It’s obvious that I’m not going to change his mind, so I play my final card. “If you don’t tell Emory to shut down whatever you’re doing, then I’m going to the dean.”
He blows out a puff of laughter. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. Last time, I didn’t stop you, and look what happened.” Instinctively his eyes flick to my leg. I don’t know if I’m bluffing, but from the hard set of his jaw, I’m pretty sure he believes me. “I won’t make that mistake again.” I turn away and have already made it halfway back to the building before I stop and add, “You have until tomorrow night.”
8
Reyn
“You ready?”
I shift my shoulders, settling onto the bench. “Yeah.”
Emory stands over me to spot as I start my next set of bench presses. Preston Prep has an awesome training facility, including a weight trainer. He’s created a specific workout to help improve my performance on the field. It’s the little things like this that make Preston a cut above everyone else. Mountain Point had a sledgehammer approach to most things. Nothing was targeted or focused. We all ran. We all ate the same shit, and the same amount of it. We all did the same exercises, day in, day out, rain, mud, or shine. We all had the same muscles, the same aches, the same conditioning. It was a conveyor belt of cattle.
But Preston is precise, surgical. If they want a wide receiver, they train him as a wide receiver. It’s foreign, this feeling that I have something specific and useful, excelling at a skill that people actually want to see nurtured.
Probably because this skill is actually legal.
Lately, I’ve been finding myself—sort of embarrassingly—motivated at the mere thought of it. But not so much today. My arms strain against the weight of the bar, but I push through. Today, I’m pissed about Vandy and her little threat.
Was she for real? Would she really do it?
Well, that’s what I get for letting my guard down around her.
I lower the bar and take a deep breath before pushing into the next rep. Squealing on her brother seems out of character, but do I even know Vandy’s character anymore? She’s always just been Emory’s little sister—sweet Baby V, the girl I ruined—but maybe she’s someone else now. Beneath the threads of fear and uncertainty in her eyes lurks something cynical and restless. Our earlier conversation made that much apparent.
It’s not like I haven’t heard the chatter. People like pimply-faced George seem a dime a dozen around here—people who see her as something to be gawked at and gossiped about. For them, she’s entertainment. It only makes sense that people want to protect her from it. From assholes like George. From criminals like me, who are ultimately responsible for all of it.
Nevertheless, there’s something ironically kindred there. Being gossiped about and watched, every waking second? Oh, I’ve got that shit down to a science.
My lips twitch as I think ‘maybe we should start a band’.
Sensational and Surveilled.
The parallels stop there, though. I’m despised and suspicious. Vandy is pitied, placed behind glass. Look, but don’t touch. Seventeen, and never had a boyfriend? That is pitiful. God, she even dropped that she still had her v-card. Hell, I spent the last three years literally locked up, and even I found opportunities for action. Given the way she looks, all innocent and sweet, there should be a line of fuckboys just waiting to dirty her all up. Then again, maybe that’s why Emory and everyone else are so quick to shut it down. Because it’s true. She even looks pure as driven snow, and that shit definitely draws a certain type.
Up and down the bar goes. Sweat pools on my lower back. There’s one more thing I learned about Vandy during that conversation: She’s a shit stirrer alright, wanting to write that article about the skeletons in Preston Prep’s closet. That takes balls. And with the knowledge comes a stark realization that I’ve been clutching to for hours now.
I hadn’t broken that part of her.
The problem for her in all this is that, if what Emory said is true—that the school wants the Devils back, even in a new iteration—then what happens to Vandy if she narcs?
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
Not for any of us.
My arms start to quiver, shaking under the weight. Sweat drips into my eye, but I can see Emory watching me, waiting for me to ask for help. I lower