Chapter Thirty Nine - "Me Naked I'm Guessing?"
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Avery's P.O.V

"So... do I need to ask why Ryan was at your doorstep?" Logan asks as River jumps out of the car. I close the door and watch as River runs into Logan's arms as he lifts her up.

Locking the car, I shake my head. "I thought you already knew the reason." I say, beginning to walk beside Logan as we enter the mall. Logan shakes his head, a faint laugh escaping his lips.

"Getting the response 'I wanted to talk to Avery' didn't answer my question. I was just thinking that maybe before I got to your place, he said something more which gave the clue as to why he even bothered showing his face after all this time." Logan explains, making me roll my eyes.

"Can we just drop this subject? I, for one, have better things to think about."

"Me naked I'm guessing?" Logan smirks, making me gasp and slap his shoulder. I look over at River to see that she is already out of it at as she stares at the toy stores that we are walking past. Logan let's out a laugh, adjusting River on his hip. "I was only joking."

I roll my eyes, glancing at the baby who is crawling on the tiled floor with a small smile on her face. I smile, remembering when River was that small and just learning to move her legs to crawl...

"Oh, my God! Where is River!" I practically shout to Aunty Heather, my eyes wide as I grip at my hair. I hear a laugh come from the living room and I run in the room, glancing at Aunty Heather as she records something on her phone.

With my face calming down, I slowly walk over to Aunty Heather to see what all of the fuss is about. And that's when I realise where River is.

Crawling underneath the coffee table.

Turning to Aunty Heather, I grab her phone off her, earning a loud groan from Aunty Heather. "What the hell are you doing?"

"My voice was in it. So, I'm deleting it."

I smile, looking at River who is now resting her head on her father's shoulder. I honestly can't believe how much things have changed, especially when River, Aunty Heather and I came back from Australia. I mean, the only reason I left was to get Logan out of the picture and now, Logan is scribbled into every picture.

And also, I'm dating him again.

Suddenly, hearing a phone ring, I dig my hand into my bag to grab the ringing phone. When my hand grabs onto it, I pull it out to see a number on the screen that I don't recognize.

"Want me to answer it?" Logan asks and I can't help but let the memories flooding into my mind when he says that. When someone would call me and I wouldn't recognise the number, Logan would always help me by answering the phone for me.

"Yeah." I say, handing the phone to him. I watch as Logan presses the phone to his ear, still walking.

"Who is this and why are you calling my girlfr-" Suddenly, Logan stops walking, making me also stop in my tracks. What the hell? I watch as Logan clenches his teeth, closing his eyes as he listens to the person talk.

"Yes. I understand. We'll be over straight away." Logan says slowly, making me curiosity practically scream at Logan to tell me what is going on. Hanging up the phone, he gives it back to me.

"I suggest you call your father. We have to go visit Jade."

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"I don't want River to go in there. She's too young." I say, holding her close to me. The guard watches as my father, Logan and I figure out a way to solve our problem - well, actually, seeing as my father and Logan say that 'it's okay for River because she's sleeping', I think it's mainly my problem.

"She'll sleep through the whole thing." My father says, placing a hand on my shoulder.

"I don't care. Jade is going to be in there. I don't want her to see River." I say, hoping that someone will understand. Suddenly, I hear a voice interrupt our conversation.

"I can look after her."

Turning our heads, my eyes widen at the person. Logan clenches his teeth, trying to hold himself back from knocking the daylights out of the guy while my father is watching him curiously.

"How about fuck off, yeah? That'd be swell." Logan says, clenching his fists. I stare at Ryan, biting down on my lip. One: what is he doing here? Two: Why am I considering this? And is if Logan read my mind, he sends me a glare.

"Sunshine, don't you dare." Logan says, narrowing his eyes at me. "Do you even remember what this guy put you through?" Logan asks and I look over at him, trying to think of three reasons why I shouldn't let Ryan look after River, even if it's only for half an hour or less.

Ryan was there before Logan when I got that message that was supposedly from Jade...

I feel a shiver go down my spine as I read it again. "R-Ryan..." I ask, looking up at him. He notices that my fear and walks over, looking at my phone.

"Its probably someone messing with you. Don't worry about it too much." Ryan says and I nod slowly before exiting the message. I click on Logan's messages and read them with shaky hands.

Ryan was there when we found the bruises on Drew's body...

"You have to come in the bathroom." Ryan says and I sigh, standing up. River climbs onto my bed, clutching onto her teddy bear as she watches the television and I walk out of my room and follow Ryan into the bathroom.

