"No one saying you can't admire it," I state, glancing back to the sea.
"Ah, but I don't think we're admiring the same thing now, are we?"
My lips twitch against my better judgment, and I shoot him a reproachful look. "That's an absolutely awful pick up line."
He laughs but takes a seat against the wall anyway. "Yeah, I know, but you cracked a smile, didn't you?"
I shake my head. "What school are you from?" I ask.
His eyes widen. "How do you know I'm not from your school?"
"I just know." I flick a pebble off the top of the wall and watch as it disappears into the churning waters below.
"Fair enough." He nods. "I go to Hazelwood U."
"That's on the West Coast, isn't it?" I ask curiously with a raised brow. "What are you doing so far from home?"
He puts both hands against the wall and crosses his legs at the ankles. For a brief moment, I think that it's an awful choice. Someone could come up and just grab his legs in one go and tip him over the edge and then it'd be too late. Poof. He'd be gone, his body washed away in the ocean. I keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.
Jeremy laughs, unaware of my thoughts. "I'm actually here with my step sister," he admits. "She goes to Eastpoint."
"I see."
A few moments later, a second, more familiar figure appears at the edge of the crowd and makes his way over. "Avalon." I tip my head back until my eyes meet Jake's. He darts a glance to the guy at my side and then frowns. "Hey..."
Jeremy uncrosses his legs and stands. "Jeremy," he introduces himself.
"Jake, uh, can I have a moment alone with Avalon?"
"Sure." Jeremy looks back at me as if to make sure I'm cool with it. I shrug. It's not like I was asking for the presence of either of them. He nods to me. "Guess, I'll see you later, beautiful."
Jake's lips part in shock, but I merely shake my head as Jeremy moves away and Jake darts a look at me. Might as well get this shit over with. "What do you want?" I ask.
"I came to say sorry," he tells me, pressing his lips together before taking a step closer and dipping his head. "For the fight. I know you didn't want me to call them, but I—"
Holding up a hand to stop his pathetic excuse of an apology, I huff out a breath. "Save it," I say. "I don't need an apology. I hate them anyway. I didn't expect loyalty or anything. You're good."
"You're sure?" Jake eyes me as if he's uncertain of my words, as if they're hiding a deeper meaning.
"Yeah." I roll my shoulders back and stretch as I hop off the wall and take a step away from the ledge. "Like I said, you didn't owe me shit. Still don't. Can't blame you for covering your ass."
"I still feel bad about it," he admits.
"Why?" I ask. "It's not like you did any damage."
"Yeah, but—"
"Forget it," I interrupt. "Seriously. I have."
A beat passes. First one, then two, and by the third, he's grinning. "You were really something in the ring," he says. I smile when he grins at me.
"'Course I was, I learned from the best." I head off to the side and when he follows, I don't stop him.
"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" he asks.
"Backroads, high schools, and parking lots," I reply. "Pretty much wherever there was a fight." And I remember the first girl that I'd fought. Big eyes that felt like she could see through my fucking soul and an even bigger roundhouse. Every skill I'd picked up in future fights had been because of her, and how bad she'd kicked my ass that first time around.
I make it back to the pool and then head up into the air-conditioned mansion with Jake trailing me. "I know you said you didn't expect any loyalty or anything, but I want you to know that I do like you." When I shoot him a scowl, he rushes to correct himself. "I mean, as a friend. You're pretty cool and I like hanging with you. Maybe if you're cool with it, we could grab a few drinks and go down to the beach? I promise, I'd be a fucking idiot if I tried hitting on Dean's girl."
My hand shoots out and my knuckles punch into the wall right where he was about to walk through and Jake freezes, eyes jumping from my arm to my face. "I'm not Dean's anything," I snap, dropping my arm and turning to face him. "If you wanna hang, that's fine, but don't say shit like that again. Dean is not my keeper."
"I-I'm sorry, man, I just thought since you were here—I mean, after the fight, when he—"
"Dean is a controlling dick," I say, cutting his bumbling tirade off. "He wants to keep me in his sights so I don't do anything stupid by his standards. If we're going to be friends—fine—then we're going to lay out the facts right here and now. You're not loyal to me."
He blinks as if shocked and I arch a brow. Jake's eyes find the ground and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his board shorts. "It's not that I don't want to be loyal, you know..."
"I get it." Hell, of all the people here, I think I'm the only one that really truly understands that loyalty is nothing more than a pendulum. It swings one way and then another. "Loyalty is about survival, and at Eastpoint, the Sick Boys are the biggest predators. You chose them and you'll choose them again. I'm not mad about it," I tell him. At least, not anymore. "I just want to make sure that we're on the same page. The one thing I fucking hate is people trying to get close to me and lying."
Jake grits his teeth and one hand shoots out of his pocket as he scrubs it down his face and nods. "Yeah, okay, I get it. No lies."
"And no pretending," I confirm.
He nods.
"Then we're good."
I turn away and head to the kitchen; I'm pulling two beers out of the fridge there when he finally makes his way into the room.
"You know," he begins, taking one of the beers from my hand and twisting the top off, "if anyone could challenge them for Eastpoint's loyalty, I think it could be you."
I laugh, shaking my head as I twist the top off my beer as well and toss it into a nearby recycling bin. "Nah. I don't want that kind of loyalty," I say. "These people"—I stop and gesture to the crowd we're watching just out of the kitchen doors—"are loyal to the top dog and that can change at any moment. It's fake and I don't do fake loyalty."
Jake's head bobs up and down and he puts the mouth of his beer bottle to his lips, sucking down half the bottle before lowering it once more. "I get what you're saying," he replies, his eyes centered on the windows. "I do, but I think they're different."
I don't have to ask to know who he means. Them. The Sick Boys. Dean, Abel, and Braxton.
"I think," he continues, "even if one or more of them lost everything tomorrow, they'd still stick by each other." A cold wave of air shoots out of a vent somewhere in the room, dropping the temperature, and I fight back the urge to shiver as it slides over my skin. "I don't know why I think that. There's just something about them..."