I charged at him for the third time on autopilot.
“What the fuck, Dean!” Jaime pried me off of him and dragged me toward the blue bleachers overlooking the field.
This time I didn’t resist. There was no point. Dean had won and I’d lost.
“Get the hell out of here before I finish Vicious’s job,” Jaime roared, and I heard Dean laugh behind us.
That weekend, I had another balls-out party at my house. Dean didn’t dare show his face, and I assumed Help was with him. When I showed up at the pool with my sleeves rolled up, a sophomore guy looking to impress one of Georgia’s cheerleading crew accepted the challenge and met me on the tennis court.
Defy was fair.
Defy was brutal.
But this time, Defy did nothing to dull the pain.
From then on, everything changed between the four of us. Dean and I weren’t on speaking terms. At all.
I toyed with the idea of banning him from my estate altogether—it was completely doable—but decided that I didn’t want to look like a total fucktard in Eli Cole’s eyes. Besides, if Dean didn’t come to Help, Help would go to him, which was just as bad if not worse. The servants’ apartment was a lot smaller than Dean’s mansion, and Emilia’s parents were always around. They had fewer chances to fuck each other if they were here.
But they were steady again, and I saw them every-fucking-where. I saw them at school, parks, at the mall my dad owned, and sometimes even outside the servants’ apartment. To be fair to Help, she never made out with him in public. Not even a kiss. They sometimes held hands, and that alone made me want to go on a killing spree. I didn’t understand the burning hatred that flared every time I saw Dean. How it had transferred from her to him all of a sudden.
Trent and Jaime were desperate to keep us all together. We were the Four HotHoles. We ruled the fucking school. Together, we were invincible. Individually, we were each just another big-headed jock. I saw where they were coming from, I really did, so we still all hung out together. We sat together in the cafeteria. We nodded hello in the hallway. But we didn’t talk to each other much, and the subject of Emilia LeBlanc was tacitly taboo. She was like Voldemort. No one was to mention her name, and Dean pretended like she didn’t exist when he was around me. I tried to pretend she didn’t exist too, but of course I couldn’t.
Because she was fucking everywhere.
I thought about her even when technically I didn’t think about her. I thought about her when I worked out and when I hung out with my non-friends and when I played video games. When I studied and when I fucked girls—Jesus Christ, especially when I fucked girls—until at some point, I stopped fucking girls altogether because it reminded me that one day, one day soon, if it hadn’t already happened, Help was going to fuck that douchebag Dean.
I couldn’t let that happen. It didn’t make sense even to me, but I just couldn’t. She was mine. It sounded irrational, but that didn’t make it any less true. I didn’t have to slap my name on her ass when she walked into class that very first day. The way I teased her, taunted her. I was normally too busy with the shit that was going on in my life to bully people. Everybody knew that the new girl belonged to me.
I never in a million years would have dated her or even taken her out. She wasn’t worth the trouble. No girl was, and especially not her. Still, she was mine to play with. Case in point, from the very first time her eyes landed on me, she looked at me like she was already mine.
Swallow. Blink. Sigh. Blush. Look away. That was her routine every time I passed by her, even now.
But Dean didn’t care.
The fucker just. Didn’t. Care.
Maybe that’s why I did what I did toward the end of the school year. Help was going to celebrate her eighteenth birthday in a week, and even though Douchebag Dean (the name had real ring to it) never talked about her in front of me, I knew he was going to take her to a spa weekend somewhere fancy along the coast. It was all so stupid. Help wasn’t a spa girl. He should’ve known that.
If I were her boyfriend, I would have taken her to watch the cherry trees bloom. Or give her new painting supplies because the girl wanted to be a real artist and open a gallery or some shit. Not that I was her stalker or anything, like Jaime was with Ms. Greene before he started banging her. Emilia wore her weird personality like a billboard, proud and loud. From the way she dressed to how she was always covered in paint and doodled cherry blossoms everywhere.
Dean, he just liked the idea of her. Pure and innocent, with her sweet Southern accent, pretty dimples, and boho style.
But I knew her best.
I was in the weight room when Dean and I had our second conversation about her. It had been weeks since I’d planted my fist in his face, but my fingers still itched whenever he was close. This time we were in gym—an advanced weight-training class only open to seniors. We had to bench press together because we were both late and all the other machines were taken. I was spotting him while he pressed a set at one eighty. He was lifting more than his usual, and I could’ve sworn he looked a little juiced up.
He grunted like a beast with every push of the weights. My fingers floated below the bar, in case his body failed him. I wondered if he knew Help wasn’t the type of girl who was into veiny, muscled-bound knuckleheads.
“So you’re taking her to a spa,” I said. Straight to the point. I didn’t have time for fucking chitchat.
He rolled his eyes, his face sweaty and red, and let out a sigh. “It’s her birthday. Would you rather I ignored it?”
“I’d rather you break up with her,” I answered flatly, my stare blank. There was no point in sugarcoating this shit. He knew I hated their relationship. And despite them being together for months, I knew it wasn’t love. I saw the way she looked at him. She liked him, but there was no fire.
Her eyes burned for me. Only for me.
“Be reasonable,” Dean muttered. He wasn’t so focused on lifting anymore. He still looked red, but his arms shook now, and I felt the strain of the weight and our conversation affecting his body.
I shoved my hands inside the pockets of my light gray sweatpants. “It’s not in my nature to be reasonable. Break this shit off, Dean. You’re going to college in New York. She’s staying here. Do it now, before…” I trailed off.
Before you take her fucking virginity. It had nothing to do with me wanting to mark her first. I mean, I did. Of course I wanted that. But I would’ve taken Help even if she’d slept with every single guy at All Saints High. It was her I was worried about. I knew she would regret it.
Okay, fine. I wasn’t worried about her. I was worried about me.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I was on the fast track to losing my mind. Her pussy seemed to own me, and I hadn’t even tasted it yet. All I knew was that I wanted it for myself. Too bad it was attached to that annoying little fool.
“Before what?” He grunted, and his arms shook harder. “Before I sleep with her? How the fuck do you know I already haven’t?”
His hands turned white, but his snicker grated on my nerves, sending a rush of annoyance down my spine. He tried to press the bar all the way up and put it back in the handles. Sweat dotted his forehead. He was losing the battle.
That’s why we needed people to spot us.