10. Jasper Ridge

10

Jasper Ridge

“ E arth to cap.”

“Shit. Maybe he’s having a stroke, Mali?”

“Lachy, he is not having a stroke.”

“He’s been staring into the fridge for the past ten minutes and you’re not concerned in the slightest?”

“He’s just thinking , stupid. You should try it sometime. Could work wonders for that songwriters block you’ve become ever so attached to.”

“One, I do not have writers block—”

“— Ha , and I’m not short sighted.”

“And two, I do think. My brain is a wonderful place to be, Mali.”

“Your brain, Lachy, is far inferior—”

“—That’s not very nice.”

“I wasn’t finished , asshole.”

“Sorry, Mali. Carry on.”

“But if you actually used it in class, maybe everyone wouldn’t think of you as some thick songwriter destined for nothing more than his garage.”

“I do try! You know I do. It’s just…hard. The words, they don’t make sense, Mali. You know this! Lyrics, music …that’s my language.”

“I know, Lachlan. I know.”

“So…Cap isn’t having a stroke?”

“No, Lachy. He’s probably just thinking about his girl.”

“What a fucking way to meet again! Knocking her out with a surfboard, well done, Cap.”

I snapped my head in their direction, “Shut up, assholes. And for the record, if you two hadn’t been arguing over who could surf down the stairs the longest before falling off the board, it wouldn’t have gone over the banister in the first place.”

Kai raised his hands in surrender. “It was all Lachy’s idea, Cap. I was trying to talk him out of doing that.”

Lachlan completely ignored Kai throwing him under the bus.

“He didn’t deny you calling Poppy ‘his girl’” Lachlan grinned at Kai, nudging him with his elbow as he wiggled his brows suggestively at him, to which Kai just rolled his eyes and whacked him clean in the chest.

“Hey!” Lachlan gasped before turning to face me, “Cap, tell him off. He just hit me!”

“ Me ? You’re the one who knocked his childhood crush out with a surfboard!”

“I think you’ll find that—”

“ Children ,” I groaned, tipping my head backwards, “you’re both a bunch of children.”

Picking up a bottle of chilled water, I shut the fridge and leaned back against the counter tops. The house was completely empty apart from us three. Strange. Normally it took at least an hour or two to get everyone to leave. The more I scanned over the rooms, the more I noticed the lack of cups on the floor and the lack of liquor stains on the carpets. No broken furniture or shattered glass. It was quiet.

Too quiet.

As if sensing my thought trail, Kai said, “We told everyone to leave, like you said.”

Lachlan’s brows crossed as he took a swing of his beer. “It was so weird, Cap. We didn’t even have to force anyone out. Took like ten minutes, tops.”

Kai nodded in agreement. “Very weird.”

“Stop agreeing with me. It’s weird,” Lachlan grumbled.

“Stop being childish,” Kai retorted back.

“ Me ?” Lachlan gasped. “You’re the one with a giant stick up his ass about the philosophy of paint drying! Honestly, if you didn’t look like a sexy version of Clark Kent, girls would find you so boring.”

“I’m sorry my conversation skills and intellectual capacity exceeds yours,” Kai smirked.

I slammed the fridge door shut and began to walk towards the porch, leaving the two of them behind to argue about God knows what. Though, both of them appeared by my side within seconds.

“What’s that noise?” Lachlan questioned as I opened the sliding French doors that opened up onto the beach behind Jakson’s house.

Lachlan stumbled, lips agape. “Oh shit.”

I could feel Kai glare at Lachlan behind me.

But in front of me? There was a fucking beach bonfire happening. Heat immediately reached me, blasting at me like a furnace. My fists clenched as I scanned the beach for Nate and his minions. It was illegal to have a beach bonfire in summer here because of the huge risk of wildfires, but hey, being illegal just made it more desirable to them.

We all want what we can’t have.

