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“People who think shouting out their problems on a stage will change the world?” East rolled his eyes. “Let’s not forget they’re doing it all for a cash prize.”
JT looked at East—JT’s least favorite person after he learned East had bet West to date him. Even if it had all worked out in the end.
“They do it to send a message. To have their voices heard. The prize is just an incentive for people who might be?—”
“In it for the money? Come on, Golden Boy, if these people were really so impassioned, they’d be chaining themselves to a tree on Wednesday nights or camping outside city hall. Not standing up on a stage for a couple of Benjamins.”
JT shook his head. “You’re such an asshole.”
“And you’re such a Pollyanna.”
“Okay, okay.” I put my hands up between all of them. “How about we just agree that Travis shouldn’t go anywhere near a poetry stage, for the sake of the craft?”
“Or you could all just shut the fuck up, ’cause no one cares.” Daire tossed his cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it with his heel, much like I suspected he wanted to squash the conversation.
“So eloquent, as always, Daire. Perhapsyoushould attend the poetry slam. You’re full of outrage. Or is it just rage?” East jogged up the steps to the main door, where a younger classman automatically opened it for him—or us, I supposed.
The group filed in one after another, Serena and I the last to make our way through.
“Thanks.” I smiled at the fresh-faced kid, a first year for sure, who immediately looked away and mumbled, “No problem.”
It was well known around campus who we were and what families we belonged to. The Park Avenue Princes had a reputation to maintain and came from a long line of legacies that preceded them. So whenever someone had the chance to getin our good graces, they would take it, whether it was through opening a door or bringing us our morning breakfast. It’d been that way for years.
Did I think it was particularly fair? No. Was it the way it was? Yes.
That didn’t mean we couldn’t acknowledge them or be polite.
We walked down the main hall toward our private hangout, a room our group had commandeered and designated as our own the first year we were at Astor. Classes weren’t due to start for another fifteen minutes, but this way we could fuel up on caffeine and food—and catch up on any gossip we might’ve missed.
Hushed voices and curious eyes always seemed to follow our movements as we made our way through the bustle of students on their way to class or the coffee carts and breakfast stands around campus.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until we got close to a crowd we knew relatively well through Gavin’s boyfriend, Joey. We’d hung out with them here and there, and it had been cordial enough—but lately they’d been mostly MIA.
They were huddled close, several girls and guys, and as we approached, it was like they shared some kind of silent message amongst one another, because each and every one of them turned in our direction.
“Fuckin’ hell.” Travis’s words mirrored every single one of our reactions as we all got a good look at Joey and the twisted direction of his nose, and a right eye that was the same gruesome shade of purplish black thatDaire’swas.
Oh fuck.This was not going to end well.
I turned to Gavin, whose eyes had been glued to his phone all morning, and was about to lead him away from the shitshow that was about to go down when he all but ran into a frozen Travis.
As silence descended in the hall, Gavin looked up from his phone. When he spotted Joey, and the crowd tightening around him like a defensive move in some kind of battle, he loudly gasped.
Great. This was just fucking great.
“Joey?” Gavin’s voice was barely audible as he stepped away from our group. “What happened to you?”
An ugly twist of the lips made Joey’s swollen face even more gnarled. “You know exactly what.”
Gavin shook his head, walking further away from us and closer to the rabid dogs straining at their leash. “I… No. What are you?—”
“Save it, slut,” one of Joey’s minions snarled, as Joey’s eyes shifted past Gavin’s shoulder to our very own rabid animal, and Daire looked ready to kill. “We know you sent him.”
Gavin spun on our group, his pale eyes looking as though they were about to flash a bolt of lightning in Daire’s direction. “Youdid this?”
Shit.Here I’d been worried that all hell was going to break loose between us and Joey’s crowd, but the anger swirling in the hall had suddenly shifted. The rage was now vibrating between Gavin and Daire.
“He—”
