by Jacie Lennon
“Get in here,” I hiss, and she pushes off the wall, walking inside the room. “Why didn’t you tell me Corbin was a scholarship student?”
“I didn’t know it was a secret.”
“Well, I didn’t know.”
“Did he only tell you now?” She raises her eyebrows.
“Yeah.”
“Interesting.”
I could scream at her for her cryptic answer. She must see the crazy in my eyes because she walks forward, sighing.
“It’s not usually talked about. The scholarship students generally keep to themselves, not having grown up with the kids who go here. Except for Corbin. He’s the odd man out, who rose to the top. Freshman year, Brock and Bodhi took him in. I don’t know the details, but they’ve been together ever since. They don’t talk about it with anyone else. I just think it’s strange that he told you, I guess.” She shrugs and sits down across from me on her bed.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I say.
Trixie shakes her head. “Not to you and me, but everyone else here would rather die than be poor.”
“Why not you? Didn’t you grow up with all of our classmates?”
“Most of them, yes. But I guess you could say that I had to grow up quicker than them, and it helped me put my life in perspective.” I open my mouth to ask, but Trixie quickly shakes her head, so I don’t. “So, was it good?”
“Was what good?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” she says with a laugh, eyeing the sweatshirt I put on over her ripped uniform top. “I could hear your moans outside in the hallway.”
My face instantly flames, and I cover it with my hands. For a moment, it helps to take my mind off everything that happened today.
“Oh God, Trix. I’m in so much trouble.”
I burst out laughing, and her giggles mix with mine.
10
Corbin
God, I’m an idiot. There’s no reason for why I shared such personal things with Landry. There’s something about her that loosens my tongue, but I can’t get close to her. I can’t, and the guys won’t allow it.
I push open the heavy oak door to our meeting spot, the furniture still askew from our scuffle.
“Hey, fucker,” Bodhi says, another bag of damn grapes in his hand, and he pelts me with one before I can react.
“Where have you been?” Brock turns accusing eyes on me, and I shrug, not wanting to confirm or deny what he already knows is true. “Did my little stunt get through to her?” He leans back on two legs of the chair he’s sitting in.
“I thought it was to teach the school a lesson.”
“Exactly. She was just the one used in teaching the lesson. People are getting too relaxed around here. Just because we haven’t been around doesn’t mean we haven’t been watching.”
“Have you found out anything more?”
“Yes. It’s the whole reason we are meeting right now. Got an email early this morning from my guy. There’s some shady shit going down.” Brock turns his computer as I walk over and lean down to look at the email. Bodhi stops playing with his grapes and looks too.
“Offshore accounts?” I furrow my brow. “Why is this news? Doesn’t your dad have offshore accounts?”
“Look at the name,” Brock prompts, obnoxiously smacking the gum he’s chewing on, a knowing smile playing across his face.
I look back at the screen as Bodhi sucks in a breath before groaning and reaching into his pocket for his wallet. He slaps a twenty-dollar bill in Brock’s hand with a muttered curse word.
“I didn’t think she would be involved,” he says as Brock pockets the money.
As if these guys needed a twenty.
My eyes scan the email again, looking at the screenshot included. Three offshore accounts in the name of Landry Paradise. Fuck, I didn’t even know her last name. It’s fitting after the taste I just had of her.
Fucking heaven.
“I don’t understand,” I say, standing up straight and placing one hand behind my neck, rubbing.
“We don’t either. But why the fuck does she have offshore accounts, and why does her mom access them frequently?”
“I don’t see anything that shows money in or out.”
“He’s working on that, getting the spreadsheet that shows amounts. It’s a tricky thing, getting access to this without raising red flags. But he has access to Linda’s browser history and says she checks these account sites often. The question is, why?”
My heart drops. I knew the twins were looking into Linda, not trusting her, but I thought it might be wishful thinking on their part, not wanting their dad involved with someone again after their mother left him. But seeing Landry associated with it stops me in my tracks. I knew she was too good to be true. I knew wanting something and having something were always going to be two separate things in my life.