At the surf school, I always made sure to remind the kids I taught about the dangers of wildfires and beach etiquette. It was the right thing to do, and if I could prevent even one death from something so easily avoidable, then it was worth it. It was always worth it.

Hawthorne Hills golden surf captain.

That was me.

I was cautious about who I let close to me because one wrong move and my entire reputation could be ruined, and then the possibility of making Pros would be crushed beneath my feet—and that was unacceptable for me. It was Pro or nothing, and I would do nothing to endanger that future. Especially start to care about a feisty, tall brunette with a fucking amazing mouth that drove me insane.

I was the captain —I had my guys to look after. I had to secure us a place in the state surf series championship this academic year and bring home gold because anything other than that was unacceptable for Hawthorne Hills Elite Academy’s surf team. It wasn’t unachievable for us, after all we were some of the best surfers in the state and thanks to the coaching and guidance from the Elite Academy’s coaches, we were a force to be reckoned with.

Though, at the same time, I also had to maintain my grades above average, perfect my image at all times, teach my students at the surf school, look after my mom, manage my finances and my future…it was all exhausting .

People always looked at me and thought everything was easy for me, and I never made any effort to change their minds. It didn’t bother me what they thought about me, but the way they all looked at me…I had always been everyone’s to love but no one’s to keep. To them, I was just something to be desired, a box to be ticked off a want-to-fuck list.

My mom had always told me that I had to start doing this because I wanted to and not because everyone else expected me to. That if this was my way of trying to fill my father’s shoes and continue his legacy, it had to be because I wanted to and not because I felt like this was something I had to do just to prove myself worthy of my last name.

Through the crowd, I spotted Xander, drink in one hand and the other slid around some girl’s waist, talking to a whole friend group of them. When his eyes met mine, the smirk on his lips thinned into a small line. Excusing himself with a playboy smile, he walked over to where me, Lachlan, and Kai stood on the back porch of Jakson’s house.

His parents were some hotshot real estate agents who were never home, so he got some of the spare rooms renovated for me and Lia a good handful of summers back. I, for one, practically lived there with him now, and I knew Lia tried to spend as much time as she could there with us—anything, if it meant not going home. I knew if I asked her, she’d say that Jakson’s house was more of a home than hers ever would be to her.

“Cap,” Xander slurred, a reddish glow around his bloodshot eyes, “nice seeing you here.”

I was in no fucking mood for games. “What the fuck is this?”

He laughed, spreading his arms out to gesture to the beach where more than seventy students, give or take, were drinking and dancing around the fire. “Another party, can you believe it? It’s like Christmas.”

I pushed my hands against his chest, which sent him stumbling a few steps backwards. “What the fuck are you doing, man?”

“You’re not my father, Jasper,” he gritted out, “I don’t need you micromanaging my life too. I’ve already got a whole fuck load of people doing that, I don’t need you to as well.”

“Oh yeah? You may be the king of these streets, Xander Hawthorne, but make no fucking mistake that when your here, your under my authority. I’m your Captain, so sober up, get your head on straight, and give me a fucking reason why I should keep you on this team. Are we clear?”

His glossy eyes blinked.

“Are we fucking clear, Hawthorne?” I repeated.

Xander nodded and tipped out the rest of his drink onto the sandy grass of the garden that was littered in grains of golden sand and red plastic cups.

Stepping around him, I began to walk down the path onto the beach feeling completely and utterly drained.

“That was an asshole move, Xan.” I heard Kai say behind me.

“I just wanted a bit of fun,” Xander grumbled, “I never get to have any fun. Not like you two. You don’t get how good you have it. You get to choose your own future! Whilst I…It was just a bit of fun, since when was that a crime? Come on Lachlan, back me up here.”

Lachlan grinned mischievously. “Nah, Cap just seriously needs to get laid.”

I turned around to see them all nod in agreement. As soon as I flipped them all off, they dispersed and began to walk over to groups of people in hopes of getting them to leave.

