Secret Bay High Issues (Secret Bay High - Book #5) Read online

  It wasn’t like I could really describe them well. They were so covered with their glasses and hoodies, I didn’t know where to begin. It was going to be hard enough telling Damon about them without freaking out all over. I hoped he did know who they were and what they meant – and if I should be worried.

  I tried to get my mind off the situation by doing homework. Then, when I found that too hard, I tried to just browse the internet and see if there was some random videos I could watch that would take my mind off what happened.

  When that didn’t work, I just tried to sleep for an hour or two until Damon got back. But even that resulted in me tossing and turning and feeling sick to my stomach. I couldn’t think straight, and all I wanted was for Damon to get back so I could tell him what was going on.

  I sighed. Though I wanted to believe I was a lot braver than this, it didn’t take much for me to be launched into worrying that the worst was going to happen. I had been beaten back time and time again by the kids at school, by the hardship life threw at me, through the subtle threats I got from Dean, everything.

  I was sensitive to what was said and what might happen, and I didn’t know what to do.

  At long last, I heard Damon walk through the door. He said something to Susan in the kitchen before he walked up the stairs, but I waited until he was in his room before I slowly and quietly slipped out of mine. I didn’t want Susan to overhear the two of us talking, and I knew our voices could carry down the stairs and to the kitchen pretty easily.

  After checking to make sure Dean hadn’t somehow managed to slip home without me realizing it, I stepped over to Damon’s door and knocked lightly. He opened it, but as soon as he saw me, his eyes widened.

  “Sutton? You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.

  “I need to tell you something,” I whispered. “And I think it’s bad.”

  “Okay?” he looked at me with concern in his face. “Did something happen at school today? You didn’t come down to the shop afterward so I wondered if someone said something.”

  I shook my head. “I was going to come down to see you, but then I saw Dean’s truck up front and I didn’t want to talk to him, so I was taking the bay walk home and I was stopped by three men. They said to give you a message about paying up or something.”

  I was on the verge of tears, but Damon didn’t wait to hear anymore. He pulled the door the rest of the way open before grabbing my arm and dragging me inside. Then, he listened in the hall for a moment to make sure Susan hadn’t heard anything that had passed between us before closing the door.

  There weren’t locks on our bedroom doors, so he pulled the chair from his desk and propped it up under the doorknob. It wasn’t enough to keep anyone out for very long, but it would be enough to stop them from just walking into the room while we were talking.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I wasn’t afraid to let my anxiety show, but Damon didn’t answer as he walked me over to the bed and pushed my shoulders so I would sit down. He bent forward, his hands still on my shoulders as he looked me right in the eyes.

  I could see the worry in his expression as he looked right into my soul, but he tried to be as calm as possible as he spoke.

  “I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out,” he said. “This is important.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the racing of my heart. I was sick with anxiety, and I didn’t want to forget anything that had happened that afternoon. On the other hand, I had been thinking about it since I had been accosted by those men in the first place. It wasn’t likely I was going to forget anything. I took a deep breath.

  “I was walking home on the boardwalk from the bay heading up toward the street, then these three men all dressed in black came over to me. I couldn’t see much of their faces, and they didn’t tell me who they were. They just asked if I lived with you, then they told me that they had a message for you. They said that you need to pay up, or else,” I said.

  “Did they give you an actual threat?” I asked.

  I shook my head. “I asked them what they meant by that, but they just said that you would know.”

  There was silence in the room for a moment, and I looked at Damon with tears filling my eyes. He rose from bending in front of me and walked back and forth in the bedroom. He shook his head slightly and was muttering under his breath, but I couldn’t make out anything he was saying.

  Then, I remembered his promise. He told me if I was completely honest with him, then he would be honest with me from now on. I had tried to be respectful and not ask him for all his secrets despite the fact I was dying to know, but now, this felt too big to just ignore.

  “Why do you have men threatening you?” I asked. “Who were they? Why did they come to me to give you the message? And how did they even know that you and I live together?”

  I didn’t know any of them. They had seemed only vaguely familiar, but then, Secret Bay wasn’t a very large place. It was expensive, but just because it was on the upper class side of things, that didn’t mean it was very large. But, I didn’t get the impression from those men that they were part of the upper class.

  They seemed like lowlifes to me, and I didn’t know what Damon would be doing with the likes of them in the first place. He took a deep breath and shook his head once more, but he still didn’t answer me, so I tried again.

  “Damon! You promised you would tell me the truth from now on and stop hiding things from me! Who were those men and why do they want to give you a warning like that?” I pressed.

  Damon grimaced when I reminded him of his promise. He knew he couldn’t go back on that, not after all that I had shared with him. But, he really didn’t seem to want me to know what was going on.

  “Look,” he said at last. “I’ve got this under control. I don’t know why they chose to come to you instead of just coming to me directly. Maybe they knew that it would scare you and that would make me mad. Maybe they just wanted to make a show of things, but I’ve got this.”

