Wildflower (Chapter 30)

Chapter 30

 

It was the first day of school and one of the hot topics around the school was what happened just days ago at Allie’s house. Everybody was talking about her too, she did have a shirt on the said “The Name is Allie”. The first day of school was the day every girl waited anxiously for so they could show off their new wardrobe and summer tan. With her Mexican and Italian roots she was already pretty tan. Today she decided to just go with a blue jean skirt that fell above her knees, her white printed t-shirt and flip flops. The old her would have been in something small and tight or she wouldn’t have shown up at school at all. But Allie and Sugar were not the same person and Allie was not trying to draw attention to herself like Sugar would. Allie walked the halls holding hands with her boyfriend and Allie had friends. Everything was different now.

There was a rumor going around the school that St. Ivy was going back to uniforms, years ago they had uniforms but somehow the students got them to change. The first week of school everybody was trying to settle into a routine so not much happened. Gossip was routine in the school and everybody wanted to know about the break in. It was common knowledge that nobody ever got away with breaking onto the Capriani land, but that had changed. Reporters came to the school to ask them questions. Owen the stalker had somehow escaped the hospital and nobody knew where he was. That just made things at home very weird. Allie wasn’t going to talk about anything having to do with her family; she made that clear to everybody.

After school she had cheerleading practice and Tony had football and Sammie had soccer and Corey was doing cross-country. Evan was more into basketball and it wasn’t time for that yet so he just hung around. It was weird for her to have an after school activity, but at least being a cheerleader got her out of gym class. The routines weren’t too hard to remember, the old Allie had been into ballet and dancing. Surprisingly she actually liked most of the girls on the squad, she never expected that or maybe it was the girls that graduated that she didn’t like. Practicing on the same field as the football players was interesting and a little distracting for everybody. She liked watching Tony and looked at her every chance he got.

Cheerleading was over before football so she sat up in the stands with Sammie, Evan and Corey who were all done with their things too. It was going to be like this everyday because they all came together in the truck that her uncle had given Tony. Part of her hated knowing that this was his last year in high school and it should have been hers but it wasn’t because when she was younger and certain things happened she’d missed a lot of school. Sammie and Jordan both skipped a grade in elementary school so they were in the same grade as her. And somehow so was both Corey and Evan but they had been born very close together.

“Explain how you and Tony happened again,” Sammie said.

“We kissed and decided we wanted to go out, nothing exciting,” she said.

“You just randomly start kissing?” Evan asked.

“Pretty much,” she said. She definitely wasn’t going to tell them they only kissed because Tony drunkenly made out with a guy.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised Ev, Tony has been crushing on her forever,” Corey said. He was texting somebody and didn’t look up from his phone. This was news to her; she always liked hanging out with Tony because she never thought he liked her.

“Really? Since when?” She asked and Corey looked up at her like she asked something stupid.

“Never once did you notice how he makes excuses to touch you and how he never minds you laying all over him?” Corey asked with that same expression.

“Not really,” she said thoughtfully. Maybe that explained why he was so willing to play pretend with her.

“Ok Miss Cheerleader dating the football player,” Corey shook his head.

“Why did you kiss him?” Sammie asked her.

“Um he kissed me, but it was completely innocent,” she said.

Technically it was and she never expected to feel anything, she thought she was in love with his brother. That had obviously been a lapse in brain activity because now she was seeing the world more clearly and she couldn’t have been in love with Ivan. Not when Tony made her feel the way he did and all they did was kiss. Every time he looked at her she felt butterflies in her stomach and she never felt that for anybody. The thing with Ivan was just when she was confused and wanted to feel something for somebody. He was nice when she needed and she tricked herself into feeling something that wasn’t real. She had offered herself up to be used again and Ivan was a man and men couldn’t resist her. It wasn’t his fault, but it didn’t matter because they weren’t speaking. Tony made her feel different and she loved running her fingers through his long hair.

