It had become damn cold during the last days. First the unusual heat at the beginning of autumn, now the sub-zero temperatures. The weather in Vancouver went crazy.
Suddenly I saw her.
Her smile was so natural and beautiful it was almost disgusting.
She had styled her short blonde hair with setting lotion, her big grey eyes with only a little make-up. A touch of rouge made a pink tone on her high cheekbones.
And of course she wore another edition of particularly kitschy cowboy boots.
Mackenzie Walker was pretty. This could not be denied despite her questionable hairstyle and her penchant for kitschy shoes.
I secretly wished her a fat transplant or a broken nose that would give her a hump overnight.
The way she looked now, I wasn't surprised James was into her.
I broke free of Benji's embrace and quickened my pace.
"Hey!" I said politely as I opened up to her.
"O...hey," she replied hesitantly.
Uncertainty spread across her face.
It was the first time I had spoken to her. But she certainly knew who I was.
Not least because she was fucking my... James.
"The Vice Country Club is having its annual Winter Formal this Saturday. You are cordially invited."
I smiled and patted her upper arm for a second.
"Um... okay," she returned and swallowed.
Jesus Christ - why was she so nervous? Had someone spoiled my surprise and let her know that I was coming after her?
"I... well, she stuttered. That's very nice, but I have plans.
She looked at me apologetically. Her lashes were thick and long despite the little mascara.
"You mean the meet and greet with your grandparents?" I asked light-heartedly.
She frowned.
"You... know about that?"
Well, my dear - one of the many advantages of belonging to the Privileged Fiends was that you knew about all the important things.
Besides, I had done my homework.
After all, I had to know who I was dealing with.
That Laura and Paul Farmer were Mackenzie's grandparents of all people was not ideal. But it didn't scare me off, either.
They were old-timers. They had a lot of influence in Vancouver.
Their daughter, after a rebellious youth, disappeared completely from the scene at some point.
"Vancouver is a village," I explained, curling my nose. "You can come after," I suggested. "Most of the time by seven it gets too political not to go crazy. You can bring a friend, too. It's ladies' choice!"
I smiled promisingly.
"It's easier to get along here when you're at one social event or another," I added.
I said all this so kindly that I almost bought it myself.
Mackenzie held the upper part of her parkas shut. Apparently there was a button missing.
"All right," she replied timidly and smiled as well.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my neck.
"There."
Benji's dark voice resounded close behind me.
The warmth emanating from his body amazed me again and again - knowing his cold heart.
"You're new?" he asked, looking at Mackenzie.
He ran his two fingers in a semicircle over my neck once and only stopped when I stopped him, just above my collarbone.
"Mackenzie," the cowboy girl imagined.
Benji reached out his hand to her.
"Benjamin King," he said with a diabolical echo in his voice.
I wrapped my scarf around my neck once more.
"I've just invited Mackenzie to the Winter Formal," I explained, giving Benji a knowing look.
"Ladies' choice," he noticed and seductively pulled up one of his dark brows.
It was unmistakable that Mackenzie felt intimidated by Benji.
He wore a short coat over his dark gray suit. The upturned collar gave him an extra portion of coolness, which in turn provided a great contrast to his elegance.
"Already heard", Mackenzie muttered, dodging the gaze from his azure eyes.
"Well then, Mackenzie," I released her from Benji's spell, "you know where the country club is?"
She was about to open her mouth when the King of Thorn already explained it.
"This will get you in," he said, and handed her a black card with a V stamped in it.
Reluctantly, Mackenzie reached for it.
"Thank you."
"I'd love to," Benji replied and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb before handing her the card.
Mackenzie's face color changed from one second to crab red.
"We have to go then," I said and reached for Benji's arm. But he couldn't help smiling at Mackenzie one last time.
"What was that?" I hissed when we were at a safe distance.
Benji never wavered.
"Conversation."
I clicked my tongue.
"You know exactly what I mean," I replied in a subdued voice.
Abruptly, Benji pulled me into a side corridor.
It led to the janitor's office - and nowhere else.
"Does it bother you that I hit on her?"
Benji's eyes flashed.
I stood with my back to the wall; he not sixty centimeters in front of me.
"No, why should it be?", I fended him off with a snout.
One corner of his mouth pulled itself up contentedly.
Slowly he leaned towards me until his lips were close to my ear.
The hairs on my forearms pointed upwards as his warm breathing air met my skin.
"If I can't have the queen, at least I can have a suitable replacement," he whispered.
I heard the grin in his voice.
Determined, I laid my hands on his trained chest and pushed him aside.
"She should go with James!", I said brusquely. "Not with you."
"So what?" commented Benji and ran beside me from the deserted corridor.
"I already have my date."
About half of the students were already sitting in their seats when we entered our lecture hall.
"And who is it?", I asked with an annoyed overtone in my voice.
Benji tapped his chin in a very meaningful way.
