Skylar was really hesitant about having anything to do with Claire, but she was torn about believing her or telling her to fuck off. We knew that it would have to be hard for her.
I mean, we’re the only people that Skylar has any interaction with. She doesn’t have any friends. It’s possible that she’s looking for friends that she’s not sleeping with.
Not that we mind having her to ourselves. But it was hard to tell what she really wanted, we also knew that she wouldn’t tell us what she really wanted.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
