Lucky Strike (Super Harem #1) - Catherine Banks Page 0,43

was going to end horribly. I knew it. I just knew it.

“Next Saturday,” Tyson said. “Bring him here and I will examine him.”

“Thank you,” Mom said. “Violet, will you come?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’ll be here, Mom.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The new director was breathing down my neck constantly. She kept trying to convince me to do more interviews, but I wasn’t ready.

She did convince Galactic Gargoyle to do some though. The poor guy had to respond to questions about our relationship, but he handled it much better than I would have. He told them he didn’t care about me dating other men and that it was only fair since we weren’t exclusive. Plus, there were so many more male heroes than women in our world now.

I sat in my room in the Association’s Headquarters with Alura, painting each other’s nails as we watched yet another one of his interviews. In this one, they had him shirtless, trying to pop balloons in a certain order.

It was ridiculous and yet I was totally enamored.

“So, how was it?” Alura asked.

I looked up from the nail I was painting. “How was what?”

She smirked and looked at him and back to me. “You know…”

I felt my cheeks warm. “Well…a thousand times better than Cobalt.”

She laughed loudly and pulled her hand away, causing me to paint her finger.

“I knew he would be. You know why? Because Gargoyle actually cares about you. Cobalt never cared about you. He was always just a douchebag who only cared about his own pleasure. I’m honestly not sure why so many women try to be with him. You should see their auras when they are near him after they’ve slept with him. So much darkness.”

“You’d be dark, too, if you had to deal with his ego,” I muttered. “Honestly, that’s his biggest turn off. He kept reminding me he was a hero, like I needed to constantly know that. Like, yeah, I get it, you’re a hero. But…you suck as a person.”

She laughed. “Yeah, he is a pretty terrible human. So, are you prepared for dealing with your biological creators?”

I shook my head. “Not at all.”

“Have you told Gargoyle?”

I nodded. “I told him right when I returned to the Association. I don’t want to keep anything from him that I don’t have to.”

“Have you talked to Hurricane or Vortex?” she asked.

I shook my head. “They don’t seem to want to talk to me.”

Admitting that out loud hurt so much. I had thought there was going to be a future with them. There had seemed to be so much promise, and now it was gone.

Alura wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought them up.”

“It’s okay,” I said and patted her arms. “I just wish things were—”

Someone knocked on the door, making us both freeze.

“Alfred?” I asked.

“Heroes Hurricane and Vortex,” he answered.

“Speak of the devils,” Alura whispered.

I took a deep breath, stood, and opened the door, taking a small step back so Alura could see them as well. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Hi,” Hurricane whispered. “Um, can we talk to you for a second?”

“I’m a little busy,” I said and looked at Alura pointedly.

The traitorous bitch stood, walked out, and said, “Oh, I was just leaving.”

If they hadn’t been staring at me, I would have let my mouth drop open to gape at her.

“Come on in,” I whispered, still in shock at her betrayal. Next time she wanted me to paint her nails, I was going to paint her face.

“We won’t stay long,” Vortex said.

I assumed not. I really had no idea why they were here at all, except to further hurt me with their denial of wanting to stay with me.

“Please, just tell me why you’re here,” I said, spinning to face them as they sat on my couch. “I don’t have much energy left after all the things that have happened.”

“We’re sorry,” Hurricane said. “We acted like jerks and we totally understand that you’re angry with us. You have to understand, sharing the girl we like with a villain was a lot to process.”

“But after we talked to Tyson, and got to know him a bit more, we agree that he is more of a grey area like you had suggested to Gargoyle,” Vortex said.

I hadn’t realized that Tyson had outed himself as Transistor to them.

“We’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and this time apart really opened our eyes—we couldn’t stand it. We spent every single night together, trying to find something negative about you to further our