Chapter 11:
I could hear Mike and Noël fighting and I flinched with each word. I could hear and feel Noel's pain as Mike threw a punch and I knew I had to get out of here as fast as I possibly could. Running past Mike's car and out of the car park I looked for a bus stand or cab. Anything that could get me out of here. Turning a corner I saw someone getting out of a cab and I rushed over just in time.
"Please could I get a ride?" I asked tapping on the cab driver's window. He nodded and signaled for me to get in. Breathing a sigh of relief I told him my address and tapped nervously on the window.
"You alright love?" The cab driver asked.
"Please just get there as fast as possible." My voice sounded coarse, but I knew I was close to screaming at him so had to be calm.
"Nearly there. Don't get your knickers in a twist." Usually I would have talked to the cab driver, admired his british accent, but now I was focused on going home to New York.
"TOM!" I yelled knocking relentlessly on the door. It had been a few hours since I had rushed home to get my duffle bag with some clothes so I could stay away from Rosewood for a few days.
"Coming." A voice replied, muffled by the door. As soon as the door flung open I threw myself on to Tom, throwing my bag aside, for a much-needed hug.
"Niki, what are you doing here?" Tom asked clearly elated. He led me to the couch where I fell onto it, not realizing how tired I was from the long journey.
"Coffee?" I asked, avoiding his question.
"School is honestly not the same without you guys! Like everyone is fighting to be on top now, especially the girls!" Tom laughed taking a long sip of his coffee.
"But they're just not me." I finished his sentence, something we had been doing since forever.
"And the teachers are all whacked out, giving detentions to everyone for everything. Honestly they are all techy and grumpy about it all. Probably because they're not getting the booty." Tom added a snide remark causing me to hit him playfully on the chest before bursting with laughter.
"So how is everything in Rosewood?" Tom asked, putting a posh voice on for Rosewood. I opened my mouth and tried to reach for words, but there was nothing to describe my hatred competing with love for the place.
"Nikita at a struggle for words? This must make history!" Tom joked, hitting a little close to home.
"Seems to be happening a lot recently." I shrugged, trying to be indifferent. I was elated when I heard a knock on the door, so thankful for a distraction.
"Don't get it." Tom whispered. What was he hiding?
"Are you kidding? I need to catch up with my old New Yorkers!" I whispered back.
"Please." Tom urged me not to, which encouraged me to answer it.
"What? Is it a girl?" I asked jumping off the couch to answer the door. When Tom blushed I knew I had hit the jackpot. I swung opened the door and almost closed it on the girls face.
"Hay babe." The girl looked up from her phone and her face visibly dropped.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jenna asked storming past me into the apartment.
"I could ask you the same thing!" I replied, why was Jenna calling Tom 'babe'?
"Is she why you're not having sex with me? Getting it from the town bike?" Jenna screamed at Tom. Hold up, this meant they were together.
"Ew! That's incest." I retorted before pushing my hands to my mouth, hoping she hadn't heard my comment.
"Incest? That means... no." Jenna connected the dots in her head.
"I guess she was going to find out sooner or later." Tom shrugged sitting down on the couch.
"Wait so you ran away from your brothers for your other brother? Oh right, you need to answer your phone. Everyone is worrying about you as if you're dying." Jenna shrugged, snuggling into Tom. Ew how could he be with her?
"You ran away from Blake and Jesse?" Tom exclaimed.
"Not exactly..." I replied sitting on the lazyboy opposite them.
"I'm surprised they let you get away." Tom looked confused and I knew I had to fill him in on what happened.
"Um I never told you why I was here aye?" I asked and Tom shook his head. I sighed and filled him in on everything that had happened, finding Blake injured, me telling Blake and Jesse about mom and dad, Mike and Noel's fight. Everything.
"What do you mean since Jesse was five? We share a fucking birthday!" Tom exclaimed clearly annoyed at me.
"I couldn't say it was since Blake was five months old could I?" I retorted.
"Yes you could! Tomorrow we are going back to Rosewood and we are going to tell our brothers the truth, the whole truth." Tom warned.
"Anyway since when did this happen and why am I only finding out now?" I asked returning the cheerful tone to my voice and reaching in to my bag to turn my phone on.
"A while now, seven months tomorrow." Jenna replied, clearly all loved up. Unfortunately for her the first message I saw was from Spencer. My brothers girlfriend, the same brother Jenna was trying to get with.
"So you have a thing for Taylor boys don't you?" I asked coldly.
"Jesse was a long time ago Niki." Tom warned me to shut up, but he had to know the truth.
"Long time ago? Then why are you using your best efforts to get Jesse back? To break up his relationship with Spence?" I asked, making Jenna turn bright red and Tom recoil from her.
"Babe tell me this isn't true." Tom was clearly worried and I felt slightly bad.
"I have some issues with Spencer. I wasn't trying to get Jesse back, I was just getting revenge." Jenna replied, I let them get on with their fighting and returned to checking my phone. There was several texts from Mike asking if I was okay, apologizing, checking up on me and it made me feel terrible for running away. There was even more Noël, no matter how much I told myself I didn't care about him, I craved that kiss. Then there were a few from the girls, I sent them a quick text saying I was fine, staying with a friend. None from the parents, typical. Jesse and Blake had sent more than everyone put together and then there was one more. From unknown. Lucky me.
I'm sure Mikey will love you running into the arms of another boy! Mwah - A Xx
"Fuck!" I exclaimed knowing that A probably had a million pictures of me being very close to Noël and Tom. Okay that Mike had already punched Noël for what had nearly happened, but Mike didn't know about Tom. He probably would assume he was some old boyfriend from New York. Standing up I wandered into Tom's room for some silence. The silence I would need to tell Mike what was going on. Dialing his number I took a long deep breath and pressed the phone to my ear.
