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“There’s different levels of trust Raven.” He shakes his head at me.
“I’m planning to stay over, I have you all in my room right now! I’d say that’s a pretty high level of trust!”
He shakes his head again and sighs. “Yes, you trust us to be gentlemen around you, and to look out for you, and see that you get home safely. But you don’t trust in us. You don’t confide in us. When Bloomberg freaked you out, you ran and hid. You didn’t trust us to tell you the truth. You didn’t trust us enough to ask or even demand answers to your questions, your doubts. You don’t trust us with any of your secrets. You keep us completely at arm’s length, even when we’re kissing you. You don’t let us in.”
And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? I don’t - I can’t - trust them. Even before I found out they were involved with my sister somehow, I couldn’t tell these guys the truth about who I am and why I’m here. I can’t ever tell them. So I’ve somehow accidentally built a relationship based on a lie. Several lies in fact. Even though the feelings are real. The stupid thing is, that even though I’m pretending to be someone else when I’m with the guys, I’m more myself than I’ve been in years. The realisation makes me want to cry.
“That’s not something I can give yet, maybe even ever.”
Jax nods understandingly and squeezes my feet. “I know. We know. There’s something in your past that’s made you unable to trust, we get it. But we also want you to know that we’re patient, and we’ll always be here for you - no conditions attached. You don’t ever have to confide in us to that level, but please trust us. At least promise to try?”
“O-Okay,” I sniff. I try to slyly wipe away my tears, but Rebel catches my hand and stops me. He leans over and kisses each tear away instead, and my heart somersaults and stutters.
“Come. It’s time,” Ace announces, standing up. The guys all stand too, Rebel gently placing me on my feet.
“Time? For what?”
Rebel looks down at what I’m wearing – PJ shorts, a vest top and a hoodie - and grins. “I hope you have some warmer clothes than that, Princess! It’s bonfire night, and we have about twenty minutes before the fireworks begin.”
I groan and scramble to find more suitable clothing. I figured we’d had enough fireworks this weekend and today to last a lifetime, but I guess not.
Luckily, these turned out to be the best kind.
***
The guys decide to make my room their new common room. Instead of going home after class or after dinner, they mostly hang out in my room, lounging on the furniture and making it virtually impossible for me to get any work done. It’s frustrating because I can’t work on Lizzie’s journal when they’re around, but I do manage to ignore Rebel tickling my feet and Thorn trying to tempt me to play the X-box that they’ve installed in my room in favour of getting homework done at least. Ace studies alongside me, preferring to sit at the desk, while I sprawl on the bed. Jax joins Thorn playing games. Rebel mostly whines that he’s bored.
“Do you know guys, I don’t know much about you, really?”
“What’s to know? I’m an open book,” Rebel declares. “Ask me anything.”
“What’s your favourite colour?”
“Black.” He’s so matter-of-fact it makes me laugh. I turn to the others.
“Red,” Ace says without hesitation. Come to think of it, he’s nearly always wearing red when he’s out of his uniform. It really suits him.
“Blue, all shades of blue. I can’t narrow it down, so don’t try to make me!” I laugh at Thorn, unsurprised that my surfer loves every shade of blue.
“Green,” Jax gives me a wink, “about the same shade as your eyes.”
“No fair!” Rebel whines. “I want to pick green too. I didn’t know we were using this as an opportunity to hit on her.”
“What are your real names?”
“Rebel.”
“No fucking way? Your parents really called you Rebel?” He shrugs.
“I’m Californian. They love their crazy names out there. The more obscure the name, the bigger the fame.” I laugh because it’s kinda true. But then again we have Brits calling their kids things like Apple, so who am I to judge?
“I really am called Thorn. My mum wanted to call me Thor, but dad put his foot down and said anything but that, so she chose Thorn thinking that people would shorten it to Thor. Dad says I’ve been a thorn in his side ever since the day I was born.”
“Is he joking?”
“You’ll see when you meet him.” Wow okay. There’s a story there to figure out, but I’m more sidetracked by the fact he thinks I’ll meet his parents someday.
“Jax is short for Jaxon.”
