The Punk and the Plaything (When Rivals Play #3) - B.B. Reid Page 0,44
over his shoulder, and I’d simply lift a brow.
Ready whenever you are, douchebag.
When we finally reached the house, he turned on me. Blood coated his upper lip, and I had an urge I didn’t understand to lick him clean. My mouth even filled with a coppery tang as if I’d already done so. “You’re lucky I don’t hit girls,” he spat.
Slowly, I clapped my hands. “Congratulations. Want a cookie?” I taunted, knowing that choice of words would piss him off the most.
He stormed inside the house without responding, but those dark-brown eyes of his still promised retribution. Jamie may not hit girls but that didn’t mean he was willing to let today go unpunished.
I lifted my chin as I watched him go. Maybe I was lucky he didn’t hit girls, but either way, I refused to be afraid. Jamie had made a grave mistake underestimating me, and if he forced me to, I’d show him exactly why.
“I don’t want you coming home with more scrapes and bruises,” my mother had warned. “You know how your father gets.” I watched as she removed roller after roller from my hair. They had been hell to sleep with last night, but my mother hadn’t heard my pleas. She’d been determined to make me look like a girl despite my shorn hair. “And stay away from those boys. It’s not seemly for you to run around with them alone. You really should play with other girls. You’ll have more in common with them.”
Tomorrow was the Fourth of July, so a carnival had come to Blackwood Keep. The entire town would be out today, which meant I had to look my very best. I wanted to be excited about the rides, food, and fireworks, but I knew it just meant I’d be seeing Jamie again. Thanks to my fight with him in the woods, I’d gone home with bruises that I couldn’t explain without being grounded. The scrapes on my hands had been the hardest to hide after my bike fell apart from under me. I’d been on my way home when it happened and discovered the front wheel had been loosened. I didn’t need to question who’d done it. The pranks hadn’t stopped there. I got a jar of spiders dumped down my shirt the next day and found a poisonous snake in my sneaker on the third. I hadn’t realized the snake was fake until after I’d come dangerously close to a heart attack. Yesterday had been unexpectedly peaceful. I’d been on pins and needles waiting for Jamie to try something, and he’d spent the entire day pretending I didn’t exist.
As hard as I’d tried to blend in, to be just another one of the guys, I was beginning to feel like an outsider. I could already feel Ever, Vaughn, and Jason gravitating more and more toward Jamie. I’d become accustomed to calling the shots. Anything I’d wanted to do, they used to want to do it, too. Unfortunately, Jamie had made a habit of challenging me at every turn, and now the guys were beginning to look to him for leadership.
And then there was still the question that needed answering.
Why hadn’t Ever told Jamie I was a girl?
Before Jamie came to town, I believed I was one of them. That they had accepted me for who I was and who I could never be.
Not wanting to face the betrayal, I still hadn’t confronted my best friend. Instead, I let the hurt eat away at my heart while trying to figure out how to deal with one Jameson John Buchanan.
The warmth that spread through me the moment I thought of him was nothing new, although I still hadn’t become accustomed to it.
“Barbette, are you listening?”
I met my mother’s gaze in the mirror and prayed that her beauty was all I’d inherited from her. Melissa Montgomery had shrewd brown eyes, and, thanks to her frequent salon visits, lustrous hair that was a true red, unlike mine.
My eyes, however, were unmistakably blue—a trait I inherited from my father. I wondered if mine were as cold. He certainly had the icy demeanor to match.
“Yeah, Ma.”
She paused. The only movement was her hand tightening painfully around my hair. “Excuse me?”
I stilled, too, forgetting myself. Or rather… who I was supposed to be. “Mother. Yes, Mother.”
She promptly removed the last roller from my hair, although her scathing glare remained. “Young ladies with a future as promising as yours do not talk as if they’ve crawled from the gutter.”