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IMANI
Once I made it back home, I stared emptily at the steering wheel with my stomach in knots. All I could do was … imagine what these plans were that João had told me about earlier. I must’ve made six circles around the block, so lost in thought and panic and worry that I’d forgotten that I wanted to go home to relax.
“Get your ass in the house, Imani,” Mom shouted from the front door, tired eyes narrowed at me.
From the look on her face, it seemed like she’d had a hard shift at the hospital. And when she had days like that, she came home and asked me a million and one questions to get her mind off it. It was sweet of her, but … all I wanted to do was get some much-needed sleep.
“It’s freezing out here.” She shuffled out of the house and crossed her arms, a silky red scarf wrapped around her hair, which meant that she and Dad were in for the night and that there was no way I could get out of a conversation.
No. Freaking. Way.
“Don’t you have a test to study for tomorrow?”
After shutting off the car, I grabbed my backpack and walked up the sidewalk to the door. “Sorry, Mama.” I kicked off my sneakers in the foyer, tightened my grip on my backpack, and hurried toward my bedroom. “I’ve had a long day, and I was just studying at Allie’s. I need to finish up.”
I was moments away from escaping her questions for the night until she cleared her throat. I stopped in my tracks and looked back at her, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably.
She shut the front door and wrinkled her nose. “Why do you smell like weed? You didn’t do any, did you? You know that stuff will ruin your life.”
Before I could roll my eyes, I stopped myself. “Allie’s stepbrother threw a party. We didn’t go, but there was so much of it everywhere.”
She eyed me for a moment, then nodded. “Good. You know better than to get involved with people like that. You’re going places, sweetheart.”
I gave her a tense smile. Definitely knew not to get involved with people like that, but … it had kinda happened. It wasn’t totally my fault. If I had known that Chris, my online fuck buddy, was really Landon—I gnawed on the inside of my cheek—hell, I probably wouldn’t have done anything differently, except be way more careful about not showing my face.
That boy had a monster cock that I so desperately wanted inside of me.
The way it had felt against me earlier today …
“Now, we gotta find you a nice boy!” Mom said with a genuine smile. “In fact … we’re having dinner with some people tomorrow night. They have a son your age. Do you know anybody named Akio?”
My eyes widened, nose wrinkling. Mom wanted to set me up with Akio?
“He’s in a couple of my classes,” I said, inching toward my bedroom.
“His father works as a cardiovascular surgeon at the hospital. We were chatting about a mutual patient the other day, and he told me that Akio is at the top of the class.” She laughed. “And you know how I am, making sure he knew that my Imani was at the top. He seems like a nice boy, though. What do you think?”
What do I think? I thought that I didn’t have time to date with Landon, João, and Kai up my ass about video-chatting naked, touching myself at the sight of Landon’s sexy fucking body. I couldn’t date Akio, especially now that I knew Poison had something against him.
“Are you trying to set me up with him?”
“Just dinner,” she said.
She was definitely trying to set me up with him.
“Um … he’s not really my type,” I said, hoping that she wouldn’t push it. I didn’t want her to find out that the boys she wanted me to stay away from—the pot-smoking, drug-dealing gang of assholes—were my type. That would not go over well.
After waving her hand dismissively, she ushered me to my bedroom. “Sleep on it. We’ll go out with them tomorrow, and you can tell me what you think about him.”
If that was the only way to keep her out of my business …
“Sure,” I called over my shoulder as I slipped down the long hallway to my bedroom.
Closing my door behind me, I dropped my backpack on the ground and rested my head against the doorframe, breathing in the scent of fresh pink roses that sat in a cream-colored flower pot on my bureau. I dimmed the lights on the chandelier above my bed, sat at my desk, and pressed the power button on my Mac monitor.
The screen turned on, a single black line flashing inside the password box. I quickly inputted my password and opened Discord, like I did every night, to wait for Landon. But tonight, I wasn’t thinking about touching myself. Tonight, I was worried that if I didn’t log on, Poison would do something to harm my reputation.
When the green circle popped up beside Landon’s picture, I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, opened my desk drawer, and pulled out a bottle of Dad’s Cheval Blanc 1947 wine. Was I supposed to have this hidden in my drawer? No, but I sure as hell needed it.
