you steer clear of my sister. Not only did you not listen, you decided to take pictures of our girlfriend and then use those as leverage to hurt Trina. This is not acceptable on any level. Are you following this conversation?”
He made a grunting sound.
“A simple nod or a shake of your head will do. This is not a difficult question.”
Noah gave a little jerk of a nod.
“Now, in addition to trying to hurt my sister, which is a no go, let us be blunt. You attempted to use my sister to hurt our girlfriend, because you were lashing out at us. Yes? Or no?”
The kid cut a look past me, but resignation crawled into his eyes. Yeah, there was no help back there. I applied a little more pressure until Noah groaned and reached out to latch onto my wrist like this would save him.
“Yes,” he squeezed out. “Stupid idea.”
“On that, we agree.” I let go of his face, and he let out a choked breath and stared at me.
“Man, I was just—”
I slammed my fist out, and the satisfying crack of his cheekbone echoed through the alcove between the buildings where I’d pinned him. I didn’t give him time to drop before I plowed my other fist into his gut. When he went down this time, bile and blood spattered the pavement as he retched.
Deep breaths. Deep cleansing breaths tucked the edges of my temper back as I paced a half-circle around him.
“What was your first mistake?” Might as well make it an object lesson.
“Telling your sister,” he wheezed.
“Ehhh.” Jake made a buzzing noise from where he stood. “Wrong answer.”
I hauled the guy back up and shoved him back against the wall. One arm braced against his chest to keep him place. I ignored the additionally vile scent of sour vomit accompanying the smoke clinging to him.
“One strike. What was your first mistake?”
Noah gave me a wild-eyed look, then again at Jake, like that was gonna help him, but he finally sagged again. “The pictures of your girlfriend?”
“You don’t sound certain,” I mused. “Do you think that was your first mistake or not?”
Sucking in a painful gasp of air, Noah nodded. “Deciding to get even with you by using her and your sister was my first mistake.”
“Ding ding ding,” Jake said. “We have a winner. What do you know, he can be taught.”
“I don’t know,” I said, still studying him. Sweat dotted the other guy’s forehead, and his breath came in sharp little huffs. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “What were second and third mistakes?”
“Taking the pictures and showing them to your sister.”
Close enough.
“Do you feel like a big man now? Does that get you off? Making girls cry?”
“Fuck,” Noah swore, grimacing. “No. I just—you fucking humiliated me, man. Treated me like dog shit.”
“Yeah, we didn’t scrape you off, we just made some rules clear. Rules you apparently struggled to follow. Then you made it worse…and I’m not okay with that.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “You’re going to walk real carefully for a while. You don’t look at Frankie. You don’t even think her name. If I see your phone or the phones of any of your friends pointed in her direction, I know who I’ll be looking for.”
Jake cracked his knuckles for emphasis.
Noah swallowed again, then licked his lips as I took a step back.
“As for my sister…”
“I’ll forget I know her,” Noah promised, hands up.
“And you’re going to apologize,” Jake said. “Publicly. You’re going to own up to being a big bag of dicks. No details. You take full responsibility. You don’t tag her, and you should probably steer clear of anything resembling a date until you figure out how to treat a girl right.”
“Are you for fucking real?” Noah seemed to rally, and I chuckled.
“As real as it gets, or do you want me to be the less than reasonable one you deal with?” Jake asked.
I cocked my head to the side as the calculations went across Noah’s expression. His face was starting to swell, and I was pretty sure I’d at least fractured a bone there. He was still pale and sweaty.
“Fine, what the fuck, man… I’ll forget your sister, your girlfriend. I’d really like to fucking forget all of you.”
“I’m sure you would,” I told him. “Unfortunately for you, we have friends in your grade and the juniors. Trina’s gonna be at this school next year, and I’ll know if you go anywhere near her or