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“Hola, Mr. Douchebag. What’s shaking?” He beamed like the stupid clown he was. We all smoked, but Dean was the only one who actually looked like a Woody Harrelson-movie dropout, with his chill smile and messy bun.
I answered with a glare and a shrug.
“Think the team’ll be any good next year without us?” His elbow poked my ribs harder than it should have.
“Is this fucking small talk? ’Cause I don’t do that shit.” I squinted at the horizon and plucked a few blades of grass, feeling restless.
Make it stop.
I shifted on the roller, deepening my stretch. It was obvious that he had something to tell me, and it was becoming even more obvious that he was gloating. Whatever it was, he was going to have fun breaking it to me.
“You’re right, dude,” he said, “we should probably get to the point. So I dropped at your house yesterday. Trent wanted me to give you back your football gear.”
I’d lent Trent some gear months ago before he got injured. I’d forgotten all about it. It wasn’t like I’d need it again. I wasn’t a football star, off to play in college, and thanks to his fucked-up leg, unless a miracle happened, Trent wouldn’t be either.
“You weren’t home,” Dean continued, “so I figured I’d leave the gear by the garage. But then I bumped into Millie. She was trying to fix her bike outside the servants’ apartment. She said hi. I said hi back. I may have been a little high. I may have told her she was a bitch for kissing you at that party…”
My jaw clenched, and I felt my teeth grinding against each other. Emilia broke up with him before I’d told him we kissed. He’d never confronted her about it because by the time he knew, she’d already dumped him.
Dean flashed me a victorious smile and patted my shoulder, pretending to clean off some grass. I shook him off.
“Dude, I’m a little embarrassed for you. Millie never kissed you back, did she? She broke up with me to pacify you, you giant, pussy baby—”
That was it.
He didn’t get the chance to complete his sentence because I was all over him in a second, throwing fist after fist straight to his face. Fury blinded me, rage consumed me, and my body rippled with fire. I didn’t want to hear the rest.
The next thing I felt was Jaime’s arms as he yanked me from Dean, but it was too late. Dean already had a split lip and forehead, and his nose looked like it needed to be put back in place. I launched at him again, even with Jaime and the second-string quarterback, Matt, trying to pin me down to the grass. I grabbed Dean by his shirt and pressed my nose to his.
“You back with her?” I demanded, seething.
He smiled through the pain, wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded. “Surprisingly, she wasn’t happy about you lying to me, telling me she was the one who kissed you. So here’s the deal, Vicious…” He spat blood on the grass and got up, but didn’t make a move to hit me back. “Millie’s my girlfriend. You better come to terms with that. You had your chance when she first moved here, and all you did was be a fucking dick to her.
“What the hell did you think was going to happen? She’s hot. She’s nice. She’s fucking kind. Of course guys noticed. I noticed too. I knew you were gonna go bat-shit crazy on me, and I let you, because you’re a friend. Hope you got that out of your system.” He winked. “Because my nose will be fine tomorrow, but you’ll be a fucking mess every time you see us making out in the halls.”
I charged at him for the third time on autopilot.
“What the fuck, Dean!” Jaime pried me off of him and dragged me toward the blue bleachers overlooking the field.
This time I didn’t resist. There was no point. Dean had won and I’d lost.
“Get the hell out of here before I finish Vicious’s job,” Jaime roared, and I heard Dean laugh behind us.
That weekend, I had another balls-out party at my house. Dean didn’t dare show his face, and I assumed Help was with him. When I showed up at the pool with my sleeves rolled up, a sophomore guy looking to impress one of Georgia’s cheerleading crew accepted the challenge and met me on the tennis court.
Defy was fair.
Defy was brutal.
But this time, Defy did nothing to dull the pain.
From then on, everything changed between the four of us. Dean and I weren’t on speaking terms. At all.
I toyed with the idea of banning him from my estate altogether—it was completely doable—but decided that I didn’t want to look like a total fucktard in Eli Cole’s eyes. Besides, if Dean didn’t come to Help, Help would go to him, which was just as bad if not worse. The servants’ apartment was a lot smaller than Dean’s mansion, and Emilia’s parents were always around. They had fewer chances to fuck each other if they were here.
