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Chapter Six
TRISTAN
I applied for four more jobs I won’t get today. Even looked at three apartments I can’t afford without a job. I’m just acing this return to civilized society.
My abysmal day just keeps getting better when I return from a parade of fruitlessness to find Isabel and her asshole boyfriend wrapped up onmycouch watching a movie. Some documentary about… congressional procedures? No idea, but Iz looks about as interested as I was when my cellie Arlen would recite every detail of every encounter he had with his girlfriend before his incarceration. I’d never have to meet the woman to write her biography.
Writing… there’s a career I hadn’t considered. Too bad the only part of my story that would make it remotely interesting is the one thing I could never publish.
The tragic story of a man convicted of killing someone with his carprobably wouldn’t pique much interest among publishers.
The tragic story of a Prom King who willingly served four years for a crime he didn’t commitmight turn more heads.
Then again… who gives a fuck about some sob-story of a nobody from Suncrest Valley? Certainly no one in Suncrest Valley, it seems.
“Tristan, hey,” Isabel says, straightening from her entanglement with her tool of a boyfriend. I try not to take too much pleasure in the fact that she’s uncomfortable being affectionate with him in my presence.
“Hey.”
“How’d it go?” she asks, blushing when my gaze swings to Pierce’s cold stare.
“Great,” I lie.
I drop my messenger bag by the door and hang my coat on the hook above it.
“Oh, um, do you want us to move?”
My heart warms when she looks genuinely concerned that they’re occupying my one tiny slice of this world.
“It’s your couch, babe. Remember that,” Pierce says, tucking his arm tighter around her shoulders. His gaze is on me, though, so there was nothing affectionate about that maneuver, just more aggressive posturing. How insecure is this guy? Geez.
“Yes but—”
“So I’m sure yourhouseguestunderstands he’s not entitled to it—or anything—in this apartment. But you’re probably used to that, aren’t you?” he directs at me. “Did you have the top bunk or the bottom?”
“Why? You looking for recommendations?”
“Ha. Ha. Wait, do they even have bunks in solitary?”
My stomach rolls as I maintain a hard expression.
No. They also can use any shit excuse they want to put you there.
“I need to eat anyway,” I say, heading toward the kitchen. This asshole doesn’t deserve an argument.
“Have you informed Kim of your intentions to move out yet, Isabel?”
My blood goes cold.
I turn slowly to face them.
“You’re moving out?” I ask her.
Isabel pales, her lips hanging open like she knows there should be words coming out but can’t decide what they should be.
“I…”
“Yes. She is,” Pierce cuts in. “She has to, given the circumstances.”