“I’m sure he made some excuse up so that you would let him kiss you,” Corey said. “He was waiting for his chance all summer; I don’t know how you didn’t know.”

“I find it hard to believe that Tony was plotting something,” Evan laughed.

“It was so not like that, we were talking and things happened. We just kissed and well we kept kissing. There was definitely no plot it was totally random.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Corey laughed.

“Anyway,” Sammie said looking a little too amused. “How do you like being Allie again?”

“Oh people think I’m crazy, it is my real name I just neglected to use it for like six years. But I’m special I can have whatever name I want,” she said.

“It’s weird to call you Allie,” Evan said.

“In time it will be normal and nobody will think of me as Sugar anymore,” she said. Then she turned her attention back to Tony, later she was planning on braiding his hair even though he told her she couldn’t. One trait that belonged both to Sugar and Allie was that she always liked to get her way.

“All of you are disgusting and I need to stop hanging out with you,” Corey said.

“Did you hear that Sam? Corey wants us to get him a girlfriend.”

“I never said that.”

“Hook him up with one of the cheerleaders,” Sammie suggested.

“That is a great idea and btw after the game Friday we are going to a party.”

“You really talk saying ‘btw’?” Corey asked shaking his head at her.

“Shut your face Corey,” she said and leaned over to take his phone. It appeared that Corey was texting a girl or well in this family it might have been a guy. “Oh Corey has a girlfriend.” She announced and he tried to take the phone back but she ran from him and he chased her up and down the stands.

“Give me my phone,” he told her.

“Bring your girlfriend to the game,” she told him.

“Maybe,” he said and she gave him back the phone.

“Why are you Laiezs so freaking secretive?”

“Because some things are not your business, Allie.”

“Do you think we will embarrass you?”

“How bout you go focus on Tony and leave me alone?”

“Fine, give Jenny-bee my love,” she laughed and he glared at her. She hopped down the stands and went down to the field. Tony was walking towards her.

“What did you do to piss Corey off?” He asked her.

“Nothing, he has a girlfriend and I told him to bring her to the game Friday,” she told him. “So shall I join you in the shower?”

“If we were alone maybe but not with the other guys in there,” he told her.

“They might think it’s hot,” she said smiling at him.

“Go get in the car,” he said. He kissed her and then headed off to the locker room.

Allie, that was who she was now and she really liked Allie. Sugar would have already had sex with Tony but 12 days later and they were still just kissing. Even though it felt like forever. This was really good for her.

 

Tony was dating one of the hottest girls in school; if he chose to he could have her in his bed any time he wanted. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about that other thing? Part of him felt like he was using her to cover for him. He showered quickly and got dressed, in his current state he did not want to be around naked guys. There she was with the radio in the truck turned up dancing with Sammie in the parking lot. Maybe he needed to step things up with her; he wanted to be he felt wrong about it. The sexual tension between them was real; he didn’t imagine that but still. She seemed to glow and be generally happy now, he liked her like this.

He was distracted most of the drive home, just like he was distracted most of the time. And things in the house were pretty weird; his sister was acting very strange after what happened to her. Then again she shot somebody; it was funny that he use to think Owen was good for her. They all had a long time ago and who knew what he might have done to her. He felt bad that she was so stressed a month before her wedding but there wasn’t much anybody could do about it. More than once he wished he could have shot Owen for her.

When they got to the house he let Corey, Evan and Sammie out in the front and he went to park over by the garage. Of course she stayed with him, his Allie. It wasn’t as weird as he thought it would be to call her that, it felt like she was his. That would have been fine if he could forget that other thing. But he couldn’t forget no matter what he did. He cut the engine and just sat there a moment looking at her; she was a completely different person now. Not that he hadn’t wanted her when she was the old her, he did but he never thought he had a chance with her. They had just been friends. Now he wasn’t really sure what they were.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked, she always seemed to be watching him now.