I was about to join them when I spotted a familiar beige and gray folklore cardigan and an idiot who didn’t know how to follow instructions. Making a headline over to Jakson and Lia, I ignored the group of girls calling my name. He’d gotten her that cardigan when Folklore came out, I think anyway. She had a whole collection of them in her closet that he’d gotten her just because it was something she wanted.

I remembered when Lover came out, we were in the queue for the drop tower at the carnival and she looked up at him with those midnight eyes. “You need to stop it Jak, I don’t need you buying me gifts! I feel guilty enough that you pay for my lunch every day already.”

A grin tugged on his lips as he nudged her playfully. “Come on, little Blue. You know if it’s something you want, I would get it for you in a heartbeat because seeing your joyous smiles and knowing I was the reason for them is better than anything else my money could ever buy.”

I grinned, proudly overhearing his words as the woman checked our safety bars were secured. As much as I hated the idea of them together, I knew that there would be no one else worthy for each of them but each other. I was surprised that both of them didn’t seem realize that too.

Just as I reached them, ready to punch Jakson in the gut because if I bruised his other eye, he’d probably whine saying that one black eye was sexy, two was like taping a piece of paper to his back calling him a loser, Lia grabbed both my hands and looked up at me with those ocean blue eyes.

“It wasn’t his fault, Jas. It was mine, don’t blame him, please.”

Fuck , how was I supposed to say no to that? She knew that I would never hurt her, the little devil. Lowering my hands, I glared at both of them.

“What the hell guys? You should’ve taken her home ,” I said, pointing to Jakson before turning to Lia, “and you should’ve let him.”

As Jakson was about to speak, Lia sent a warning glance at him before turning back to me. “I just wanted some fun, Jas. You owe me that at least.”

I stopped myself from gaping at her.

I owed her nothing, but I knew better than to argue with Lia Davis .

Quietly, she added, “I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”

I closed my mouth.

Today was the reminder of the day that CPS separated her and all her siblings a few years ago. She refused to talk about what happened when she was with a placement family. Not a single word. When she came back home to Hawthorne Hills half a year later, she was completely different—she refused to say a word to anyone for months . It took everything to get a small smile or a little nod out of her.

As much as it was exhausting, my patience was always infinite for her. The best I could do was to be by her side and occupy her mind—we baked everything in at least three of my mom’s old baking books, surfed every single wave the ocean could muster each morning for the rest of the year. We had a movie night at Sonny’s every weekend and managed to watch every Disney movie at least twice.

Jakson and I even reenacted the Moana movie for her when it got really bad one night. I multi-rolled Maui and some other side characters and Jakson had the time of his life pretending to be Moana—he even bought a costume and everything. It was a size 7-8 years old and barely fit round his legs, but he did it anyway. Though, I think him being that chicken was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen him do.

I knew he did it all for her. We both did.

We didn’t question why it was always Disney movies that we watched that year. If Lia wanted to watch them all, we watched them all. Simple as that. Part of me thought that it was because she was scared of losing the little girl inside her so she did everything she could to preserve those good memories and make new ones over the ones that haunted her.

Lia was a stranger to her own childhood because she had to grow up too fast, and I think once she realized that, she did everything she could to slow time down. She feared disappointing her younger self more than she feared the memories that came with it.

Lia Davis had been lost in the darkness without a light for so many years that she had forgotten what it felt like to have a home —forgotten what it felt like to feel loved, and no matter how many times we both wanted to change the ending, Peter still lost Wendy, just how Lia lost herself .

Her, Jakson, and I were always together that year and nothing could separate us. We became her light, her home . No wonder Sonny turned around and came back as soon as she’d said those words to him. It was what I would’ve done. How could I fault him for that?

“That’s my girl,” Jakson beamed. “Saving my ass, again.”

He wrapped his arms around Lia’s waist and playfully twirled her around in the air. She shrieked and forcefully threw her arms on top of his, smacking his hands, demanding he put her down. He pressed a whisper of a kiss to the side of her cheek, and you could see the tension in her body dissipate at his touch.