"Look." Ryan says, pointing at Drew who is now in the bath, his back to us as he plays with a toy truck. I walk over and my eyes go wide when I see multiple bruises and scars on Drew's back.

"What the..." I say, taking a closer look at the bruises. Some are big and yellowish-purple and the smaller ones are a much darker colour.

Ryan was there when we both broke into Katie's home, in hope to find Logan...

"Don't you d-" Ryan cuts himself off as he looks at the window next to me. My eyes widen and he makes his way over to the window. I am about to say 'stop' when he picks up something on the ground.

"Well, luck does come in different shapes and sizes." Ryan says and he looks at the thing in his hand. I frown and make my way over to him, trying to look at the thing he just picked up.

"I think you mean-" My eyes narrow at the thing in Ryan's hand. "Is that ketchup?" I ask and Ryan nods, starting to put the sauce on his arm.

"I guess this will do." Ryan says and all of a sudden, he runs through the door that leads inside of the house and starts screaming as he makes a big scene. I watch as he runs downstairs and Katie's mom and what looks like Katie's father follow Ryan in shock. When I see Katie follow, I quickly run into the room she just came out of and I shut the door behind me, locking it.

Shit, that's three reasons...

Wait, but what did Ryan to do me that made everyone hate him? Suddenly, a memory of when Logan and I went to go and see Patrick runs through my mind.

"What did he do?" I ask almost immediately and Patrick turns to me, his eyebrow raising.

"Unless you know Ryan, I can't give you that-"

"He is her neighbor. They are basically like best friends." Logan says, cutting Patrick off and I would be lying if I said I didn't see Patrick's face drop in shock and worry.

"Okay, Avery," Patrick starts, folding his arms across on the table. "Since I care about you, I would advise you to stay away from Ryan until my men sort out a few things. You see, when Ryan was doing a job for me, he had drugged a girl which was included in the task but when he came back with the girl, she had bruises all over her skin... places that you wouldn't even think of hitting a girl." Patrick explains and I frown.

He didn't do anything to me... apparently, it was his sister who copped everything. But if I only heard that story from Patrick and not the side of Ryan's, aren't I being unfair? I mean, Ryan has been there for me heaps of times, so why didn't I just hear him out when he asked for me to?

"Okay." I say, glancing at Ryan. I walk over to him and send him a small glare. "I trust you." I whisper, handing River to Ryan. He looks a little shocked that I even talked to him but I'm not done yet. "But if you try anything, I'll be coming after you with a baseball bat." I say, sending him the smallest grin, hoping he gets what I'm saying.

When he grins, he nods. "I understand."

"No!" Logan says loudly, walking over to Ryan. "I don't trust you-"

"Then stay with him." I say, patting Logan's shoulder. I turn around to look at my father and he nods, proud of how I handled myself. Walking over to him, I glance over my shoulder to look at Logan.

"So, what's it going to be?"

With a groan, he sends Ryan the coldest glare before walking over to me, grabbing at my hand. Before we head in, Logan let's out a huff of annoyance.

"If Ryan does anything, I'll start killing."

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A/N - HOLY SHIT, I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN SO LONG! I have a good reason though. You see, during the past few weeks, while I have been sick, I've had to be doing everything on my phone (IPHONE 5S) and it has been super shit because I haven't owned an IPhone before and yeah... the reason why I've had to used my phone was because my charger wasn't working for my Samsung tablet (which is what I use to write on for my stories because of how big the screen is) and that was totally fucked up.

AND THEN, I FOUND OUT THAT SOMEONE WANTS TO PUBLISH The Player Stopped Me From Jumping!!! Now, because of the fact that I've finally got my tablet back, I'll be editing TPSMFJ, doing the epilogue for Little Miss Bitch, finishing this book and The Bad Girl (which just needs two more chapters I think, for the people who are reading that), continuing with all of my other books that have just been started;

- The Perks Of Being Me
- The Survivor
- The Wrong Boy
- Debbie
- The Assassin's Daughter
- AND The Smile Project (which needs to be edited but since my tablet has given up on me for the past week, I'll be now editing them so KEEP WATCH for updates)

AND... when the two weeks from now go, all of my year 10 exams for this term will be done, SO PLEASE WISH ME LUCK even though I don't study which I probably should...

Okay, I think that's all of the news that needs to be said so... PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT!

Lofd - "She's sweet as pie, but if you break her heart, she'll turn as cold as a freezer..."

-XmysterysmileX