“You want the truth or a lie?” He asked and she considered him for a moment.

“The truth please,” she said as he expected.

“I like you a lot but I can’t forget…” He trailed off telling her once was bad enough, he didn’t want to say it again.

“Oh,” she nodded coming to her own conclusion. “What shall we do about it?”

“Maybe I could forget it if he quit trying to get me to talk to him,” he admitted.

“You didn’t like it right?”

“Hell no,” he said honestly. He didn’t he liked kissing her.

“Then you should kiss me more so you can only think about me,” she suggested. She got up and sat in his lap and reached over to push the seat back.

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you,” he told her.

“For once that’s not what I feel,” she said.

She kissing him and he could feel how she felt. No straight man could have a girl like his sitting in his lap making out with him and be unaffected. By the grace of God he was affected, he really was affected by her. Before he knew what she was doing her hand slipped down between them to where he was most affected and she undid his jeans and pulled the zipper down and her fingers explored him. He dug his nails into one of her thighs and she giggled.

“I’m not sharing you,” she whispered in his ear. “I only want you to think of me.”

“Don’t think I’ll have any problems with that,” he said. He grabbed a fist full of her hair while he kissed her then pulled her head to the side so he could kiss her neck.

“You’re a hair pulled,” she said.

“Maybe a little,” he said and she smiled.

“So do you need more to keep me on your mind?”

“It’s way too soon for us to have sex, right?”

“Yes,” she nodded but that didn’t sound like she didn’t want to.

“What do you have on under this skirt?”

“A thong,” she replied. He slid his hand under her skirt and pushed the thong to the side. There was no way he could stop himself from having sex with her and she wasn’t stopping him. So now he really had something to think about.

 

 

Wildflower felt pathetic, she’d been in bed most of the day when she should have been pretending to care about the kids’ first day of school. They were home now, she’d gotten up early to force feed them breakfast and pretend to be normal. She felt like the child at the moment, everybody was treating her like she was fragile. Then again she’d been having nightmares every single night since Owen broke in. And since she found out that Owen had escaped from the hospital she mostly felt sick a lot.

There was an increase in security around the house and Nicolas was doing everything he could to make it sure that nobody could ever break in again. He was working from home to keep an eye on her. In his mind he had failed her since something happened when he was away. Most of the day he spent laying in bed with her, she appreciated it but she still felt like a child. The kids were all on their best behaviors, not that they were ever really much trouble. Yesterday she spent half the day with Sammie and Allie trying to figure out what they were going to wear on their first day. It was surprising how easy it was to change from Sugar to Allie but of the two personalities Allie was the good girl.

Everybody was so concerned about her and she hated it. She felt helpless and she just wanted to feel normal again. Owen could not get to her again; nobody was going to let that happen. Still she was jumpy and now she felt like he was watching her. Which made absolutely no sense because he hadn’t left the house since she came back home. Brooke told her that they were going out tomorrow and part of her wanted to go, the other part of her wanted to stay home. It surprised her that she could still sleep in her own bed; at least he hadn’t taken that from her. He managed to rob her of her sense of security and her ability to trust people and he plagued her dreams. And all this had to happen when she was supposed to be focusing on her upcoming wedding, though she was looking forward to going to Brazil. Maybe she needed home school the kids and just move away.

“Get up,” Nicolas ordered when he came in their bedroom.

“I’m tired,” she replied.

“Stop acting like a victim, you are not a victim,” he said pulling her off the bed.

“Can’t I just wallow in my misery for a little while longer?”

“No, get your a*s out of this bed,” he told her.

“You could always just get in the bed with me,” she suggested.

“Nope, you wanted the kids here so go mother them and ask how their first day was. Do anything, just get out of bed.”

“Fine,” she sighed while he dragged her out of the room.

