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Crack.
“Well,” she said from behind him, “I saw what you did to Tyler last week.”
What he’d done. That was rich. “Yeah, poor Tyler.”
“He said you jumped him after school.”
Michael couldn’t even turn around. Fury kept him rooted until the next ball shot out of the machine. He swung hard. This one hit the nets and strained the ropes.
Of course Tyler would make him out to be the bad guy.
He tossed a glance over his shoulder. “I’m sure you got the whole story.”
She hesitated. “If you’re just coming here to hassle me, I’ll tell my parents.”
From any other girl, it would have been an empty threat. The kind of threat you stopped hearing in third grade.
From her, it meant something. Emily Morgan’s parents could cause serious problems for his family.
Michael gritted his teeth and made his voice even. “I’m not doing anything to hassle you.”
Ball. Crack. He brushed the sweat out of his eyes.
She was still standing there. He could feel it.
“Here,” she said.
He didn’t turn. “What?”
She was close enough now that the earth whispered to him about her presence. “I’ll get today,” she said. “For trying to kill you and all.” Then the fence jingled, as if she was fiddling with it.
Another ball was coming, so he couldn’t look. He swung and sent it flying.
She’d get today? What did that mean?
He turned to ask her, but she was already slipping through the tinted door into the office.
But strung through the fence was his crumpled five-dollar bill.
CHAPTER 2
Emily pushed rice and chicken around her plate and wished she hadn’t mentioned Michael Merrick to her parents. Because now they had a new topic to argue about.
As if they needed one.
“You’re going to quit that job,” said her father.
“I need my job,” she said.
“Oh, you do not,” said her mother. “What could you possibly need a job for? We give you everything you need.”
In a way, they did. She had her car, a hand-me-down sedan she’d gotten when she turned sixteen and her father decided he wanted something new. Her parents covered insurance. She always said she’d pay for her own gas—but they’d given her a gas card for her seventeenth birthday.
But she doubted they’d pay for a security deposit on a new apartment in New York City after senior year. Having a stash of cash meant freedom to do what she wanted to do.
“He didn’t bother me,” she said. “I think he was just as surprised to see me—”
“The last thing the Merricks need is leverage,” said her father, gesturing with his fork. “This deal was a bad idea from the beginning, before we knew how powerful that boy would get.”
