Fight For Me ✔

Chapter 32

The next day I sit with my friends, Liam and Liam's friends at lunchtime. We are so many that we had to grab another table and drag it over to our usual to fit us all and still we sit as if glued together.

Yesterday when we arrived at Liam's house, the officer had been shown inside and seated in the kitchen. Leonora had not attended to him since she 'wanted to get our story straight', as if we should coordinate alibis for murder. Aaron had been standing next to his wife and watched as she paced back and forth, mumbling about lawyers and bails and media handling.

When Aaron saw us, he walked over but Leonora ran over. She shrieked when she saw the bruise on my face and started interrogating Liam anew. It took a while for both Liam and Aaron to calm her enough so that Liam could explain.

When he was done Leonora's focus shifted from protecting her only son from jail time to making sure I was - relatively - uninjured.

"Are you okay? Have you had someone look at that bruise? Do you hurt anywhere? Do you need to sit down? Aaron, get her a chair!" it took another few minutes to assure her that I was perfectly fine but her sincere concern warmed my heart.

After finally sending the flustered officer on his way - he had tried to talk sense into Leonora and then tried to leave numerous times only to have their cook, a short, round woman with steely eyes, a no nonsense voice and a sergeant like demeanor, stop him every single time - Liam's mother grabbed my hand and led me up the stairs. I had thrown Liam a pleading look but he had just grinned at me and waved jauntily.

She led me to a walk-in closet where she produced a pair of purple yoga pants and a black, formfitting tank top. While I changed she found some for herself and changed too. When she dragged me downstairs again and into the sun lounge turned yoga studio. She put on some music, lit a candle and proceeded to gently introduce me to meditation and yoga.

We stopped just before lunch, but I was a sweaty, sticky mess after the physical exertion - yoga is way harder than it seems - and opted for a shower first. The whole family ate together and it went pretty much like the dinner we had Friday.

After lunch Liam took me and Bernie to the grassy field behind the main house. A man named Winston was waiting for us there and Liam introduced him as the trainer and caretaker of the Paine dogs. Winston was in his forties, over 6 feet but shorter than Liam and very burly. He had keen ice blue eyes and dirty blond hair.

All in all he looked like a viking but he was patient with me, as he gave me a belt bag filled to the brim with treats and taught me how to train with Bernie.

We spend the afternoon training Bernie, had dinner with Liam's family and then went back to my apartment because Liam declared he wasn't leaving alone and we hadn't had the foresight to bring me clothes for school.

I spent the night sleeping peacefully in Liam's arms, nightmare free, and woke up to him kissing my neck and rubbing my sides. Things would probably have progressed further if I hadn't looked at the clock and practically thrown Liam off me when I realized he had hit snooze at least seven or eight times, which meant that we had less than twenty minutes to get ready and get to school.

Liam drove us to school, sulking the entire way through Biology. He seems to be mostly over it by now, as he sneakily tries to steal French fries off my plate. All around me our united group of friends are talking, laughing and bonding. Jade is the last to arrive and when she does she sits down next to me.

"Dudette, da heck?" she asks me.

I turn myself to face her and give her a confused look. "What?"