"Hmmm ... let me think," he began and shrugged his eyebrows. "Busty, flaming red hair, works at your favorite place..."
"You're kidding!" I took it away. "Shouldn't she hate you?"
Diane Kingsley, secretary to the former head of the environment department, had knowingly - or unknowingly - given Benji the code for her company's offices.
He had seduced her in order to get information.
information that would lead to her boss being fired.
"All she has to do is put two and two together," I confirmed my theory.
Benji let me - quite the gentleman he usually was - step forward into our seats.
"Well," he said with a depraved grin on his beautifully curved lips. "Once you've tasted my talents, you won't want to miss them again." He looked at me offensively. "You'd know that if...
A bright female voice interrupted the meaningful look he had laid on me.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!"
We both looked down at the stocky woman who suddenly stood in front of the whiteboard. She was fifty feet tall at most - if at all - and had a caramel-coloured perm. She was wearing a dark red costume that looked as if she had worn it thirty years ago when she was a student. She wore red lipstick in the wrong shade and earrings, just as Sky liked them: dangling down to her shoulder and striking.
"Welcome to literature!"
She radiated a warmth that made me like her right away.
"I'm Maggy Polish, Mr Edwards' replacement until the end of the semester"
A murmur went through the rows.
"Uh... Mr Moore, I mean, of course," she corrected herself and entered with a smile.
I greeted Rash with a silent nod and pointed my head to Sky's empty space.
Rash sh
rugged his shoulders. He was wearing a green Marco Polo pullover with a white shirt collar sticking out of it.
The black hair he had ironed back.
A hairstyle that really suited him and looked anything but chubby.
After I had successfully banished Benji's allusion to the catacombs of my subconscious, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.
Ms. Polish just explained that she would only stay with us until the end of the semester, when Sky stumbled in the door.
And stumbling was actually the right word.
For one thing, she almost fell over her - certainly three meter long striped scarf - and for another, her gait looked as if she had just drunk three acres.
However, since Sky only drank alcohol very rarely - and certainly not before the beginning of the seminar - she must have been thrown off track by something.
"Sorry I'm late," she said in a fragile voice, looking at Ms Polish.
Our new literature professor replied with understanding, "Never mind", and gave her a loving smile.
As Sky almost reached our row, I noticed her eyes red and puffy.
"What's wrong?" I whispered and looked at her with concern after she had taken a seat next to me.
Rash and Benji had their eyes on her too. They looked no less anxious.
Sky buried her fingers in her brown-red Bob and looked down.
"Sky?!," I insisted quietly and put one hand on her back. "Did something happen?"
"Madox," she finally croaked, suppressing a sob.
I had a bad feeling.
Madox hadn't contacted either of us since the bonfire weekend.
He rarely answered his cell phone anyway (the fact that he had even bought a smartphone a year ago bordered on half a wonder of the world) and hardly ever wrote back.
But that was funny here anyway.
After he hadn't shown up at the Thorn for a few days, Sky had put us off with a flimsy explanation. "Bad stomach," she had tried to make us believe.
Since Benji, Rash and I were familiar with Madox's penchant for danger and destruction, we assumed he was in trouble. But as long as Sky was in the loop and didn't say anything, everything had to be within reason.
Because she would not allow anything bad to happen to him.
Now the tide had obviously turned.
"Get out," Benji mumbled and stood up.
Rash, Sky and I followed him. With my girlfriend undercutting me, because she suddenly started to cry and seemed even weaker.
"Is everything all right?" asked Ms Polish.
"Family matter," explained Rash, raising her hands pardoningly.
"O!" took it away from the professor. "Do you need any help?
"No, thanks. Go on," Rash replied and closed the door behind us.
Meanwhile Sky had already slipped to the ground and hid her face in her hands. Benji, who had gone into the hall first, crouched next to her.
Rash and I also sank down, each of us putting a hand on one of her knees.
"What has he done?" Rash asked cautiously.
It was not a matter of life and death. or she would not have appeared at the Thorn.
Sky sobbed up, then lifted her head and wiped the tears from her eyes.
Despite the smeared mascara it was unmistakable that she had dark circles under her eyes.
"He's had an accident," she cried, her head resting on her hand. "Dodged a teenager and smashed head-on into Marbel's grocery store with his car."
"That was him?" remarked Rash in horror.
It had been in the paper. But there were no details, and apart from the Moore affair, a car accident of this sort didn't exactly attract much attention.
Sky nodded. "He was stoned out of his mind... and he'd been drinking."
Their voices sounded choppy because they were repeatedly interrupted by sobbing noises.
"Is he...?"
"Fine and community service," Sky replied, answering the question of whether they had locked him up.
Benji's face darkened.
I too felt tense. Madox was already on parole.
He had started a fight with a colleague of his father at a city council meeting when he was seventeen. He had been drunk and had insulted the man until he had finally built himself up in front of him.
Madox had seen this as a challenge for a fight.
