“You do know they call him the kingpin, right?” Davey asked, basically gnawing on her lip as she turned back. “As in, he is the ins and outs of everything around here? You need drugs? He knows a guy. Test answers? Again, he knows a guy. Fuck, even if you want sex—”
“Let me guess.” I propped an elbow on the counter, resting my chin on my hand. “He knows a guy.”
“I was going to say prostitutes, but yeah, same thing. The guy is a legend around here. Has been since he was a freshman.” Davey cupped her mouth. “I even heard Professor Douglas gets his weed through him.”
Well, I supposed that explained this morning.
Just my damn luck.
Wondering if that’d been Sinclair’s deal last night as well with his warning about the pair, I watched as Niko arrived first and threw his long wingspan around my fellow TAs. We’d all been trying to enjoy some lunch after this morning’s disaster zone class, the hell I guess never-ending. Niko jerked his chin at me. “What’s up, Queen B?” he asked, then faced Griff and Davey. “The royal court, I presume?”
“Queen B?” I stole LJ’s personal attention with the question, arriving last when he sidled his hard body up against me.
And he was hard, chiseled from his jean-clad thighs to that baby tee that stretched just a little too tight across his broad chest. He grinned. “Miss Sweet Apple Ridge.” He bowed. “Had no idea we were in the presence of royalty.”
I rolled my eyes, my history in beauty pageants nothing secret. Everyone did them around here. Not just me. It was like you really weren’t from the Midwest unless your pushy mother forced you in one or five. Though, I supposed, maybe that was just my experience with my own. I angled my body back to the counter. “Can we help you with something, Mr. Johnson?”
“Ooh, Mr. Johnson.” And then he was close, real close when his breath ghosted the shell of my ear. “Be careful with that, beauty queen. You just might get me hard.”
What the fuck…
Jaw slacked and more than uncomfortable, I actually attempted to cover myself a little with my sweater. The nudge of the material brushed over my nipples and I forced in a curse that all the sudden they were way more sensitive than they should be. Growling, I crossed my legs, elbowing LJ until he got off me with a chuckle. I sneered. “And you’re inappropriate.”
And definitely a student in a class I was a teaching assistant for. I huffed, pushing hair out of my face. “You’re a student in Professor Douglas’s class, a class I TA for, so I’d appreciate you treating our relationship as such.”
Suddenly hard biceps hugged around me when he gripped the bar, his mouth to my ear again. “Last night you were quivering something a little different.”
If he meant that kiss he stole, that hadn’t been my choice at all and something he had no right to do. I had a boyfriend, and he’d been a jackass.
I didn’t move despite his arms around me, not intimidated in the slightest, and I noticed Griffin and Davey incredibly silent beside me. Niko still had his arms around them, watching the show, and Davey and Griff, well, I wasn’t getting any help from them. They stared forward during this whole thing. Like any sudden movements may hurt them. I had no idea if it would, but I had a feeling these would-be “gangsters” might just be all bark and no bite. They pushed drugs and sex to college students. Big whoop.
“You’re nothing but a rapey asshole,” I said to LJ, right in his face when I made eye contact. He was just as beautiful as he’d been last night, his eyes like crystals in a stark ocean-toned sea. It was only a shame such beauty was wasted on a complete D-Bag. My eyebrows narrowed. “That’s all last night told me.”
His eyes heated to a lustrous blaze, my tongue drying, but even still, I didn’t back down. I stayed until he made the first move, and he eventually did when he spun fingers in my hair.
The red curled around his lengthy digits, escaping from my updo. Letting go, he pushed off the bar. “I’d watch your step around here, beauty queen. I can make life pretty difficult for you.”
“Can you now?”
Blue fire now in his irises. “Just fucking try me.” He waved Niko to come on but not before stealing one of my fries. He popped one his mouth, sauntering his firm ass away and letting go of Griffin and Davey, Niko trailed after him.
“So long, Queen B,” he stated, bowing. He saluted Griffin and Davey. “Royal court.”
Catching up, Niko dropped an arm around LJ who didn’t once turn back around. He’d made his point and was now leaving, his bodyguard going after him.
“Do yourself a favor and don’t make an enemy out of those guys, Billie.” Apparently all lunched out, Griffin slid off his chair, Davey doing the same when she grabbed her bag. Griff frowned. “Davey’s right. They run this place and I knew that in undergrad.”
“Me too.” Davey shrugged. “Grad school is already hard enough. Pick your battles, huh?”
And let assholes treat me like crap? No way. Guys like him? Beautiful guys with swagger and a smile for days only needed to be tugged down a peg. Especially when they had money, which this guy obviously did. I knew money. I knew creeps, and if you let them throw their weight around, you were basically at the mercy of them.
I was over powerful men and their god complexes. I got to stare one in the face as he ripped my family apart. My dad used to be my superhero once upon a time.
Now, he was just the guy who raised me.
Chapter Five
Billie
I found my mom at home passed out on her couch that following weekend, day drinking, and how did I know? Because the margarita in her hands still held the slush.
Sighing, I bent beside her, tapping her face on the white leather sofa. “Mom?”
A groan as she shifted in her feathery bathrobe, her house and my childhood home a complete sty. Honestly, it looked like her closest exploded in the living room, her dresses all over the place, and considering our housekeepers came once a week, she’d done this all since the last time I’d seen her. I had no idea if she’d decided to entertain a little fashion show or what, but half her closest was downstairs and lining the furniture.
Getting up, I gathered some of it, and she moaned the moment I tossed opened the curtains and let some light into the place. She lived like a freaking vampire sometimes. I swear. Seeing me clean and get her things, she waved me off, getting up. “Don’t mess with that, sweetie. You know the cleaners are coming.”
So goes my mom’s life, reliant on other people to take care of her as always. I supposed I was here trying to do that for her. She’d just gotten worse since Daddy left.
I shook my head. “You need to get up. Eat something?”
It was just shy of eleven, which meant mom got an early start on her drinking. Or a late start depending on how one looked at it. She very well could have gone to bed after dawn, but considering half of her margarita was still intact, something told me she hit her Margaritaville Maker well after the sun had risen. She pressed a palm to her eyes. “What time is it, darling?”
“Eleven,” I let her know, not even checking. That’s when I usually came to check on her to make sure she was alive every few weekends since I’d moved back. She wasn’t always good about texting when I used to check that way, or returning my calls. I bunched up her laundry. “Want me to start you a bath?”