Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Which left an option I didn’t like. “We can’t be nothing, either,” I said.
“But we can be friends.”
And that stung like a jagged blade right in the gut. Lola Stevens wanted to be my friend...
We stared at each other across the couch. Two people who were once everything to each other, who didn’t know how to be nothing.
Friends.
I snagged another piece of pizza and grabbed the remote, turning on the TV. “Sounds like a real clear line….” I said.
The hell it was.
“Whipah!” Wolf slammed my locker door, dragging my attention from Lola and Kyle to his gimpy-looking face.
“Fuck off, man.” I fell in line with the crowd of students headed to the cafeteria.
“Dude, what kind of rat crawled up your ass?”
A rat wearing a souvenir T-shirt saying Lola wanted to be friends.
I glared over my shoulder at him. “Tony’s in jail, asshole.” It was a legitimate concern and probably should have been my top priority. But. Fucking friends…
“We just have to sell more weed.”
Because weed was the answer to all our “friendly” problems… I half huffed on the way to the cafeteria.
I shouldered to the front of the lunch line and grabbed a plate of taco salad, ignoring Lola-My-Friend-Stevens on my way to the table.
Wolf complained about his ex-girlfriend, and I pretended to listen. I’d finished my lunch, then took his leftovers when the cafeteria fell silent.
I glanced up from the tortilla chips as Officer Jacobs stepped into the lunchroom with Principal Brown. He could have been in here for most of the students, but something uneasy took root in my gut.
Wolf’s knee bounced underneath the table. “Shit.” He swiped a hand over his jaw. “Tony…”
Panic crept through my veins.
What good would it do to snitch on a couple of eighteen-year-olds he’d hired?
“Man, come on,” I said. “Why the hell would—”
Jacob’s beady gaze swept over the tables, landing on ours. A smug grin pulled at his lips as he started toward us.
“Fuck…” I gripped the edge of the table, panic now buzzing through my veins. “Man…” Every bit of Dayton instinct told me to run but running would definitely make us look guilty. “I think we’re in some deep, snatchy shit, Wolf.”
For the first time in my life, I watched the color drain from Wolf’s face.
Grand theft auto.
That was what my brother was in jail for. And I was scared as hell that we were about to get arrested for it, too.
A year minimum in prison.
The house would be gone.
We’d come out with absolutely nothing.
Jacobs stopped at the end of the table, hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of his uniform. “Mr. Hunt. I’m gonna need you to come with me.”
Oh, fuck my life.
Chapter 18
LOLA
Not even two minutes after Jacob’s escorted Hendrix out of the cafeteria, Principal Brown came to get me. Evidently, I had been listed as a witness to a possible assault, and the Barrington police wanted to ask me a few questions. At the station.
Ethan Taylor was not only the spawn of the devil, but he’d told the police he’d screwed me. And if that weren’t enough, he’d tried to get Hendrix arrested for assault.
The fact that he’d dropped my name and actually thought I would say a damned thing to help him against Hendrix… Then again, I didn’t need to.
Maybe he thought I’d just tell the truth. After all, the authorities wouldn’t give a crap about a rich boy getting gropey with a trashy Dayton girl, but a trash guy beating said rich boy…well, that was a different story.
Idiot.
This was Dayton—not Barrington.
Even if I loathed Hendrix—which clearly, I didn’t—I still wouldn’t snitch.
By the time Barrington police finally let me go, I was seething.
I’d barely been outside for five minutes before Kyle’s Honda pulled up in front of the police station, and I got in.
His wide-eyed gaze slipped from me to the shiny building beyond the window. “Are you going to jail?” he wheezed.
“No, Kyle.” I fiddled with the AC vent. “Did you bring the stuff I asked for?”
Nodding, he thumbed toward the back seat. “But I don’t think whatever you’re going to do is a good idea.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to do.”
On a long, suffering sigh, he put the car into drive and pulled away. “Nothing good with a canister of gas…”
Kyle wound through backroads before I instructed him to turn into the Pizza Palace parking lot. Right across the street from Barrington High School.
The moment Hendrix got out of jail, I knew he’d be dishing out payback. However, I was more than ready to deliver it on his behalf while he had the tightest alibi possible—police custody.
Kyle cut the engine. I stared through the windshield, my attention homing in on the ugly, yellow Camaro parked a few rows away from the Barrington High sign.
Ethan Taylor had just opened up a world of hell for himself.