I knew that Lia could reach into the darkness and pull him back to the light, but I never considered that Jakson might be the only one who could do the same for her. Part of me wanted to be surprised, begged for it even, but deep down…I knew.

He was her jedi knight in shining armor.

But Lia? She was his everything .

I pretended to gag, to which Jakson rolled his eyes as he set Lia down on the sand. She nestled into his side subconsciously. The both of them suddenly looked past me and gaped. As I turned around, her words met me halfway.

“ Spiderman .”

Only one person called me Spiderman . My childhood nickname.

And there she was, marching down the beach towards me—Poppy Maria Isabelle Wells. Her lips were pulled into a thin, furious line.

My jersey was long gone from her tanned body.

“ Wellsy ,” I mused as she neared, “good to see you’re still in one piece.”

When she reached me, she wasted no time before punching the underside of my jaw. I stumbled backwards a few steps into Jakson, who grasped the side of my shoulder with a tight grip. Poppy didn’t stop there, though. No , Poppy Wells didn’t do anything half-arsed. She flung her hands against my chest, smacking and pushing against my chest in a furious frenzy.

“You asshole! ” she yelled, eyes swollen and reddish.

I grasped both her wrists, tugging them to lay against my chest. Each squirm of her body fighting mine just made me pull her closer towards me.

“Whoa, Wellsy. You don’t want to bruise my ego too, now, do you?”

“Oh no, I do. You need knocking down a few pegs,” she smiled, teeth bared, “or perhaps being knocked out altogether. That seems fair, don’t you think?”

Jakson snickered behind me.

People began to gather around us, no doubt thriving on this drama. I leaned down to her, my breaths caressing her earlobe. “Is this where you want to do this, Wellsy? I mean, I’m all for an audience,” I smirked, and she took that as an invitation to knee me in the gut and twist her wrists free. Fuck me . If I forgot why people called her the Orca, I sure as hell didn’t now.

“You’re an asshole, you know that, Ridge? You haven’t changed at all. I’m not even sure why I thought you would.”

I tasted something bitter on my tongue the moment the words left her mouth . I’m not even sure why I thought you would. Why was that replaying in my head? I pushed her words away and plastered a smirk on my lips. I didn’t have time to play this sappy game with her.

I didn’t have time for her. End of.

“Get the fuck off my beach, Poppy, and go back to wherever you ran home from.” My eyes burned and my chest felt like it was being crushed. I regretted the words as soon as I said them but it didn’t matter now.

It never did .

I was just a decoration. Just a means of other’s entertainment. She’d get over my words in a few days, or perhaps she’d pack up and leave again. I wished she would leave. I couldn’t think straight whenever she was near. This year, with everything I had on the line, was the worst fucking time she could’ve returned, and I’d make sure she knew that. Maybe it would scare her away. Maybe she’d just leave me the hell alone. I moved on.

Not like there was anything to move on from in the first place, but metaphorically speaking, I was done .

“I fucking hate you,” she said, quietly. The fire in her eyes burned, the very fire that mirrored the one burning inside my own eyes. She didn’t scream or cry or stay silent. No . She glared at me with an undeniable hatred in her eyes and prayed that my last breath would come sooner than later. The thought made me want to smile, it was so… her , but I forced myself to repress that urge.

“Then leave, ” I said with the same coldness.

But, just then, Nate Fucking Slater came up behind her and pushed her behind him.

“I can handle my own fights—”

“Oh, shut up and be grateful I’m here.”

That bastard .

He was going to fucking die tonight.

No one silenced my Wellsy. Fucking no one .

“Get the fuck off her,” I scowled.

She huffed like she was amused whilst Nate squared himself in front of me.

“Why should I? She’s not your whore,” he laughed, “and even if she was, that wouldn’t stop me anyway.”

