Page 80 of Play The Game

He snorts, then gives me a ridiculous and very obviously mocking bow, then leaves through the door. Harley watches his every step and doesn’t relax until the door clicks shut behind him.

“He’s not being inducted,” he says, and I shake my head.

“No. He’s not. But he can lighten Illi’s workload for a while until we know if there’s another reason he’s come to us.”

I wait until we’re all eating dinner together before telling everyone about our midnight visitor.

Avery immediately gets on her phone and orders bars for the windows in both our rooms, and I kick myself for not thinking about it sooner. Blaise gets on Harley’s case about his fucked-up family, and Ash ends up snapping at them both to cut their shit out.

“The real problem here is what the hell is going on in the Bay?” he says, and I nod.

“It’s war. The Coyote warned us, and now more of the Twelve are choosing sides. We have the Crow, because he will never side with the Jackal, so as long as we toe the line we have him. The Coyote and the Boar have both refused the Jackal. I need to find out where the others fall.”

Ash snorts. “We’re not toeing the line though, are we? Sending the O’Cronin dickhead after the Jackal’s minions is a move against another member.”

I smirk and shrug. “What the Crow doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Or us.”

Avery sighs and stabs at her curry with extra force. “If we’re turning this into a business meeting then I think you should all know that Annabelle is amping up her campaign and I’m having to clean up after the disgusting gold-digging whore. She’s gone to every member of the school board about your relationship and said that she doesn’t want Lips slandering the good name of Hannaford by… participating in orgies.”

Blaise chuckles under his breath. “Are you three having orgies without me? I thought we discussed this, all for one and one for all.”

I slap a hand over my face to try and hide my blush while Avery screeches like she’s been stabbed.

“It’s not fucking funny,” Harley snaps, and Blaise flicks a pea from his curry at him.

“It’s called lightening the mood, asshole. What can we do about Annabelle that Avery isn’t already doing?”

Avery cuts through them both before they can start fighting again. “Kill her. I vote we just get rid of her.”

I blanch and gape at her. I mean, I knew she was a bloodthirsty dictator but I kind of thought I’d have to convince her to let me kill Annabelle. Well, I assume I’m the one killing her. I doubt anyone else will put their hand up for the task.

“We talked about this. She’s a gold-digging bitch. We can’t just run around killing people who piss us off, Hannaford would be empty by the end of the week,” Harley says and takes a swig of his beer. I narrow my eyes at him, and he grins sheepishly.

Ash looks between us both but I can tell he’s uncomfortable. “I’m with Harley. If we kill her, we’re as bad as Joey and Senior.”

Shrugging, I look at Avery, but she’s too busy rolling her eyes to notice. “And of course Blaise will side with you and majority rules. I’ll just keep running around after her when we have a permanent solution at hand that we ignore.”

I bump her shoulder with mine. “I’ll gut her for you the second she looks sideways at you. Or tries to touch one of the guys.”

Avery huffs. “And what about you? I want her in the ground so she stops spreading bullshit about you.”

I grin at her. “Aw. That’s why you’re my favorite.”

It’s all fun and games to joke around, but I can’t deny that the rumors worm their way into my mind, no matter how much I try to ignore them, so I’m determined to bury myself in homework again until I forget anyone outside of my family exists at this school.

By the end of the week, I have all of the readings for our literature class read and annotated in entirety, the workbooks for math for rest of the year complete, and I blitz past Harley in our history class. I even offer to do his half of the assignments so he has less on his plate and can spend more time with me.

The look he gives me would kill a lesser person.

I shrug at his pissy attitude and focus on Blaise’s tutoring instead. I don’t want to sound like a smug-ass bitch, but my smolderingly hot rock god is in the top half of all of our classes thanks to our study sessions. I stand firm on my rules, no fooling around until everything is done, and that motivates him like nothing else.

The nights we run out of time before Avery arrives home, I go to bed cranky and frustrated. The only thing that helps is knowing Harley will climb in later with his wandering hands.

I wake on Friday to find him still fast asleep next to me. He always wakes before me; he has swim practice and never shirks any of his responsibilities. I frown and deliberate over waking him but the dark circles under his eyes worry me enough to leave him.

Avery makes us both coffees, moving as quietly as she can, and I shoot her an appreciative look. She shrugs and joins me in the bathroom as we get ready for classes.

“He needs to drop the study sessions. The cougar skank is working him too hard,” she murmurs, and I try not to let the fury in my blood take over.