“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 could 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.