Broken Trust A Dark High School Romance - Tate James Page 0,8

heel, but didn’t release me from his embrace. In fact, he shifted a bit so that both arms wrapped around me and held me a bit tighter. “How’s your wrist?”

I smiled at his concern. He was such a worry-wart sometimes. “I’m fine, my wrist is fine, the ’stang is fine. We’ll nail this, just like every other Widowmaker I’ve run in.”

Dante huffed. “Yeah, well that was when you were driving the butterfly.”

I cringed at the mention of my—I mean, Dante’s—car that I’d crashed. “I still owe you for that.”

“Nope,” he responded in a gruff voice. “She was always yours anyway. I had the papers put in your name years ago.”

My jaw dropped, and I stared up at him. “What? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He rolled his eyes, but there was a smug smile on his lips. “Because you would have pitched a fit and demanded I change it back. But she was always your car, so it felt wrong having my name on the papers.” He shrugged, and his hands rubbed my upper arms. “You should get warmed up, the race starts in five.”

I nodded, but hugged him tighter for a moment. He’d done so much for me over the years, words couldn’t really express how much I appreciated our friendship. He hugged me back, kissing my head and pressing his face into my dark hair.

Then all of a sudden, he was gone.

“Beck, no!” I screamed in fury as he slammed Dante onto the hood of the Mustang and drew his fist back to punch him in the face. My voice froze him, but his thunderstorm gaze didn’t shift from Dante. “Sebastian Roman Beckett, if you don’t take your hands off Dante right this fucking second I will never forgive you for what you’ve done.” My voice was low, trembling with anger, and my fists clenched at my sides.

Beck lowered his fist, but didn’t let Dante go. “You’re saying there’s still a chance you will?”

Words failed me as my lips parted, but no sound came out. Beck’s stormy gaze captured mine and held me immobile. “Let him go, Beck,” I eventually said, ignoring his question. “Go back to Jefferson. You don’t belong here.”

He held my gaze for another heavy, tense moment. “Neither do you, Butterfly.”

I flinched at his use of my nickname.

“Just fuck off, Beck,” I whispered tiredly. “No one wants you here, least of all me.”

His jaw tightened and his body radiated tension. Slowly, he released Dante’s shirt from his iron grip and backed up a step. Call me psychic, but I guessed Dante’s intentions and darted forward to grab him by the collar of his jacket before he could launch himself at Beck. Not that I gave a shit if Beck’s face got messed up, but I’d seen that dangerous fuck in action. I stopped Dante to spare my friend any more injuries.

“Enough,” I snapped at Dante, flicking my death glare at Beck and Jasper. “Dante, we have a race. Let’s go.”

Dante snarled a curse but followed me when I started heading over to where Rabbit was gathering the racers for a briefing. His hand rested on the small of my back, over the thin red fabric of my tank, and I shivered again. I still hadn’t grabbed my jacket and the skin on my arms was pebbling with cold.

“Take your hand off her or I will fucking break it off,” a dark voice threatened, and I whipped around to find Beck and Jasper right there.

“Try it,” Dante sneered back. “Let’s see how long it takes for you to win Riles over after you touch her best friend. Again.”

“Hey!” I barked. “That’s enough. Briefing is for racers only, now fuck off.”

Jasper raised his hand, looking past me to Rabbit and Joe—the race organizer. “Hey, I’d like to race.”

Joe gave Jasper a small frown, then leaned to the side to peer at Jasper’s obnoxiously bright car. “Uhh ... who are you again? This isn’t really a free-for-all.”

“I’m friends with the Butterfly,” Jasper replied with a cocky-as-fuck grin. He pushed his way past both Beck and Dante to sling his arm over my shoulders. “Right, babe?”

Joey’s brows shot up at me. “You vouching for this rich kid, Riley?”

I shot Jasper a glare and shrugged out of his hold, even as a low growl of warning came from Beck. “Fuck no,” I spat. “They’re harassing me.”

Jasper made an offended sound, and his face fell, but I just glared at him. Who the hell did he think he was, pretending like