She found most of the kids in the kitchen; Tammy was feeding them cookies and milk before dinner. Missing was Allie and Tony and she figured that was because they were together somewhere. Corey was texting as he often was and she figured it was his little girlfriend that he had been upset that they couldn’t go to the same school anymore. Wildflower had only seen Jenny a few times; her brothers were oddly secretive and often hid things from each other. Though considering three of her brothers fell for the same girl, maybe it wasn’t that surprising. She could usually figure out their secrets because none of them minded confiding in her, well some of the time.

She needed to get over this thing; she didn’t actually get hurt, physically. And she had at least tried to defend herself. It was a good thing that Jose had been there; otherwise it would have been a lot worse. But maybe she was going to take Brooke up on her offer for them to join a self defense class. Surprisingly she had never been in a fight, having a lot of brothers was probably most of the reason. Nicolas was right; she needed to quit acting like a victim. Worse things happened to people and they recovered more quickly than this. But no matter what she couldn’t get that look in Owen’s eyes out of her head.

 

 

The next morning came and it was time for day two of school and Allie was not ready to go. She was going to wear a dress, that had been her plan but she was having second thoughts. Mostly she did not want to get into the truck with Tony. What happened the day before should not have happened, but it did and she hadn’t spoken to him since. He wasn’t at dinner and she had gotten a shower as soon as she got out of the truck, after she had sex with Tony. This relationship had gone from fun to suddenly complicated, this wasn’t the way she wanted to do things. All she’d meant to do was play a little just to ease his worries over that thing they weren’t supposed to talk about. The way he was kind of obsessed with it made her wonder, which was probably why she planned to steal his cell phone later.

After thinking too much about it she put on her baby pink dress with a white t-shirt under it and the stiletto knee boots she borrowed from Wildflower. It came in handy that they could mostly fit the same clothes and they wore the same size shoes. Stilettos were very inappropriate for walking around in school but she didn’t care. She stood staring in the mirror for a minute, she’d also borrowed Wildflower’s butterfly headband. Maybe she had taken extra time so that she could avoid Tony at breakfast but she couldn’t avoid getting in the truck. It wasn’t that she was mad at him or anything, but it was awkward. She grabbed her tote bag and headed down to the kitchen.

Everybody was in the kitchen finishing up breakfast; she picked up a piece of toast and grabbed a glass of orange juice. Tony didn’t make eye contact with her and that wasn’t surprising, it wasn’t what either of them expected to happen. They all went out to the truck a few minutes later and as usual she sat in the front with Tony, he still wouldn’t look at her. Corey and Evan were laughing about something in the back but she wasn’t paying them any attention but she suspected that it smelled like sex in there. The whole way to school she stared out the window avoiding looking at Tony directly but she was out the corner of her eye and she noticed he did look at her a few times. When they arrived at school the others got out and Evan pulled Sammie away and that left the two of them, alone.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered staring ahead out the window.

“Why are you always apologizing?” She asked, they finally looked each other in the eyes. The last time they had actually looked directly at each other was when they were having sex.

“Because I’m always doing things I know I shouldn’t,” he replied. He reached for her hand and kissed her palm.

“You know waiting 12 days to have sex is a record for me,” she said and he laughed. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are and that wasn’t why I laughed, I’m just surprised you counted the days,” he said.

“Normally I wouldn’t, but I’m not really doing normal things anymore,” she said.

“So what do we do now?”

“Don’t know, it’s been 13 days now.”

“Thirteen days since what?”

“Since we first kissed,” she said looking away. This was definitely not the girl she use to be, she never thought she’d be so sentimental.

“Then that means that tomorrow will be the 14^th day and I should do something special for you,” he said.

“Really?” She asked and he nodded.

“I’m going to surprise you,” he said and she smiled.

“Do you regret what we did?” She asked him, part of her did and part of her really didn’t.

“Not really, we probably should have used a condom but other than that it’s whatever. You are my girlfriend so we would have done it eventually, I should probably buy condoms,” he said.