“You know she might not know anything about this, right?” I’m looking for answers, anything that could explain what I see in front of me.
“Yeah, but we can’t take the chance of her knowing and then finding out we are onto her and her mom.” Bodhi raises an eyebrow at me.
I nod. They are right.
Fuck. She’s not someone I can have in my life now.
When this all blows up—and if Brock and Bodhi have anything to do with it, it will blow up—I don’t need to be anywhere near it. I’m almost eighteen, and this is my chance at a happy life and maybe my only chance at getting Abe his happy life too. I can’t ruin that. I can’t let her ruin that.
I curse under my breath, angry with her and myself.
“Which is where you come in.”
I register the words, and my head snaps up, looking into Brock’s calculating eyes. His smile is sinister, and he twirls a pen in his hand as he stares at me.
“What?” I ask, not wanting to know what he has planned.
The look on his face indicates that this isn’t something that will be very fun. Painful maybe but not fun.
“Since you are so obviously obsessed with her—”
“I’m not obsessed with her,” I scoff. I’m not, not anymore. I can’t be.
“Whatever,” Brock says, waving away my protest. “This will play in your favor. I think we should use her attraction to you as our weapon. Get close to her, flush the truth out.”
“And you want me to do that?”
“Exactly.” Bodhi grins, throwing another grape up and catching it.
I sigh and rub my neck again. At this rate, I won’t have any skin left back there, and we are only a day into the semester.
“What do you want to know?”
This is probably a horrible idea, but these are my boys. They have always had my back, and now, I need to have theirs. It’s damning evidence, and it looks like Landry coming to live with her mom isn’t as innocent as they would have us believe. This threatens Brock and Bodhi, and it threatens me.
Brock pins me with a sober look. “Everything.”
I left school after our talk in the attic, driving back home with Brock. I dropped him off at a sketchy-ass place. The only explanation from him was that he was meeting his guy. I took a day for myself to think. I stopped in at a diner to kill time until Abe was done with school, and as soon as the bell rang, I was sitting outside, waiting for him, my borrowed car glittering next to the beat-up, older vehicles of the lower class.
But I’m going to drive my motorcycle back to school. I need something that is mine, so I don’t have to rely on someone else’s car.
I guess after I’ve benefited from my relationship with the Montgomerys so much over the last few years, they would finally call in a favor from me. But damn if it’s one I don’t want to get in the middle of. I could put up with their games at school, even join in, but I wasn’t emotionally invested in any of those.
I feel like a tool, like a failure, and like Abe and I finally have a hope for the future, all at once. But it’s all thanks to my friendship with Brock and Bodhi.
I coul
d exude a cold exterior and play the crass, lording king. I even enjoy being on top sometimes, but now, I feel tired. Life is truly better for the rich—a fact you don’t see unless you are on the outside, looking in.
“Corbin!” Abe shouts as soon as he spots me, running for the car as fast as his legs will take him.
It’s a small mercy that Grandma and Grandpa haven’t taken me off the approved family list for him. They probably forgot.
“Hey, champ,” I say, reaching over to ruffle his hair as he puts his seat belt on.
I smile, looking at his face. I would do anything to make him happy, and I am. To keep him safe is my goal in life, one I’m actively working toward. I don’t think past it. I can only consider things for myself concerning Abe’s future.
“Want to go get some food?”
“Can we go to The Burger Shack?” His excitement is palpable, and I put my blinker on to pull out of the parking lot, headed toward his favorite place to eat.
“Yeah, we can,” I say.
Then, I listen to him talk about his classes and friends. His favorite subjects and favorite teachers. I’m happy he has his innocence still. That he hasn’t had to endure what I did. I don’t know why Grandpa doesn’t go after Abe, but I’m not complaining. He had been hitting me for a few years by the time I was seven.
