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“I know the feeling, baby,” the man crooned, and Bow palmed her face when her dad literally planted a kiss on her mother in the middle of the kitchen.
Bow rolled her eyes. “Dad, please. We have guests.”
He seemed not to be bothered by this, definitely bending his wife over in the kitchen, but Mrs. Reed wasn’t having that. She kicked at him until he let go of her, her face flushed. She physically had to force a man the size of a good portion of this kitchen away from her.
“Honestly, Knight,” Mrs. Reed said, but did smile. She eyed me. “And Bow does have guests. Her friend is here to join us tonight for dinner.”
“A friend, eh?” Mr. Reed worked around, his hands sliding into his pockets. He was dressed more casual than the last time I’d seen him. He wore a dark sweater with lightly colored pants. He put a finger out. “Noa Sloane? The friend who is not a boy.”
I laughed at that, and surprisingly, Bow did a little too. When I’d first met her dad, he had believed I was a boy because of my name. I waved. “Still not a boy, Mr. Reed.”
“Very good,” Mr. Reed grunted, but he smiled. He placed an arm around Mrs. Reed. “And a friend of Bow. Always nice to see that.”
He eyed back to Bow, and her eyes lifted again. She really didn’t have a lot of people over, and after talking to her, some pieces were definitely getting put together.
Legacy held a solid place in this girl’s life, which only pissed me off more. Dorian had left bodies in his wake. He’d not only left me, but left me to burn. He didn’t care about me and definitely didn’t care how his friends treated me.
I really wanted to leave. I felt sick, but worse, I felt sick because I felt sick. I didn’t want to feel anything. I wanted to feel nothing.
“The hell are you doing here?”
The bark came from across the room, the laughter from Mr. and Mrs. Reed fading. The pair of them swiveled around to find their son in the middle of the kitchen. His hair was wet and his teeth bared. He had a gym bag on his shoulder, a Windsor Prep Football T-shirt across his bulky chest, and he hadn’t come alone.
Wells Ambrose backed him up, his bottle-blond locks also wet with shine. He cleared them from rage-filled eyes. “Why are you here?”
“And why are you both speaking to her like that?” Laughter completely gone, Mrs. Reed clacked her heels in that direction. She folded her arms. “And, Thatcher, what are you
and Wells doing? I thought your practice was running long. Why are you here?”
“Coach let some of us out early. Invited Wells over after showers to get food.” He growled it out, that same rage in Wells’s eyes lacing his own. He shot a finger at me. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“And apparently, you’ve forgotten who you are in this kitchen, son, and who you are to me. Your mother?” A similar blaze hit Mr. Reed’s eyes. Actually, the man was snarling to the point where I checked myself, and he hadn’t even been talking to me. His dark eyebrows narrowed. “What’s with the disrespect, and why are you speaking to Bow’s friend like this?”
Thatcher laser-focused on Bow. The sophomore had her hands on the bar, but she didn’t look away.
Some kind of exchange passed between them then, but not long before Mr. Reed cut Thatcher’s focus off. He cut his hand in the air. “You got a half a second to speak, son. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“She’s trouble,” he said, point-blank. He obviously wasn’t wasting those seconds, and I noticed he didn’t look away from his father again. “Dad—”
“To your room.”
“But, Dad—”
Just a look made Thatcher shut up. He wet his lips, his earrings reflecting the light off the kitchen’s chandelier.
Saying he snorted like an actual bull before leaving that kitchen was an understatement. With his own glare (in my direction), Wells started to follow him.
Mr. Reed raised a hand. “My son needs to cool off,” he said, then nodded. “And you need to explain why you both came in here so hot. Hot toward her?”
Mr. Reed directed the room’s attention on me, and I was solid in place. I never should have come over here.
Wells’s gaze landed on me, his shrug subtle before he pocketed his hands.
“You have nothing to say, then?” Mrs. Reed said this time. She frowned. “You sure had a lot before.”
“It was a rough practice,” Wells ground out. His eyes blazed at me. “We just weren’t trying to deal with folks from school.” He jutted his chin toward me. “Girls like her like to gossip. Talk.”
There was so much laced there in what he said, so much while saying so little. This was their turf, and I wasn’t welcome.
