My smile dropped as I saw Winter’s friend Kinslee next to her, shuffling her feet. Fuck. Things had become a bit strained between the two of us, and I knew it was my fault. We’d slept together once when we were both drunk, and I knew she wanted a repeat. The problem was my dick wasn’t interested. My gaze swept over her, taking in her tumbling curls, curvy body, and huge eyes. Nope. Not even a flicker of interest.
“My two favourite girls.” Cassius came around the table, pulling them both into a hug, and just like that, the tension was broken. Maybe it was all in my head. It had been months since everything had gone down between us, anyway.
As Cassius finally released her, her eyes met mine, and now I could clearly see there was only friendliness in her warm gaze.
Fuck. I didn’t understand women. Despite the fact that I had my fair share of female interest, it seemed like I was still no better at reading the signs. Not to sound arrogant, but I’d never really had to. Women came to me—one of the perks of being one of the Four. The Four being me, Caiden, Cassius, and Zayde. Fuck knows who had even started calling us that, but it had stuck, and that was what we were collectively known as. We even had tattoos of the number 4 in Roman numerals. Winter did too, now that she was officially one of us.
Whatever the reason was, I hadn’t had to work for female attention.
I smirked to myself, which Winter caught. “Something funny?” She studied me as she chalked her pool cue, then blew on it.
“Not really. Just thinking that I’ll never understand women.”
Cassius slung his arm over my shoulder. “Mate, don’t even try.” With that sage advice, he removed his arm, leaning over the table and angling his pool cue. “Boys versus girls. Loser makes dinner.”
“Why is it always about food with you?” Winter took her turn at the table, sending a striped ball flying into the corner pocket.
“I’m a growing boy.”
My phone buzzed with a message alert, and I took it out while I waited for my turn at the table.
“Yes!”
Everyone turned to me at my shout.
“Didn’t mean to shout. My car’s ready. I can pick it up tomorrow morning.”
“Want me to drop you at the garage? I can miss my Economics class.” Cass had a huge grin on his face. He knew, better than anyone, just how much I’d been looking forward to this day. My own car at last. Not just any car, either. An Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, thanks to my dad’s newfound friendship with his new business associate, Lars De Witt. I’d been on the ridiculously long waiting list for another Aston Martin model, but when my dad offered me this car via Lars, there was no way I was going to turn it down. It was a year old, but it had spent most of its life so far sitting in a garage, and that was a crime I couldn’t ignore. I’d just been waiting on the custom matte-black paint job, and now, it was finally ready.
“Nah, I’ll get an Uber. Thanks, though.”
“You know what this means. We need to celebrate your new wheels. Friday night.” My best mate was already tapping on his phone. “I heard that whatshername’s single now. Laura? I think?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, invite her, and her friend. The one with the dark hair.”
“Would you say you prefer girls with dark hair?” Winter was suddenly in my face, studying me intently.
“What? Why?” I raised a brow. “I don’t have a type.”
She nodded, then abruptly turned away, dismissing me. Shaking my head, I lined my cue up, ready to sink the ball into the middle pocket before tapping the white ball lightly. Perfect shot.
“Hey, Cass? You’re inviting Lena,” I heard Winter say, as I sank another ball. He said something in reply that was too low for me to hear over the noise of the bar.
Lena Drummond.
The girl I never allowed myself to think about.
The one single girl who was completely off limits.
My best friend’s sister.
FIVE
Early the following morning, before anyone else was up, I unlocked the door to the computer room and headed over to my desk. A bank of monitors faced me, most of them dark, but one was lit up and scrolling through our various security feeds. The other was flashing a message at me.
Analysis Complete
Thank fuck for Xenon. The program he’d written and sent to me was insane. It scanned all the hacked data, using various algorithms to flag up anything that could be classed as suspicious. While I could’ve gone through it all manually, the guy had thousands of emails and messages on his phone, and it would’ve taken me forever.
My headache returned as I started manually sifting through the flagged items. A blinking dot at the corner of the screen reminded me that I had an unread message from Mercury, and I logged in to our encrypted chat.
Mercury: WYR have a frog’s legs or a fly’s head?
A grin stretched over my face. I couldn’t remember who started it first, but in between all the tech shit we talked about, we’d somehow fallen into a habit of throwing these weird as fuck “would you rather” questions at each other at random times.
Me: WTF. How can I answer that?
Even though it was early, not even 6:00 a.m., he was online and replied straight away.
Mercury: Pick one
Me: You’re a sadist. OK frog legs I guess. I could hide them under clothes. You?
Mercury: Same. Could be useful
Me: Did Xenon send you the beta program?
Mercury: No. Dickhead wouldn’t give it up without a favour
Me: It’s good. Saving me fuckloads of time
Mercury: Is fuckloads a word?
Me: Are you the grammar police, hacker boy?
Mercury: Fuck off
Me: OK I’ve got one. WYR give up your phone or your computer?
Mercury: Damn. I’ll get back to you
I signed off, satisfied that I’d managed to stump him temporarily, and returned to sifting through the flagged data from Xenon’s program.
“Morning.” I was interrupted a while later by the door swinging open. Caiden stepped into the room, balancing a plate in one hand and a mug in the other. “Car day today.” He grinned at me, pleased.
“I know. It’s taken forever, but I’m glad it worked out. This car’s gonna be fucking beautiful.”
“But not as good as mine.” Smirking, he came to a stop next me and placed the mug and plate on my desk, pushing my keyboard back to make room.
“Mind the keyboard. It’s new.” I gave him a warning look, making him roll his eyes. “There’s no comparison with the cars. Mine’s far superior.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He pushed the plate towards me. “Breakfast. Eat.”
“Thanks.” I picked up the bagel, taking a large bite.
“You’re welcome. Wanna take our cars for a drive later? Mack’s—”
“Fuck, no. I’m not taking my new Aston Martin to that shit excuse for a racetrack. Have you seen the surface? There’s more potholes than…” I cast around for a comparison. “Something really potholey.”
He raised a brow. “Never took you for a snob.”