I sit across from Abe, watching him eat the two cheeseburgers and large fries he ordered, chuckling when I remember how much I used to eat. Damn growth spurts. Grandma would always complain to Grandpa about them before they refused to spend their hard-earned money on more food for me because I thought I was hungry. I hope they aren’t refusing food for Abe.
“What do you like to eat at home?” I ask, wanting to see if Abe tells me anything that will have me gritting my teeth in anger.
He shrugs, putting another bite of burger in his mouth, tearing it off with an abrupt pull and then grinning at me.
“Whatever I can find, I guess,” he says around his food, and I nod.
“Do you have food at home?” I feel a stab in my gut because I didn’t check properly before I left.
“Yeah. I eat mostly grilled cheese when Grandma is there or something I can fix myself when she’s not.”
“Grandma fixes you grilled cheeses?”
“Yeah,” he says.
I sit back, stunned. I don’t remember her ever fixing me a grilled cheese. But I’m glad that they are taking better care of Abe. I still worry about him.
“But that’s only if I’ve been good.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I get in trouble at school, then she doesn’t fix me a grilled cheese.”
“What do you get when you are in trouble?”
“Nothing. That’s my punishment. So, I try not to get in trouble because I’m really hungry sometimes.”
The way he said it so nonchalantly makes me sick to my stomach. He shouldn’t have to deal with that. I don’t care how bad he’s been. He’s seven. He deserves to eat. He might have it better than I did, but he also deserves better than the hand he’s been dealt.
“Okay. I’ll take you to the store after this. We can put some things in your backpack. I want you to keep them in your room for those days.”
Abe nods and goes back to his burger. He kicks one leg while he looks around, and I watch him, memorizing his face while he doesn’t pay me any attention. I hate every day that I’m not there to protect him, but I know it’s for the best, me being at Almadale. It’s one of the most prestigious schools in the country. I’m guaranteed a spot in an Ivy League school. I can take Abe far away from here and get an education, make something of myself for him. Make a better life for us.
I can’t fuck this up.
The next day, classes start, and I’m up before the sun. I couldn’t sleep, lying awake, thinking of all the possible outcomes of what I was going to do. I don’t think getting closer to Landry is a good idea, but fuck me if my dick does. Now, I have to take things into my own hands—literally. I have fucking blue balls from yesterday.
Making sure Brock and Bodhi are still asleep, I shut the bathroom door, turning on the shower and climbing in. The hot water cascading down my body feels amazing and brings to mind Landry’s soaked body, climbing from the water in her tiny shorts and an oversized T-shirt. I don’t know how I got so lucky that she’d slept in a white shirt that night, but in the light of the moon, it didn’t leave a lot to my imagination on the top. I didn’t let my eyes linger too long, but I took a mental snapshot for a moment like right now.
I don’t know what it is about something hidden, like her hard nipples behind the fabric. I know what they look like. I saw them puckered in the cool air of her dorm room. But my mind wants to focus on the erotic sight of her in that damn wet T-shirt.
I grip my hardening length in my hand, stroking it once, twice, up and down, twisting the head as I play that moment over and over again in my mind. What I wouldn’t give to go back and put my mouth right over that dark bud, suck it through the material. The sensation driving her crazy but without me ever fully touching her actual heated flesh.
My hand moves faster as I imagine her arching her back, giving in to me as I grip her hair, pulling her head back and nipping her neck. My breathing grows labored, and my hips jut forward.
Fuck.
Just thinking about her like this is enough to kill me, and I’ve had a taste of her. To be inside her will send me over an edge I’ll never come back from. I’ve never had these thoughts about a girl, been completely consumed by one before. But I’m fucked now. I know that I’ll take the guys up on their offer. My head knows what an absolute disaster of an idea it is, but my fucking dick can’t say no.
I lean over, gripping the wall of the shower with my hand as I pump faster. Chest heaving, I feel my balls tighten. I come with a groan, the release relieving me and then creating more tension inside me. I can’t even fucking come without her in my mind. I shouldn’t allow this, but I’m a slave to my thoughts now.
