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“I know, but I want you to. I’m going to do everything I can so you will.”
“We’ll see.”
After I drop Melody off at the hardware store so she can get her car, I drive toward Reid and Jess’s house. When the butler lets me into their sprawling mansion right on the outskirts of Kenyan, I find Reid seated on the sofa in the family room watching Saw X.
"Really, dude?” I say sarcastically, “Kids live here.”
He waves me away. “I can’t watch it when they’re here. Gia took the little one shopping with Draven. She wants them to bond or whatever.”
I sit on the loveseat. “Taking advantage?”
“Yep.”
I look at the oversized television screen and then see Jess walk inside from the back patio.
“Hi,” she says with a smile. “How’s school?”
“It’s good,” I tell her. But I didn’t come to talk about school, and the look she gives me tells me she knows it.
“What brings you by?”
“I wanted to talk to you guys. I haven’t seen you since school started.”
That part is not a lie.
“What’s up?” Reid pauses the movie at the part where the guy straps himself to the chair, wearing two long plastic tubes over his eyes like a vacuum.
“I wanted to talk to you about a girl.”
Jess sits next to Reid with a smile on her face. She hates that I have to marry Melissa, so this topic has all her attention.
I look at her now, and it’s crazy that I don’t find her attractive like I used to. I don’t get hard around her or think about fucking her against the wall. Ever since Melody came into the picture, I don’t think about having sex unless it’s with her. I thought it was because I haven’t, because she’s forbidden, or because she’s Prey.
“What girl? Who is she?” Jess asks with interest.
I glance at Reid. “It’s Melody. Adam’s little sister.”
Silence.
You could hear the hum of the air conditioner as it turned on. The vent was blowing cool air on my flushed skin.
I said it. I admitted it for the first time to my closest friends. Friends that are like family my secret. A secret I’ve carried since the first time I laid eyes on her.
“Valen,” Reid warns.
Jess has her eyebrows raised in shock.
“I know. I-I know… she’s…”
“It’s not that, Valen,” Reid says, concern etched in his tone. “She has been through a lot with school, and she’s...”
“Prey,” Jess finishes for him. “You realize that bringing her on campus in Kenyan makes her a target. It wasn’t what we agreed. She has to choose, and you know how that turns out with everything else.”
“What do you mean? It’s not like before,” I say, defensively looking between them.
I can protect Melody. I will protect her.
“If Melissa finds out, you know she will do whatever it takes to destroy her. She’s delicate. She’s young, Valen. And you’re…”
