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ALLIE
It was Thursday night. I had a Biology test tomorrow that I needed to ace, and all I could hear was loud music blaring through the house from all the way in the living room. The stench of pot drifted through the hallways, under my door, into my room, driving me insane.
Imani lay on her stomach, tapping through PowerPoint slides on her computer. Since mine had broken because of the rain, I was stuck with a print-out copy of them and this three-hundred-pound textbook.
“Jesus Christ, I’m going to kill him,” I said under my breath.
“Why don’t we stop for tonight? We’ve been at this for six hours now,” Imani said.
I glanced over at her and nearly smiled. She was stunning, and I knew people said that about their best friends all the time, but it was true. Piercing brown eyes against her flawless dark-brown skin. Ugh, I was so jealous of her genes. All I had was terrible vision, thighs decorated with stretch marks, and twenty-four-seven frizzy hair.
I frowned and slumped back in my seat, knowing that stopping was probably a good idea.
“Or, if you want, you can come to my place to study,” she said.
“No, it’s fine.” I threw my papers onto my desk. “I’ll just fail.”
Imani rolled her brown eyes and shook her head, her curls bouncing all over the place. “Girl, stop. We all know that you’re going to get over a hundred, especially with all the extra credit that Barnes gives.” She pushed her laptop into her backpack. “And if you don’t, you can always ask Barnes for more extra credit. You’re hot enough to seduce him.”
I nearly choked. “Ew, gross. He’s, like, seventy.”
Imani giggled. “All I’m saying is that you don’t even have to work for that A-plus, just shake a little ass,” she said, shaking her hips for emphasis.
After she gathered all her things, we walked down the hall to the living room. The music got louder the closer we got, smoke sitting heavily in the air.
“I can’t wait to get out of this shitty town,” I said under my breath, staring at all of Jace’s friends, who were drunk and littered around in our living room.
The entire cheer squad—except Nicole—was in the living room with their tits nearly hanging out of their tops and dancing on guys that they were way too good for. I was all for being a bratty slut, but, damn, some of these athletes didn’t even shower.
I shook my head and entered the room, grasping Imani’s hand. People in this town were either filthy rich, like Jace and his father, or dirt poor, like I used to be. There was no in between. And while the rich might’ve thought that they were better than the rest of us, they hadn’t been to the poor side of town. The side where Poison hung out. They ruled the poor, did favors for the rich, ruined people’s lives, all to make a quick buck and to get the hell out of this town one day too.
“You can come back to my place for the night,” Imani offered again, tugging on the straps of her backpack.
I pushed people out of the way to get us to the front door and made eye contact with Jace’s best friend, Jamal. My gaze lingered for a moment longer than it should’ve, but I quickly pulled it away, my cheeks flushing.
“Well, I guess that’s a no.” Imani laughed. “Just be careful with him. You know how guys like him act. He’s like your stepbrother, and he will break your heart too, if you let him.”
“Jace didn’t break my heart,” I said through clenched teeth.
Memories of sophomore year flooded my mind, and I shivered. I opened the front door, and a few more people stumbled into the house. It wasn’t just any people, but the three notorious Poison boys.
One of them, Landon, looked Imani up and down as he passed, and Imani’s cheeks flushed even more than mine had. She tucked some hair behind her ear and looked down at the ground.
“And you’re telling me to be careful,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “The Poison boys are no good. You should know that.”
Imani tried to play it off by rolling her eyes. “I know. Don’t worry about me.”
After waving her off, I made eye contact with Jamal again and walked toward the kitchen to grab some water before I went back upstairs to try to study more. Jamal appeared a few moments later with a can of beer.
“You want a drink?” Jamal said, handing me an unopened can of beer.
I pushed it back. “No, thanks. I have a test tomorrow morning.”
Jamal smiled at me and stepped closer, one foot between mine, his fingers brushing against my forearm. “Come on, Allie,” he said, his voice deep. He leaned down closer to me. “One won’t hurt.”
I stared up into those dark brown eyes. “One leads to two, and two leads to me having a hangover tomorrow morning and not being able to focus.”
He chuckled. “You’re no fun,” he murmured against my ear.
