“I’m not marrying her. I’m just gonna say that up front. But I can’t walk out on her. Not until I know she’s safe.”
“So what’s that mean?”
“It means…” I sigh. “That I will have to take her places.”
“Such as?”
“Not homecoming. I’m taking you to homecoming.”
“Presumptuous much?”
“Cadee Hunter, would you like to go to homecoming with me?”
She reaches for my hand and kisses my knuckles, then demurely looks up at me through half-mast eyes. “I would be honored, my king.”
“Good.” I take a moment to smile.
“But…” she prods.
“Right. But there’s a harvest dance-festival-rite thing that same night. And I do have to take Isabella to that one.”
“What kind of harvest dance-festival-rite?”
“At the tomb, Cades.”
“Oh.”
“You can come too. But… you have to walk behind us.”
“What?” She scoffs and sits up, her tits bouncing a little inside her tight, white crop top. “Like I’m what? Your concubine?”
“Ehhhhh. Yeah.”
And then she laughs. Which is a better reaction than I pictured when I was walking home from that meeting with my father. “What will we do at this harvest dance-festival-rite?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to one. It’s only for seniors.”
“Well, what do you normally do at that tomb? You’ve been to meetings there before?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve actually been going all my life. But only to family things. Tame things. This is some next-level shit, I think.”
“So I’ll get to go and see for myself, if I act like your concubine.”
“Ahhh. Yup. You can say no.”
“And stay home?”
“Right.”
“Fuck that, I’m going.”
“Cadee—”
“No. I’m going. If my parents were a part of this secret club, then I want to know what it’s about.”
“Well, this won’t be the only one. There’s another one for midwinter’s night. And then New Year’s. There’ll be two parties for that one. A regular New Year’s party at the Alumni Inn and then the other one in the early hours of the morning at the tomb.”
“Well, that’s ominous.”
“It’s an engagement party for Isabella and me.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“But you do.”
“If I want to graduate. And hey, I’m OK with not graduating. I really don’t think it’s going to happen. But I would like to pull Isabella through this year, if I can. And then she won’t be around anymore. I mean, I would like to keep my eye on her just in case my father gets any sick ideas about using her to get to me. But I’m not marrying her. If you agree, I’ll play along for this year. And that’s it. Once it’s over, we’re out.”
She eases her way up my chest and places both her hands on either side of my face so she can look me in the eyes. “I want you to graduate. We have all kinds of interesting geological engineering projects ahead of us.”
“Speaking of that, my father gave me a research project for Capstone.”
“Oh, my God. You sound so smart right now.”
I laugh and so does she.
“What’s the project?”
“Some kind of underground radar shit? I’m not sure. But he planned it all out for me. I’m supposed to map the tomb area. Not the surface, but underneath it. He says they think there’s an undiscovered cavern under there.”
“Hmm. Sounds like a secret Fang and Feather crony job to me.”
“It’s definitely a secret crony job. But it’s either do that or come up with my own project. I’ll probably just do his.”
“The path of least resistance.”
“That’s me.” I sigh. “Good old Cooper Valcourt. Always looking for the easy way out.”
“Cooper, I’m fine with all this. I like Isabella. She’s not into you.”
“So not into me.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard… well. Dante told me she’s into girls. But when I tried to bring it up—”
“Don’t bring it up. She’s… I don’t know. In denial, maybe? Or… she’s just struggling with it.” I sigh again. “It upsets her and I don’t want her upset.”
“Yeah, she got mad at me. But I do like her. She tries hard.”
“She does try. But if you ever need her to come through in the end, don’t hold your breath.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - CADEE
Before I know it, the first day of classes is upon me. I am mostly taking general ed, but I have a life-drawing studio class and a color theory class in my major. And the best part of that is that I got to go back to the bookstore to get art supplies.
I might’ve picked up a pair of High Court gym shorts and a mug while I was there.
Cooper and I don’t have any classes together, of course. But Sophie and I share a history class and Mona is in my English lit class. Having Sophie around is cool, but Mona and I can’t be friends if we’re still going through with Dante’s plan. And from the way she shuns me, I figure they still think this is happening. But I’m pretty sure none of the others are giving Dante and Mona a second thought.
I play along for the first week because she seems to be going out of her way to ignore me whenever I get too close, but I finally get her alone at the side of the humanities building.
“Mona!”
She turns, then looks nervously around. “What, Cadee? We’re not supposed to be on speaking terms.”
She’s wearing another sophisticated outfit. A pair of wide-legged, off-white pants and a tailored crop jacket in the same color that cinches tight high up on her waist. This is how she dresses now. Very put together. Very classy. Very Stepford Wife.
“You do realize that everyone is just pretty much going along with the plan, right? And by plan, I don’t mean Dante’s plan. They got their money back, and their cars—all their perks. No one seems to even remember that we all made a pact to get each other out. And we’re all living in the dorm now, except Ax.”
“I didn’t hear a question in there. Do you have a question for me?”
I huff. “Mona. We’re friends. We just talked to each other in the bursar’s office a couple weeks ago and everything was fine. What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m meeting Dante and his family for lunch in the Chairman’s dining room.” She smiles at me. “Would you like to join us?”
“What?”
“You’re so obsessed with what we’re doing. Come along. I think it will be enlightening. Lars will be there.”
“Lars? Why?”
“Come on, Cadee. You know why Lars is there.”
“No, I really don’t. And I’m going to pass on your offer. Cooper doesn’t want me alone with Lars anymore.”
“I wonder why.” She sighs. “At any rate, I have places to be and people to see. Bye, Cadee.”