"Hay babe! Everyone is worried sick about you!" Mike spoke, picking up the phone.
"I'm fine. Really." I spoke softly trying to convince the both of us.
"Where are you?" I loved the way Mike seemed to care. It was a welcome change from the previous guys I had dated.
"Um staying with Tom in New York." I replied half hoping that Mike wouldn't ask who Tom was.
"Who's Tom?" Mike asked in a defensively hot voice.
"Is that jealousy I hear? Sexy!" I giggled trying to avoid the question.
"You're still not giving me a reason to not be jealous." Mike playfully replied.
"Tom, well Tom," I didn't exactly know how to break the news to him, especially when my brothers didn't know.
"Tom is my brother, but you can't tell anyone." I quickly blurted out, like tearing off a band-aid right?
"You have another brother? Do your brothers know you are with him?" Mike asked all jealousy removed from his voice, just shock and surprise.
"Um they may not exactly know that Tom is our brother." I spoke, anxiously rubbing my knuckles. A bad habit I had.
"What?" Mike exclaimed.
"Well he's our half-brother. I've been sworn to secrecy by dad, but Tom is coming to Rosewood tomorrow and we're going to tell them." I could hear laughter in the background of Mike's call, but wasn't quite sure who it belonged to.
"Anyway, what are you up to?" I sighed trying to change the subject.
"Oh nothing." I heard Mike say, but I was more focused on what the girl said in the background. 'Hang up the phone Mike! I'm not done with you.'
"That doesn't sound like nothing." I said coldly, trying not to sound jealous.
"Let me explain Niki." Mike begged before I interrupted him.
"Na. I think I will let you get back to that slut." I nearly shouted before hanging up and throwing my iPhone across the room.
"Wow! I've never seen anyone treat an iPhone like that. People usually guard them with their lives." Jenna laughed walking over to my phone.
"Yeah throwing it out the window could work better." I angrily replied. That jerk was cheating on me. Really? After all the Noël crap I thought it would be the other way around. Well Mike had a thing or two to learn before he cheated on me again. If I even gave him that chance.
"Someone's a bit angry." Jenna said wide-eyed sitting on the bed.
"That jerk can go to hell!" I yelled continuing to rub my knuckles and pace the room.
"Mike huh?" Jenna said turning my phone to show that Mike was calling. I rolled my eyes and held back a scream.
"Hi Mike?" Jenna spoke into my phone.
"What the fuck?" I whispered, couldn't she just of ignored the call.
"Yes this is Jenna." Jenna spoke with confidence and I wanted to rip the phone from her hand.
"Who is the little slut in the background?" Jenna winked at me this time and suddenly I didn't mind her. Maybe she wasn't the she-devil I thought she was.
"That is a sweet story and one hundred percent bull. Are you ready to tell the truth?" Jenna spoke after a long pause.
"I wonder what Nikita will think about that." Jenna said a smirk on her face.
"No you cannot speak to her. You fucking hurt her, you know that right?" Jenna standing up for me? This was definitely a dream.
"Just a study partner? You are full of shit." Jenna said before hanging up and placing the phone on the bed.
"Well?" I asked, not realizing how desperate I was to know what Mike was saying.
"He has some girl over from his English class, they're working on some project together." Jenna shrugged, she was hiding something.
"And? Jenna tell me everything!" I pleaded.
"I believe Mike is innocent, but the girl wants his dick." She shrugged
"Is the project like a porno or something?" I screamed kicking the bed.
"Don't worry about him. You can talk it through tomorrow." Jenna laughed, dropping the phone on the bed and leaving the room. As soon as she left the stupid phone began to ring again.
"Seriously! Do you not get the message? I don't want to fucking talk to you!" I screamed into the phone.
"You okay Niki? It's Aria." Shit! I probably should have checked who was calling first.
"Well you're not Mike..." I replied feeling stupid.
"What did Mike do? I swear I will cut off that boys dick if you want me to." Aria said angrily, it was good to have real friends.
"You may be able to help actually!" I stated feeling happy for the first time in a while.
"You want me to do it now? He's just down the hall." Aria laughed, but I was so glad she said this.
"Maybe you could see what him and that skank are up to? He rang before and she was practically talking him into her pants." I moaned hoping that Aria would see them studying or something.
"Just wait one second, I will leave you with Hanna." Aria said before I heard another cheery voice.
"Is the jerk cheating on you?" Hanna asked.
"He better not be." I nervously laughed.
"Don't worry I can see into his room now. Charlotte is practically begging him for sex, but he is not into it." Hanna laughed sending a relief to rush through my body. I could hear Aria telling Charlotte to leave and Mike thanking her profusely before Hanna spoke up.
"He may seem like a player, a little too sexed up sometimes. But he is a good boy, he would never intentionally hurt you." Hanna said with a lot of thought in her voice.
"Nikita?" I heard Mike's voice speak into the phone a few seconds later and I hung up. Why the fuck did I hang up? Quickly dialing Mike's phone I realized I didn't want the girls listening to our conversation.
"I thought you were still angry." Mike whispered hearing a door close behind him.
"I wasn't angry Mikey. I was hurt." I uttered, when had a boy ever hurt me? Rosewood was changing me and it wasn't nice. It made me too vulnerable to situations like these.
"I'm so sorry for that. I should have realized, but stupid me trusted Charlotte to act her age." Mike laughed. There was a small pause in the conversation and then Mike spoke again.
"I miss you. Not even twenty-four hours and I miss you." His voice was close to a whisper, but I could hear the sincerity in his voice.
"I miss you to Mikey." I smiled understanding that I truly meant it.
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