Twenty-nine

Pov

Benett

Sipping my coffee for a minute before deciding to finally talk to Tessa and grabbing my phone from the counter.

Me: Come back here. Please.

Tessa: How much did that hurt to type?

I smile at the cheekiness in her text and know she can't be that mad at me.

Me: Less than a paper cut. Get ready. We're leaving in thirty minutes. Mase and I have some shit to do on the mountain, and we're bringing you along. If you're a good girl, maybe I'll give you something.

Tessa: Fine.

Mason: Just hurry up. Thirty minutes is the starting gun. If you're not here, we're leaving without you.

Tessa: Jerk. If you go without me, then I WON'T BE riding your dick again.

Mason: That's cute. Now it's twenty minutes, and we're out.

Well, that's one way to push my brother's buttons and then have him bite you in the damn ass.

The text thread dies after that with no snarky response from Tessa. Occasionally, she knows how to pick her battles, and the desire to go with us outweighs her need to be a pain in the ass.

"Did you ever think we'd come to this point?" I ask my brother.

"You mean living alone with Tessa in a house still controlled by Dad. No. If you mean in a relationship with her, also no. I was about ninety-nine percent sure I was gonna kill you by the time three months passed," he's not wrong. The first few months of this little arrangement were the toughest pills to swallow. We still don't like sharing… much. We've gotten used to it and figured out what works for us. Each of us has our own relationship with Tessa, independent of each other. That's the only way to keep any of us sane. But I'm willing to work at it every day for her. She's worth it. "I had an idea…"

"Of course you did. The last brilliant idea you had ended up in a trash can fire because Pritchard is too distinct," Mason deadpans, and I'm annoyed because he didn't need to bring up the past.

I nod to him because if we get into this debate, we'll spend the next twenty minutes arguing until we're blue in the face and Tessa will shut it down.

Instead, I'll spend the time before our girl walks her happy ass back here, outlining and getting Mason on board with my plan. It's time to bring another one of her diary fantasies to life in the treehouse, and I'm more than happy to make it happen.

We're passing the welcome sign to Arbor Ridge, and I'm still pissed as hell at Tessa. She's riding pillion with Mason instead of me as some kind of punishment. She thinks her petty little revenge will be satisfying, but all it's doing is ensuring I get her ass back.

Driving through Arbor Ridge is like a scene from a movie. It's got that small-town charm covering up all the secrets hiding beneath the surface.

The trees are starting to bloom, and all the shops are quaint and perfect, but this town is as tainted as any other.

Loomis 2.0 Auto Body sits off the beaten path leading to Morgan Creek. Why the hell he opened a shop here, I have no idea, but clearly, it's bustling as hell with the lack of parking space when we pull up.

I pull straight into bay 5 as Remy instructed, and a few seconds later, my brother does too. We shut off our engines as Atlas McKenna approaches.

He's a cocky son of a bitch, but he's also provenly psychotic. I can appreciate his brand of crazy.

"McKenna."

"Slade and Slade and Bishop," he says, nodding to each of us.

"It's Clarke," Tessa retorts, and Atlas just smiles.

"Nah, it's Bishop. Maybe one day it'll be Slade. Two lovers. Two brothers. No need to choose between last names." Like I said, he's a cocky son of a bitch, but he's bringing up something that never crossed my mind.

"Leave your bikes. They'll be ready tomorrow. As you can see, I'm swamped, and I don't bend when Rhodes calls. Or any of you damn Ravens. Not even your god Rhett. So, before you start yelling, just nod and say see you tomorrow. Go on, fuck off. Get a ride. Get a hotel room. I really don't care, just get the fuck out of here." And with that, he's turning around and walking away, leaving us stunned.

Nobody who doesn't want to die talks to us like that, and this motherfucker's got some massive balls.

"Think we could get a hotel room and stay? I don't want to go back to the mountain yet. We barely got out, and while we're here, we can just shut off from the rest. You don't have to be a Raven, and we can just be ourselves," Tessa's eyes are wide, and she's gesturing wildly trying to rope us in, and it works.

Looking at Mason, he gives a slight nod, letting me know he's on board before wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "Come on, babe. Let's give Morgan Creek a taste of Hollow Hill. We'll get a room and have a slumber party."

"Slumber party my ass. The day you two do hair and nails and talk about guys is the day I lay down and let one of the ATVs run me over."

I follow behind them, listening to them bicker as I book a StayAnywhere rental instead of a hotel room. I want a whole house and a little privacy, and I send the address to Mase so he can start taking Tessa there.

Less than five minutes later, I'm chasing after her, scooping her up and throwing her body over my shoulders, listening to her squeal.

"Bennett! You scared me."

Delivering a firm smack to her ass, I assert, "You damn well knew it was me. Mason wouldn't have let anyone get this close to you. Now let's go inside and rough you up a bit."