I heard Lia gag behind me and immediately I turned to make sure she was okay. Jakson must have seen the worry in my eyes as he whispered something to Lia, tugging on her wrist gently. She shook her head, brows scrunched. With one look at me, Jakson slipped his hands around her legs and front-piggybacked her up towards the house.

“Jasper!” I heard someone yell just as a fist busted the side of my face and I kissed the sand. Spitting the grains back out of my mouth, I pushed back up onto my knees, but before I could, more fists and feet rained down on me from above. I couldn’t count how many people were beating me. I didn’t want to know.

Lia . She was inside, I reminded myself. She wouldn’t see this. Good . I didn’t know why I wasn’t stopping them. I could’ve easily gotten up and started smashing in their faces. They knew that too. But I didn’t make any move to fight back.

Maybe it was because this was what I deserved. Maybe it was because the pain in my head now felt like it was real—you could ice a bruise, not a thought. They yelled at me to get up and fight them back. Spat their words at me as they kicked my chest. The pain blurred with every beating. But it went quiet. Their words. The pain. Everything washed away into silence. Peace.

“Stop it, you fucking idiots! ”

Wellsy . I knew her voice. I always heard her voice.

I wanted to smile but I could barely feel my face anymore.

Arms wrapped under my own, pulling me up to my feet. I was about to punch them with every inch of strength I had left until I realized it was my boys. They said nothing to me, only stabilized me. Their glares were fixated on Nate and his minions.

“You are so pathetic, Jasper. It’s actually laughable! Didn’t your daddy teach you how to be a man? Oh yeah…you don’t have one.”

People snickered and whispered to their friends. I didn’t care anymore. In that moment, I didn’t care what they had to say about me. Tomorrow, I would deal with it and threaten anyone who gossiped about what happened here tonight. I’d make sure Lia and Poppy were kept out of their fucking mouths.

The blaring sound of cop cars echoed in the distance and immediately people began to pick up their stuff and frantically run away.

Poppy held up her phone and waved it under Nate’s nose.

“Want me to call your precious daddy too? I’m sure he’d be thrilled to know all about tonight, don’t you think, princess ?”

All the strength I had left went into the smile that hung desperately to my lips.

That was the Wellsy I knew.

Nate took one look at her and her phone before gesturing to his minions to back down. With one last look, he spat on the floor at my feet and walked away. I was so fucking smashing him in the heats next week. So badly until he forgot his fucking name .

Turning to me, Poppy shoved her phone in her back pocket.

“That was badass, Poppy.” I heard Lachlan grin from behind me, but she didn’t look at him—didn’t even acknowledge his words. Just looked at me with an expression I couldn’t place.

“Jasper, I—”

My eyes locked onto where I knew her bruises where lying beneath Nate’s jersey. I couldn’t get them out of my head. Out of my heart.

“You’re okay, right?” I interrupted her. “At home, I mean. Everything’s okay? You’re not in danger or anything?”

Say you’re okay, Wellsy. Tell me everything’s okay.

Please.

Her eyes widened a fraction, lips parting slightly in shock before she regained her composure and glared at me, offering no answer. That only made my thoughts race and my heart thump even louder in my ears.

Tell me you’re okay, Wellsy.

Tell me you’re okay before I lose myself trying to find out on my own.

Her fingers grazed the air just above where I’d seen those bruises covering her skin. With one look at me, she sighed, suddenly avoiding my gaze. “Everything’s fine, Ridge.”

“Then why are you still here?” I snapped.

Her mouth shut instantly, eyes shooting towards mine. Her mouth opened like she wanted to shout something equally as stupid back at me, but instead, she closed it.

And without a second glance, she turned and walked away.

I kept my eyes on her back until I could no longer see her blurred figure in the distance.

From behind me, one of the guys smacked the back of my head whilst the others groaned in disappointment or maybe annoyance.

I didn’t know and didn’t care.

But the bruises…

Lachlan shook his head. “You’re a fucking asshole, Cap.”

Yeah, I was.