  “But why do you owe them money? And why are they so serious about it?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you soon, but I don’t want to talk about this until I’m done with my last fight,” he said.

  I looked at him in surprise once more. “I thought you were done with the fighting. You said that the last fight you did was the last one you were going to ever have to do.”

  “I know,” Damon said, letting the frustration show in his tone. “But I’m in sort of a messy situation with those guys right now, and they aren’t exactly letting this whole thing go as smoothly as I hoped. I’ve got a few more things I need to tie up, then I’m going to be done.”

  “How many more fights do you have to do?” I demanded. I didn’t want to sound like Susan, but I had been so happy when he told me that he was going to be done with the underground street fighting, it made me mad to think that he was going to continue.

  “I told you, I’ve got a few things I have to wrap up. I can’t tell you everything right now, but I’m going to tell you as soon as I can, okay? Just trust me on this. I’m going to take care of it, and they aren’t going to do anything to you,” he said.

  “But what are they going to do to you?” I cried out. I had been startled when the men had come to me, but I was even more concerned about Damon. They had made the threat against him, and they seemed serious. I didn’t know what kind of men they were, and I could only imagine they meant it when they said he was going to pay.

  “Sutton, I know you want answers, but I just can’t give them to you right now,” Damon was getting frustrated, but so was I. I didn’t want to argue with him, but at the same time, I wanted him to tell me what was going on. Part of me was tempted to go to Susan over the whole thing after all. Perhaps getting her involved in this would help save Damon from himself.

  But, with the way he was acting, I was also concerned I had been right to suspect these weren’t the kind of men I wanted
to get involved with. I didn’t want to make them mad and prompt them to do something drastic. Though I didn’t want to be paranoid or live a life of fear, that didn’t change the fact that I often thought about what happened to my parents when it came to this kind of situation.

  Still, with what happened to my parents, I was far more likely to get the authorities involved early if I had to. I didn’t want to risk something bad happening to Damon, and if he was in too deep, that could be a possibility.

  We were getting angry with each other, and I wanted to just get up and storm out of the room. I loved Damon, and I was frustrated with him for being in this situation in the first place.

  I was worried sick about him.

  Chapter 4

  Sutton

  I sat on the end of the bed, trying not to be too angry at the fact Damon wouldn’t tell me exactly what was going on right now. I knew he was trying to protect me, and there were things he didn’t want me to worry about, but still. I felt that his promise to be open and honest with me should include sharing things that he didn’t necessarily want to share.

  I wasn’t going to tell Susan or Dean if he didn’t want me to, but at least it would give me something to ease my mind. At least a little. I was going crazy with worry wondering what he could have gotten himself in to now, and the fact he wouldn’t tell me the truth right away only added to the anxiety I felt.

  Damon, on the other hand, also seemed a little upset by the situation, more so than just because I was angry with him. He was clearly agitated, and the mention of these three men just made it worse.

  It only caused more questions to flood my brain. Like where did these men come from? How did he get involved with them in the first place? Why did he owe them money? Where did that money he borrowed from them go? Why did he borrow money from anyone in the first place if he could get money from Susan?

  He was really young when he moved in with Susan, and I didn’t at all get the impression she was new to money. Even when we were in grade school, Damon was always wearing some of the most expensive clothes in class, his shoes were always new, and he always had a new backpack at the beginning of the year, too.

  I couldn’t imagine there was ever a time when he lived with Susan that he ever really had to outsource getting money for anything he wanted, especially since Susan clearly wanted to win his affection and had strange ways of doing it.

  “You promised you weren’t going to keep things from me anymore,” I challenged. “But here we are, me wondering yet again what you’ve got yourself involved in, and you not telling me anything helpful! You need to tell me the truth, Damon!”

  “Listen, Sutton, I know this was scary for you to deal with, and it came as a shock to you, but you’ve got to trust me. All of this is going to make sense when I’m done with that last fight,” he said.

  “You said you were going to be done with fighting after the last one!” I snapped, rising from the bed. “How can I trust anything you tell me when you keep changing your story, and you won’t tell me the truth now?”

  “Sutton! I’m not going to let anything bad happen. Not to you, not to me, not to anyone, and I’m not meaning to change my story on you, I thought that was going to be my last fight. But, things happen, and I can’t get out of them right away all the time,” Damon said.

  “I feel like you’re hiding something from me. Like there’s something you aren’t telling me and you’re just hoping I don’t find out about it,” I shot back. “Because you know I love you and trust that you’re going to tell me the truth, so you leave stuff out!”

  “That’s not true!” Damon snapped. He hesitated, and the two of us listened for a moment. The conversation was getting heated, but we didn’t want Susan to get involved or to even hear that we were having an altercation in the first place.

  She hated all the tension that was in the house, and I knew she would try to keep the peace if she heard us arguing. But, it didn’t seem like we’d attracted any of her attention, so I sighed.

