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I cringed even thinking about buying something at a place where she shopped. Not because I wouldn’t like it; the price tag and I might have some differences of opinion.
But if they didn’t have alarm tags on them then…
“Shit. I can’t,” I huffed. “I have detention.”
Her lips parted in surprise. Clearly thewholestory hadn’t circulated yet.
“On the first day? I mean, I’m impressed. Took me a full week to earn mine.”
This girl just kept surprising me.
“Took the queen down with me, too. I have detention all week, but she has detention today, too.”
Her eyes lit up.
“Brianna Moore has detention? That’s new. She’ll probably find a way out of it, though.”
Becca glanced conspiratorially across the table. “Okay, so here’s what you do. Ms. Wood runs detention, and she’s an ornery fucker, but lucky for you I’ve learned how to tame that dragon. Listen closely and you’ll have her eating out of the palm of your hand by the dinner bell…”
Three scrapsof paper and a pen and suddenly I’m the fucking devil. Corvus got over it, but Bri…
My phone went nuclear at lunch. The instant we entered the cafeteria, she and her little posse turned up their noses and left. She barely waited two minutes to send the first in a slew of bullshit messages.
None of which I replied to.
She knew what we were. I made it clear to her from the start, and she agreed we wouldn’t get serious. That didn’t stop her from trying to lay claim to me in other ways, though. She’d already run one girl out of Briar Hall for daring to get too close to me. I didn’t doubt that was precisely what she planned to do with this new one, too.
The mere thought of the new girl had my cock hardening beneath my jeans. She was not what I expected, and I’d gotten good at knowing what to expect. How to play those expectations to my advantage.
Ava Jade was frustratingly, and refreshingly, divergent from all my expectations. I didn’t know what to make of her.
Callous. Vulgar. Sly as a fox.
And smarter than she looked.
We shared AP calculus third period, and she finished her work for the daybefore me.I thought she’d handed it in unfinished, or riddled with errors, but I saw the look on Mr. William’s face when he marked her answers. Looking at her like she was some fascinating puzzle he’d like to unravel.
I couldn’t blame him.
Hers was not a conventional sort of beauty. Not the type best suited to be wrapped up in silk or adorned with flowers and jewels.
Ava Jade’s was a brutal beauty. Forged of sharp edges and heavy contrasts. Lips bowed sharply and turned down at the corners. Eyes dark despite their arctic color, hooded and calculating.
Rook elbowed me hard in the ribs, and I cleared my throat, readjusting my cock as Diesel stood from his seat to go to the bar.
The warehouse was a temporary meeting place since the new headquarters weren’t finished being built. We’d grown out of the old lodge but still laundered money through it—and about eighteen other properties from here to Stockton.
Thirty or more shot glasses were lined up in two neat rows along the bar, filled to their brims with whiskey. Enough for nearly everyone here to have two if Rook didn’t drink his usual five first. Whispered conversations from the other members quieted as Diesel lifted one.
His cut-glass eyes skimmed the faces of the members. Pausing briefly at the low table where the other guys and I lounged near the open doors and the barbeques pouring burger scented smoke into the night outside.
“To Randy,” Diesel said, suspending time for an instant before knocking back the whiskey and upturning the glass on the bar.
His eyes glimmered with malice as he licked the shine of the drink from his lips. “His death will be avenged.”
A few shouts of assent rang through the gathering.
Diesel moved aside for the next member to pay his respects to a drumbeat of fists pounded on cheap tables until someone flicked the radio back on.
