Chapter 141

I sit very still for approximately four seconds, which is the amount of time it takes my brain to process what Eli just said. I’m just here, hoping and praying this is one of his cruel pranks.

“Try not to look too excited,” Elias says, wearing a smile so bright that means he’s genuinely enjoying himself and that tells me the most brutal truth of all.

It isn’t a joke.

“Shut up,” I snap.

“Five minutes ago you were mad at me for not talking to you, now you want me quiet,” he shrugs a shoulder and picks up his pen. “You’re gonna have to start being much clearer if we’re gonna be besties.”

It takes everything in me not to punch him, meanwhile he just returns to writing.

My new bodyguard. Elias Arden. Who has spent the better part of two years finding increasingly creative ways to get under my skin. That person is going to be living in my house, following me to school, standing outside my bedroom door. Every. Single. Day.

My father has finally,