Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Hello, Neil.” Jeremy turned sideways so Neil could fit past him through the doorway, but Neil only stepped backwards off the welcome mat. “An unexpected pleasure.”
“Unexpected,” Neil agreed as he looked past him. Neil stared at Jean for so long Jean wondered if he was supposed to speak first, but then Neil gestured toward his face and said in French, “I thought this was the team of pacifists. What happened to you?”
“You could have picked a better day to come,” Jean said.
“It was not my call.” Neil offered a slight shrug that Jean wasn’t foolish enough to interpret as an apology. “Shoes?”
Jean toed into them without argument. When Jeremy realized he was leaving, he put a hand in front of Jean’s chest and stilled him long enough to ask, “Are you sure about this? I would rather you stayed where I can keep an eye on you.”
Jean had never been less sure of anything. “Lock the door behind us.”
Jeremy didn’t look happy about this, but he dropped his hand and let Jean out. Neil started down the stairs until he realized Jean wasn’t following, and then he watched Jean while Jean waited for Jeremy to close the door behind him. He heard the click of the deadbolt sliding home, a distant scratch that might have been the chain, and finally a dull thump that was the security bar going back into place. Satisfied they would be safe in his absence, Jean turned and started after Neil.
There were creased papers in the passenger seat held together by staples. Jean skimmed them before tugging his seatbelt into place, but they were just printouts of directions: LAX to the Gold Court, and the Gold Court to an address he didn’t recognize. Jean passed them over to Neil’s waiting hand, and Neil took a few moments to study them before tucking them between his thighs and turning the key in the ignition.
“Someone bit you,” Neil said.
Jean reached for his neck before realizing Neil meant his uncovered wrist. The heavy look Neil sent him said he hadn’t missed that gesture. Jean refused to look at him but said, “It is not your problem.”
“It’s going to be a problem today,” Neil argued as he pulled away from the curb and got them on the road. “We have a few meetings to get through, the first of which is with my uncle. Even if he doesn’t ask, the next group will. I need to know how to explain it when people start prying.”
Neil could be lying to sate his curiosity, but Jean couldn’t risk it. “Grayson Johnson came to see me after practice.”
“I know that name,” Neil said, but it took him a moment to place it. “Raven backliner. He came all this way just to pick a fight?”
“He wants me to declare him perfect Court,” Jean said. “I’m to let slip that a number was promised to him after championships. He thinks it will earn him captaincy this year and solidify his future value.”
“Is it the truth?”
Jean laughed. It sounded hollow even to his ears, and he pressed trembling fingers to his lips. “It was Zane’s by right, even when you fucked things over so spectacularly by getting found.” That wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have anytime soon, especially not on the tail end of Grayson’s unexpected visit. Jean swallowed hard against his roiling stomach. “Zane shattered when left to his own devices this summer, so Grayson assumes he is next in line by default. I am the only one left who can vouch for him, but I won’t do it. I refuse.”
“He sounds unhinged,” Neil said. “What kind of person bites people in a fight?”
“Drake was not a biter, then.”
It was without a doubt the worst thing Jean could have said right then, but he’d spent the wait for Neil staring at Dobson’s contact information so he wouldn’t have to talk to Jeremy. The thought of her was still rattling around his head, her and Andrew and Drake and Riko. Jean heard the creak of the steering wheel beneath Neil’s fingers. For a moment it sounded like bedsprings. He thought about a door left unlocked on purpose and Zane turning his back on them as Grayson shoved Jean down on his own bed. He dug his fingernails into his lower lip and prayed for the courage to just rip his mouth off before he could misspeak further.
“Out of everyone and anyone you could have compared him to,” Neil said, quieter than Jean had ever heard him, “you chose Drake.”
Jean pressed his injured arm to his stomach, as much to hide the bruised marks as to try and squeeze away that hollow ache in his gut. “It doesn’t matter. He will be out of the city this weekend and back at Edgar Allan.”
“You wouldn’t be barricading your door if he wasn’t still a problem.”