“Nothing.” Just trashed the place.
Confusion blanketed her face. “Then why the hell did he break into your house?”
To threaten me? To trash it? Make it known that he could get in? “I...” I paused, drawing a line over the condensation on my water glass. “Might have gotten him arrested.”
“You—” Pinching the bridge of her nose, she held up her palm. “Girl, you have no idea what you’re messing with.”
“Look, he got me fired!”
She slapped a hand over the counter and rolled her eyes. “You were working a gross drive-thru. He did you a favor, my God, you—”
“That’s not the point! He’s an asshole.”
“Whose an asshole?” Olivia’s brother, Jackson, walked into the kitchen, no shirt, just sweatpants and his blond hair messy from a shower. He winked at me before opening the refrigerator. “Hey, Drew.”
“Jackson!” Olivia huffed, thumbing back at me. “She got Bellamy West. Arrested!”
“Fuck those guys.” A grin settled on his face as he grabbed an energy drink and closed the fridge door. Then he held up a hand like he expected me to high-five him. A high-five that Olivia promptly slapped away.
“Uh. No. Jackson! She got him arrested—” Her eyes widened. “And he knows. That’s nothing to celebrate.”
Jackson popped the top to the canned drink, then took a sip. “Want me to handle West for you?”
“Uh…” My gaze shifted from him to Olivia. I liked Olivia, and I didn’t want to be responsible for her brother getting his ass beat. Because Jackson was nice and Bellamy broke into my house with a baseball bat. Bellamy would slaughter him.
“Don’t be stupid, Jackson,” Olivia snapped. “It’s Bellamy West and his little gang of thugs. He will pummel you.”
“Screw you, dog-faced gremlin.” He glared at her, then stormed into the living room.
Olivia mumbled about how stupid he was beneath her breath before she turned to face me. “Just…” She clasped my hand. “Tell your dad. He’ll pull you out, right? I mean, this isn’t even funny....”
That what? That Bellamy had gotten me fired from Frank’s, then I’d had him arrested, and now he’d broken into our house and trashed it. No. That would absolutely be my fault in his eyes. I’d spend another two years owing him for all the furniture Bellamy and his friends just ruined.
Her fingers drummed over the counter on a concentrated stare. Then the drumming stopped. “You should just get expelled. That’s what you do.”
That... wasn’t the worst idea.
Olivia went to the fridge, pausing in front of the opened door. “This is like, totally insane. Like binge-worthy Netflix insane.”
For her maybe, sitting pretty in Barrington, but for me, I was about to have to walk back into the hell-hole, and I’d pissed off the Devil. “I can’t tell him. And I have to go to school with him tomorrow.” I groaned.
9
Bellamy
“She wasn’t dealing weed!” some kid named Dickey shouted, cowering into the locker to block himself from a punch.
And that right there was absolute shit. The rumor—yes, rumor—that some kid had been pushing weed through Frank’s had caught on like wildfire. Which meant no one had been selling weed through the drive-thru.
“I mean…” Wolf shrugged his shoulder while Hendrix held the guy to the wall. “No one’s said they actually bought any…”
I moved toward the kid, bringing myself eye-level with his ready-to-shit-on-himself expression. “How sure are you?”
“Nikki sucked my dick for me to say it. I’m patient zero.” The guy flinched like he expected me to punch him, and when I didn’t, the word vomit spewed. “I didn’t even know a Drew. I just thought it was some guy Nikki was mad at, and I just figured— It was just a lie. I’m sorry. I just really wanted my first blowjob, man.”
First blowjob. Jesus Christ. I nodded at Hendrix, and he reluctantly let the guy go. “Bullshit, Bellamy,” he huffed, pointing at the kid slowly creeping along the wall of lockers. “He should’ve gotten two black eyes. Not just one.”
Then the kid shot off, sneakers squeaking over the tiled floor as he rounded the corner.
Wolf clapped a hand to my shoulder. “And the level of psycho just moved to ten: sucking dick like a crack whore to spread a stupid rumor.”
I jerked away from his hold and started down the hall, fuming, even though I’d done what needed to be done to save face. Regardless. If a rumor starts that someone’s dealing, we have to handle it. But where most kids shit their pants trying to convince us it’s bullshit the second we look at them, Drew had antagonized me. Then gotten me arrested and pissed me off to the point that I committed a fucking felony by breaking into her house.
Maybe I’d kill her and Nikki both.
“I’ll see you guys later.” Wolf ducked into a classroom, while Hendrix followed behind me, mumbling about not getting to beat that kid’s ass. The farther down the hall I went, that anger dissipated into something else. Jesus Christ—I stopped mid-stride, patting my tightening chest. That was guilt. Guilt! Over what? Getting her fired and destroying her house because she wanted to...do whatever it was Drew did. That was bullshit. She brought that on herself.
Hendrix punched me in the gut. “Why are you at her locker?”
Because I put time into fucking her life up when she wasn’t doing shit. “Go to class, Hendrix.”
His eyes slowly widened. Then he shoved me. “Oh. Hell no, man. Do not go all soft on her because you wanna piece of that ass. She stepped on your rug.” He tapped a toe over the tiles. “You can’t be hunching the ones that’ll step on your rug.”
I shoved him. “I’m not going fucking soft. Go to class, would you?”
But of course, he didn’t. Instead, he banged his forehead against Drew’s locker. “She got you arrested, cumstain. Where’s the retaliation? The bloodshed? The war?”
“We broke into her house, dipshit,” I said. “And demolished it. What else do you want to do?” I stared down the bustling hallway, searching out Drew’s perfect curves. “Burn her car?”
“Well, to start with. Yes…”
I leaned against the locker and shook my head. There was no pleasing Hendrix, especially since his brother was no longer around to rein his ass in. “We’re not burning her car—or her house. It’s over with, man. We scared the shit outta her, and she wasn’t even doing anything.”
He grabbed his head like he was trying to hold in a nuclear explosion. “Cocksucker! Who cares? That’s even worse! She wasn’t doing diddle-fuck-what, and she still—” He hopped up and down, slamming his feet over the floor. “Feet. On. Rug. What are you gonna let her do next, take your balls and hand-milk them for every precious drop of jizz you’ve got?”
I just wanted answers, and dipshit here would never get that. “Go to class, asshole.”
Huffing, he slowly moved away from the lockers, pointing at me. “Whipped by a pussy you haven’t even pounded. That’s sick, man.” He kept backing down the hall. “Absolutely sick.”