  “I’m going back to my room,” I said. I was done with the conversation. Clearly, Damon wasn’t going to tell me what was going on, and I felt crappy hearing him go around and around without opening up about the truth. If he wasn’t going to be up front with me about everything, then I needed to have some space from him.

  I knew it was the fear and worry that I had over what he was doing that fueled some of the anger I felt toward the whole situation, but at the same time, I did want him to be honest with me. I wanted him to trust me enough to be able to tell me anything – even before it happened.

  My imagination had a tendency to run away with me, and I knew that could make things worse between us. I could dream up all kinds of bad things and assume they were going to happen, and when Damon wasn’t giving me any straight answers, I didn’t know what to do with any of it.

  Whenever I felt overwhelmed, my reaction was to leave, and that’s what I was doing now. I wanted to have time to think about all of this and just let Damon deal with it how he felt was best. It wasn’t my job to fix this for him, but I still worried.

  But, Damon could see that I was upset, and as I pushed past him and toward the door, he grabbed my arm, pulling me back to face him.

  “Come on now,” he said. “Don’t take it like that. I know you’re just worried about me and you care about what’s going on, but I need you to trust me on this. I’m not trying to hide anything from you, I just don’t want this to get out of hand, and the fewer people who know what’s going on, the better.”

  “You don’t trust me?” I asked, a lump in my throat.

  “I don’t trust the rest of the world, and you’ve been through so much, I don’t want to drag you into this,” he said. “You don’t deserve any more trouble than what you’re already dealing with.”

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him the I was there for him, and the whole reason I wanted to be so open with him was so he could feel free to be open with me in return. We had both made the promise to each other to be there for each other through everything, and while I understood where he was coming from, I also disagreed with his need to keep me at a distance.

  Of course I’d never share anything he told me with anyone. It wasn’t anyone else’s business. But, I knew Damon had gone through a lot in his life, too, and he had a hard time opening up to people like I did. It took me a long time to be able to open up to him, that was for sure.

  So, I could only expect him to be the same toward me.

  Still, it hurt that he reacted that way. And that hurt easily turned to anger. That happened to me a lot these days,

  I couldn’t remember the last time I was so angry with Damon, and he knew it, too. As I tried to yank my arm back, he leaned forward, pressing his lips to mine. Although I was angry, he was still irresistible to me, and that kiss made me melt.

  I wanted him, and the anger fueled a stronger passion toward him. Neither of us felt even a little bit better, but we started tearing our clothes off. It was as though we could read each other’s minds. The clothes fell to the floor, both of us undressing at the same time.

  In an instant, we were naked and in each other’s arms, kissing with an even greater passion than before. I’d never had angry sex or makeup sex before, and I could now feel how intense the emotions were as the passion coursed through our veins.

  We moved toward the bed, but instead of falling on the sheets like we usually did, I turned, facing away from Damon and pushing my ass out toward him. His hands were on my hips, running up my sides and to my tits as he pressed his dick to me from behind.

  I spread my legs as he entered me, letting out a soft moan. We had to be quiet, we were both concerned Susan would hear us, and with the argument still pretty fresh, there was a chance she was listening in more to hear how things were going between us.

  But, it was hard to keep my voice down with him pumping his dick into me from behind. In and out, fast and hard. I felt every part of his cock in a whole new way. I had grown used to how
Damon felt when he was on top of me, our faces toward each other, but this was different.

  The anger we both felt was starting to melt, the touch of our bodies coming together overtaking any of the pain and fear that we shared. Instead, it was being replaced with a passion and a love that we had for one another, the bond that had grown between us throughout the months we had been living together.

  With each thrust, I was being pushed closer to climax, and I knew Damon wasn’t going to last long in that position, either. He pushed into me hard once more, causing the tension in my body to explode. I let out another soft cry as the pleasure ran through me, filling me from the very core of my being.

  His hands moved from my hips to my tits once more, standing me up to kiss me from behind as he continued to pump into me. His cock buckled then pulsed as he emptied his load deep inside my pussy, giving me all that he had inside him.

  We stayed together, standing against the edge of his bed with his cock buried deep inside until he had finished cumming. I put my arms up and over my head, running my hands through his hair as much as I could reach as I turned my head to kiss him.

  The pleasure replaced most of the tension that we felt toward each other, and Damon pulled out of me, wrapping his arms around me and sitting on the bed as close to me as he could be, pulling me into him. I laid my head on his shoulder. We weren’t mad at each other anymore, but I was still worried about what happened that day, and I hoped he really did have the situation under control.

  Damon’s fingers brushed lightly against my shoulder, and he kissed the side of my head as he drew in a deep breath.

  “I’m not going to let anything bad happen, I promise,” he said. “And as soon as this is over, I’m going to tell you everything. Anything you want to know I’m going to tell you. Just a few more fights, and I’ll be done with that for good, and all this can be pushed into the past.”

  I nodded, but said nothing. I wanted to believe him. I knew he would do his best, but at the same time, I had thought things were going to be pushed into the past so many times and they always came back to haunt me. It didn’t seem like I would ever be able to move on with my life.