Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
“Save Lucas.”
“Yes.” I nod with determination. “I think I have to fix what I broke.”
Exactly.
Lucas is in pain, isn’t he?
Like me, Lucas is still dealing with what happened two years ago.
Hell, like his own best friend. Well, ex-best friend now.
God, what a mess.
Anyway, that’s why Lucas is lashing out.
That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing.
So I need to clean it up, this mess. I need to fix everything.
“No.”
“What?” I frown up at him. “What do you mean, no? What —”
“It means you’re not doing anything.”
“I don’t —”
“You saw what happened, didn’t you?” he cuts me off, almost growling, staring down at me with so much anger that I should feel scared. “You saw what he did. So you’re not going to do anything. What you’re going to do, is stay the fuck away from him. So I’m taking you home and you’re coming with me without running your chirpy mouth a mile per second and giving me the biggest headache in the history of mankind. Do you understand? You. Me. The manor. Right the fuck now.”
By the time he finishes, his voice is pure growl.
And I’m so dazed by it that I don’t even know what I’m saying. But I do make words. “I don’t live at the manor.”
He frowns. “What?”
“What?”
Which makes his frown thicker. He stares at me silently for a couple of seconds and when I don’t say anything — I don’t even know what he wants me to say right now — impatience flickers on his features and he bites out, “What do you mean you don’t live at the manor?”
“It means I don’t live at the manor.” When his impatience increases and an actual growl comes out of his chest, I explain, my own impatience rearing its head now. “Remember how I broke your armoire two years ago? Plus a bunch of other things.”
His eyes narrow, telling me that he doesn’t appreciate my sarcasm.
“And remember how I got arrested for it and then got sent to a reform school?”
His eyes narrow further.
“I live there now. At St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers. Ergo, I do not live at the manor.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What?”
“Because you fucking graduated.”
Oh. Okay.
Right.
He doesn’t know. That I didn’t.
Why would he, he doesn’t live at the manor anymore. There’s no way for him to find out.
And honestly, if I was more in control of my faculties, I probably would never have let it slip in front of him. I don’t want him knowing that I’m still there. That I’m still in high school, a reform high school, while the rest of the world has moved on to bigger and better things.
But now that I’ve almost spilled the beans, I may as well go all the way.
Blushing, I shrug. “I didn’t.”
I know that he understands what I’m saying.
It’s the way his body has tensed, the muscles on his chest twitching. Then, as if to confirm and really make sure that I’m saying what I’m saying, he asks, “You didn’t what?”
I sigh, hating that I have to spell it out for him, hating that I have to tell him period. “I didn’t graduate.”
He lets another beat pass.
But then, he loses it.
He actually loses it and thunders, “What the fuck do you mean you didn’t graduate?”
It’s so unexpected that I flinch.
I don’t understand his reaction.
Nevertheless, I explain, “It means I didn’t graduate. I didn’t have enough credits to graduate so I go to —”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” he snaps, his eyes so narrowed that they’ve become slits, his nostrils flaring like he’s some kind of an enraged animal. “You’re fucking smart. You’re one of the smartest people I know. You’re always at the top of your class. You fucking tutor people. How the fuck did you not have enough credits to graduate?”
I’m even more confused now. Than I was before, I mean.
His outburst has completely thrown me.
The fact that it looks like he… cares.
As unexpected as that is, it’s even more unexpected that I feel a warmth blooming in my chest.
I feel a flush of pleasure.
And I can’t even help it.
I can’t stop it.
The racing of my heart. The hitching of my breaths.
I knew that he knew, about my grades and tutoring; I tutored his best friend. Plus I was his best friend’s girlfriend and there were so many occasions when Lucas would announce to the world — usually in a loud voice at the cafeteria or in the courtyard — that his girl got another A, or that his girl won the debate competition.
And since Reign was always around, he’d get to listen to Lucas singing my praises.
It used to be so embarrassing and endearing as well.
So of course, Reign knows my academic record.
But I didn’t know that this is what he thought of me.
That this is what he thinks of me.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I say, “Well, that was… before. Before everything. I haven’t been the top of my class, the top of anything really, in two years.” I duck my eyes too, unable to hold his intense gaze. “Turns out, being heartbroken while you’re trapped in a cage isn’t very conducive to studying.” I clear my throat. “Anyway, I go to summer school now and I should be able to graduate in a few weeks. And that’s when I get to move back to the manor. Finally.”