“Don’t bother, I have like a thousand of them in my room,” she said and he stared at her. “What? I’m all about safe sex, so I buy them myself cause I do not trust guys to do it. Most guys think its ok just to pull out.”

“Why did you let me have sex with you?”

“Well it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting it and you didn’t even try to pull out from what I remember. But I’m on birth control so lucky you no little babies,” she shrugged. “Next time maybe we can do it in a bed or something.”

“Would you prefer being in a bed?” He asked with lust in his eyes.

“Doesn’t matter to me, but I’ve never done it in the bed a truck,” she said and winked at him. “School will be starting soon, we should probably go in.”

“Or we could skip school and spend the day together,” he suggested. That was shocking; more shocking was that she wasn’t considering it.

“It’s the second day and you just started here,” she said.

“So? It’s the first week of school, nobody does anything,” he pointed out.

“I’m being a good girl and I don’t think good girls skip school.”

“Fine,” he shrugged looking a little disappointed. They both got out and he handed her the keys since she always got done with cheerleading before he was done with football. He pulled her to him and kissed her. “Too bad my Allie is being such a good girl, I’ve been thinking of naughty things all night.”  

“I’m your Allie, now?”

“Yes,” he nodded and kissed her again. They held hands walking into the school and he walked her to her first class. This was so perfect.

 

 

Brooke was surprised when someone knocked on the door. Who would even come over this early? She had still been in bed, Jay and Ivan had already gone to work. Reluctantly she dragged herself out of bed and was surprised to find Cody outside the door. They hadn’t spoken in a while and she didn’t want to resume their friendship. Truth be told she was only friends with Cody because of Wildflower and she liked it better with the two of them and Christina. Cody was all negative energy and superiority complex.

“Can we talk?” Cody asked when she opened the door.

“Why would I talk to you? I know what you said about me and you are the dumb b***h that gave Owen Wildflower’s number. And what happened? He started stalking her and attacked her,” Brooke said annoyed.

“That wasn’t my fault I didn’t know he would act like that. How could I have known? Please, I need to talk to you,” Cody pleaded. For some stupid reason she let her in. She knew she would regret this.

“What do you want?” Brooke asked going to sit on the couch.

“Is she ok? I tried to call her but her cell phone is disconnected and I tried to call Ivan but he didn’t answer.”

“I wonder why her phone is disconnected, do you know?”

“Well tell me her number and I’ll call her,” Cody said and Brooke laughed.

“Hell no, just leave my friend alone, we are all happier without you. She is going through a lot and that creep could have raped her,” Brooke said angrily. What she wanted to do was choke Cody.

“I was her friend before you even knew her,” Cody said.

“Yes and that is quite unfortunate,” Brooke replied. She was tired and the last thing she wanted to do was deal with Cody. Today she was making Wildflower and Christina take a self defense class; it would be good for the three of them to be able to defend themselves.

“Why is everybody so blind to the way this man really is?”

“What has Nicolas done exactly? From what I see all he has done is love Wildflower maybe a little excessively but all he has ever done is love her. So what he has money it’s not the end of the world and she deserves to be happy more than anyone else. Besides if Nick is so horrible why were you having sex with his brother?”

“That wasn’t my fault, he tricked me because they made a bet and he video taped it,” Cody said looking ashamed.

“And that Cody is what he call karma,” Brooke said and she laughed.

“Its ok that he had his sister beat up?”

“Where do you get these crazy ideas?”

“Who else would have attacked her?”

“Um her abusive ex-husband? She told us that was who did it.”

“What?” Cody asked confused.

“Yeah, get the facts before you make crazy accusations. Are you done with whatever you came here for? I have things to do today that do not involve your hater a*s. I’m not going to help you weasel your way back into Wildflower’s life; she has enough problems without you making things worse. And everybody knows that part of what happened with Owen is your fault,” Brooke told her.