The honourable judge had - despite his friendship with Mr Hanson and the knowledge of the tragedy of the family - made short trial and denounced Madox.
None of us had been there. But that Madox could become quick-tempered, violent and irascible was no secret.
We had been friends since high school, but it wasn't until we were named Privileged Fiends when we joined the Thorn that we really bonded.
The money, the positions of our parents (or stepparents), and the prestige that came with it had brought us closer.
It was easier to trust when you knew that the person you were talking to wasn't just because he was after your bank account and status.
"My parents took care of that."
Sky took a deep breath. "He was given hundreds of hours of community service, a substantial fine, and an order to stay clean. Regular tests, attending meetings and so on."
Again she sobbed up.
"The only condition was that I break up with him."
I took a deep breath. Then I slowly said, "I'm sorry."
I was surprised that she was so upset about it. I always had the feeling that she and Madox... ...were having a fun, casual, no-holds-barred affair.
"I didn't tell him," Sky croaked further and apathetically twisted one of her large bracelets back and forth. "I haven't told him about the ultimatum. Except that Mom and Dad could use my uncle to sweep the marijuana under the table. He was totally freaked out."
She swallowed audibly. "He just ended everything. "I went out on a limb for him. He knows how conservative my parents are when it comes to drugs.
Sky shivered uncontrollably and broke out into another whimper.
"Wow, that ass," I took it away.
Sky's parents may have seemed like hippies who took things lightly.
But anyone who had ever had dinner at their house knew that appearances were trough.
They placed great value on resolving inner conflicts, expressing the core of the personality and not blindly joining the masses - in addition, they fenced off what they thought was an appropriate extension of the character with a barbed wire fence.
I pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her.
She whimpered a soft "Thank you".
"That's reason enough to skip classes?" Benji insensitively interjected.
I gave him a dirty look.
"Is he back on?" asked Rash, one hand still onsky's knee.
Madox smoked like a chimney and at parties he didn't say no to coke either.
I had always thought that his lack of concern for his health was a kind of late adolescence.
He was in a very dark place before he was convicted.
It was hard not to blame him for this behaviour, because everyone who knew the Hanson family knew what he had been through.
Nevertheless, that event had helped to sweep away some of his "fuck you, life" attitude.
In the end, I had the impression that he was getting better.
Besides, it wasn't like him to get behind the wheel intoxicated.
Sky rubbed herself across his neck.
"I don't know. I don't think so."
She sniffed her handkerchief.
Rash got up and went to the vending machine which was only a few meters away from us.
"I don't understand why he doesn't appreciate my help even a little bit," Sky said.
Her eyes were even redder from crying so much.
"Have you ever asked him?"
I gently stroked her knee.
Benji had meanwhile got up and was leaning against the wall opposite.
"He didn't give me the chance," Sky replied, breathing heavily. "He just ran away. Without sayi
ng a word of explanation ... or thank you."
I sighed and she took his arm.
When we separated again, Rash held two bottles of orange-cinnamon-limo in front of us.
They were already open.
I thanked him while Sky sniffed into the handkerchief once more.
I looked at Benji looking for help.
If anyone could handle Madox in agro mode, it was him.
Benji moaned deeply and unbuttoned the top button of his jacket.
"I'm going to have a talk with him," he growled and took a sip of his soda.
Rash had once again done what he did best - besides picking up women: taking care of the people he cared about.
I did the same for Benji and also took a sip of the exotic sugar mixture.
"Come on up," said Rash, reaching out his hand to Sky and me.
After he had helped us up swinging, he also got himself a lemonade from the vending machine.
The sound of the glass bottle popping out was masked by the loud shrillness of the bell.
Doors were ripped open; the hallway filled with students.
Of course Chloe Clarice Bell wiggled her butt right in front of my nose as she passed us.
Liam shuffled half a meter behind her.
It looked as if he wanted to grab her hand. But when he spotted me, he stopped moving and greeted me instead.
I returned a weak "Hey" and could have slapped myself for it at the same moment - I had sworn to myself never to waste another word on that full nest again!
"I wonder if she'll spank him too," Benji threw into the hall so loudly that everyone heard him.
There was whispering and giggling and Chloe looked ashamedly down.
I still couldn't stand her. But despite my failed attempt to become a better person, I regretted what I had done with Benji.
It was a sex crime to make sure that the entire school witnessed their love games with the head of Xantec's environmental department.
She had more than surprised me with her frankness regarding dominant coitus practices. It suited her - I thought - bossy nature, but secretly I had always thought of her as a prude, perhaps for that very reason.
After I had seen the sex tape of her and Mr. "Please hit me and give me animal names", I had to revise my image of her - at least partially.
At least partially.
Chloe Clarice Bell was tough through and through
Still, she did not deserve to have her privacy violated in this way.
Unfortunately, I only realized this after the tape had already been sent to all students of Thorn, plus the CEO of Xantec.
Vicious Bet: Don't fall in love! (Sinners and Saints Book 1) Page 18
