Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
“Yeah, a hundred years ago…” a guy argues.
“Social media then!” the teacher interjects.
“Oh, here we go…” another student grumbles.
“Like the radio, like the television…” Bastien lists off, “…the Internet connects the world, but it does it almost instantaneously, the massive amount of influence—”
They continue on, but their words and assumptions keep spinning in my head.
…drive what your daddy drives and vote for your uncle’s politics…
As if they’re better.
Why do people do that? Why do they think they’re the only ones with deep thoughts or awareness, like the rest of us aren’t really awake? No one is truly human until we know them, are they?
I suddenly interject, “It’s not, actually.”
Whatever conversation was still happening immediately dies, and I look up, meeting the teacher’s gaze.
He stands behind his desk. “What’s not what?” he asks, confused.
“It’s not the same here.” I clear my throat, answering his question from earlier. “It’s not the same here as it is in the Falls. You’re actually more loyal to being Rebels than we are to being Pirates.”
“Damn straight,” the guy behind me growls in a low voice.
I wet my lips, holding the teacher’s eyes. “I enjoy being a Pirate. But when I go off to college, I’ll enjoy being an Eagle or a Spartan or a Buccaneer for four years there, too. And next, maybe I’ll be a New Yorker or a Jeep enthusiast or a Green Bay Packers fan.” I don’t blink. “You’ll always be Rebels, because there is nothing else.”
Time seems to stop as no one utters a breath or says a word. My heart beats faster. Bubbles pop under my skin, and a light sweat breaks out on my neck, but I don’t bid the words back.
I know exactly what I said.
I knew before I said it.
There’s something satisfying about…about being the one who ends a conversation.
I watch Mr. Bastien’s gaze sharpen to a knife without shifting a hair. “Jared Trent,” he says under his breath, looking back down at his paper. “The apple didn’t fall far, did it?”
A very small smile I didn’t know I was wearing fades away.
“Take out your copies of Cockney Reds,” the teacher calls out and gives us his back as he continues writing on the board.
People shift around, ruffling papers, and I don’t meet the eyes of those at my sides as I feel their glares.
The whisper hits my ear again, and this time I can almost feel his lips. “I love your jacket.”
Hunter
Her hand was moving under the blanket…
I lay on the weight bench, pumping the bar high.
And then I bring it back down.
Up.
And then down.
Her hand…
She was touching herself. I should’ve spoken up. Cleared my throat or something. When that phone rang and stopped her, I was simultaneously relieved and pissed.
Jesus.
Farrow stands over me, spotting as I bench press, but he’s staring down at me, and I can’t look at his goddamn face right now. I raise the weights, drop it on the barbell rack, and sit up quickly, subtly pressing down my fucking hard-on.
She’s still so much trouble. I could hear it over the phone with her last night. Devious, mischievous, destructive—still addictive.
Her body in those sheets. Under them…
“What are you doing?” Farrow asks. “You’ve only done six reps.”
I grab my towel, rise to my feet, and head to the lat tower. Calvin works on the machine next to me, Luca, Anders, T.C., and Constin milling around the cage.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night?” he taunts.
I adjust the pin to one-forty and sit, reaching up to grab the bar with both hands.
“If you’re so worried about her in that house,” he says, leaning on the machine next to me, “why didn’t you just tell me to bring her home to stay with us last night? Ciaran would demand it, if he knew she was in Weston.”
I pull the bar, pinching my shoulder blades together through each rep.
“I’m not worried.” I breathe out. “I just had your fucking lab to type up. I stayed up late.”
My grandfather would absolutely demand that I bring my cousin to his house next door. He knows how unsafe Knock Hill is, even when he is in town. Which he’s not. He stays at his home near Chicago almost entirely now.
The house in Weston is one of many hideouts he had back when he made his money in really bad ways.
“I expected you to be more protective of her,” Farrow says.
“Well, I’m not.”
My muscles start to burn already, and I feel a trickle of sweat glide down my chest.
“Not even if I give her a bike?” he asks.
“She knows what she’s doing.”
He lowers his voice to sound silky smooth. “Not even if I keep her out late?”
I shrug. “I come and go as I like.”
I breathe in.
And then out.
In.
Out.
Then, he leans in. “Not even if the whole team keeps her out late?”