“But you don’t know the type of person he really is. I met someone and she-”

“Get out Cody and leave us all alone. Anybody can say things but there is no proof of anything except that the reason you have no friends is because you’re jealous.”

“Why can’t you just consider the truth?”

“You haven’t said anything true in a very long time so leave me alone,” Brooke stood and grabbed Cody’s arm. She basically dragged her back to the door and opened it and pushed her out. “Get a life Cody and quit trying to mess with everybody else’s.”

Before Cody could reply Brooke slammed the door and locked it. She just wanted to go back to sleep, but she was way too annoyed to. So she went in the kitchen to make something to eat. Jay worked in a restaurant, he actually liked to cook and did that some times but mostly he worked the bar. Most of the time she cooked for him and Ivan and they left her with the dishes too. The only reason she didn’t complain too much was because she was living here rent free. She had been with Jay more or less for more than a year; it was weird at first dating her best friend’s brother. But Jay could be sweet and attentive when he felt like it, what she learned was that the Laiez men never really expressed their emotions and for the most part neither did Wildflower before she met Nicolas. Not that she was some overly emotional girl or anything.

Brooke decided she was too lazy to make anything so she settled on cereal, somebody needed to go grocery shopping. That somebody was most likely going to be her, it was another thing for her to do today. Eventually she was planning to get a real job, not that she minded getting paid to do absolutely nothing. She suspected that the reason Nicolas paid her to be Wildflower’s personal assistant when she didn’t need one was because he felt guilty that they stopped working because of him. At least now she had a nice bit of money in her savings account and she got to go to Paris and buy nice clothes. When she was there she bought some things for Jay but he was definitely not into fashion. She had just been happy to indulge in actual luxury items.

She sat on the couch with her cereal and watched cartoons. Maybe she needed to get dressed and head over to check on her friend that had become a complete hermit. It was weird to see Wildflower who was always strong and there when you needed her looking so scared. For that she hated Owen, once he had been such a great guy, now he was a psycho. Then she started to wonder if Cody was hiding him, she had set this in motion in the first place even if it was unintentional. Of course Cody would give him Wildflower’s number she had thought he could win her over and she would leave Nicolas. But she just didn’t understand Cody’s hate for a man that had only ever been nice to her. If he was abusive in any way towards their friend that would be one thing but he was more protective of her than all nine of her brothers. Maybe his appearance in all of their lives was random and convenient but how could he have known they would be at the bar the first night?

            Seeing Cody was making her paranoid obviously. Nicolas loved Wildflower it was pretty obvious, maybe he was the possessive type, but he would never hurt her. And he went out of his way to make her happy. Brooke was a little jealous, but she loved Jay and he was really good to her. After finishing her cereal she got up and put the bowl in the sink, she was going to have to do the dishes later. Maybe she would order pizza for dinner because she did not feel like cooking. She went back into her bedroom and threw off her t-shirt and pulled her curly blonde hair into a knot on the top of her head so she could take a shower. Maybe with her saved money she could buy herself a car so she wasn’t so dependent on everybody else, she could afford it now. She turned on the water for the shower and went to step in, she loved hot hot showers.

            It was a few seconds after she got in the she heard a noise. She leaned her head out to listen, but she didn’t hear anything. So she went back to what she was doing and then she heard the noise again. This time she leaned out and called Jay’s name but she got no response so she called Ivan and still got nothing. They were not above trying to scare her so she figured that’s what they were doing so she went back to her shower. The next noise she heard she ignored. Then she saw that someone was standing in the doorway to the bathroom so she leaned her head out again. It wasn’t Jay or Ivan and she screamed.

 

Reviews

[Katie]

and I love the sense of mystery added here

[Katie]

I love the cliff hanger too!

[romancewriter09]

i bet its owen.
love the cliff hanger

[deeps]

Such dramtic write here, quite a bit of action as well.
Too lazy to make cereal that is pretty lazy I say.
I like this chpater, verll written.