I quickly wash up and towel off, wrapping it around my middle. Then, I step out into the room again.
“Have a nice wank?” Bodhi says in an awful British accent.
I roll my eyes. I pull the towel from around my waist, roll it up, and snap it at him as he lets out a high-pitched screech and jerks his body to the side.
“You ass.” He holds his leg where I popped him with the end of the towel. “Put your dick away. No one wants to see that.”
“Don’t look at it,” I say back, rifling through my closet for some boxer briefs to put on.
“Kinda hard when you have a semi-chub and you are naked.”
“Get dressed. We don’t have much time,” I say, checking my phone for the time and seeing that we have to be in the chapel in thirty minutes.
“We don’t have to be on time,” Brock says, yawning as he lies in bed, texting someone on his phone.
“Maybe you fuckers don’t, but I’m here on scholarship.”
“Yeah, that our dad pays,” Bodhi says, and I still.
Brock sits up slightly and narrows his eyes at Bodhi. “Shut the hell up, man. You know Dad doesn’t want that shit out there.”
“Chester pays for the scholarship students?” I ask, making sure I heard him right.
After all this time … ensuring I never take too much from them. Making lists of what I owe, so I can pay it back as soon as I’m on my feet. Then, they drop this bomb. I don’t want to owe anyone anything if I don’t have to. I was under the impression that it was a group effort, that alum pooled money for scholarship students, but this … this makes more sense.
The entitled Almadale alum would probably rather cut off their own feet than pay for poor kids to go to their school. Except for a few, Chester included, most of the elitist assholes here wouldn’t think twice about us.
I sigh and rub the back of my neck.
“Now you’ve done it,” Brock says, throwing his phone down and sitting up. He jerks his neck from side to side, stretching and p
opping it before rising and looking for his uniform to put on. “He will have to add this to his list, and we won’t hear the end of it.”
“You don’t have to pay us back, man. You know you are our brother.” Bodhi looks sheepish, like he can’t believe he let out a secret.
“I know,” I growl, wanting them to stop talking about it.
It’s a joke to them but not to me. They don’t know what it’s like to not know when you’ll be able to eat again or if you’ll be able to wear clean clothes to school. They’ve never worried about electricity or heat. I’m not saying they’ve never had hardship, but they don’t understand my thinking. They’ve never owed anyone anything.
I pull my uniform with a hard yank, making the hanger skitter across the floor, and the room is silent, only the rustling of our clothing as we dress. I slip my feet into my loafers and roll up the ends of my pant legs, leaving my shirt untucked. We are the only three the faculty doesn’t dare to get on about our uniform, and they are lucky we wear one.
I open the door, Brock and Bodhi beside me, as I take a deep breath.
Here’s to another year at Almadale.
11
Landry
I shuffle anxiously on the bench, the hard wood digging into my ass where my skirt has ridden up. It’s not a hard feat to accomplish, given that I still have to wear Trixie’s uniform until mine can be found. I’ve ordered two more sets, but they said it would take a week or two to arrive since it’s the very beginning of the semester and most everything is sold out.
Chapel started ten minutes ago, and it continues for twenty more minutes before we head to class. There’s a slight shuffle at the back of the room as the double doors are thrown open. Heads crane around to look, but I don’t. I know who it is because my traitorous body has focused on the fact that neither Corbin nor Brock or Bodhi have shown up yet. I hate myself for even looking.
Their footsteps echo down the middle aisle, drawing closer and closer until there’s a gasp and movement to my left. I finally give in, glancing their way to see the boys stepping over the girls in my row until they are next to me and Trixie. They jerk their heads, indicating for the ones seated around me to move, and when there are three clear spaces, they sit down, Corbin next to me. His sleeve touches mine, and I look down, slightly shifting away so there is a gap between us, but he shifts again, filling it. I look up, glaring, but he smirks, keeping his eyes straight ahead and not looking at me.
