Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,199

guts. At some point, it does shit to a person. Seeing as how I had brunch with my brother and my mom yesterday, I’m feeling a little less tolerant than usual. That was uncomfortable enough.

“We could always just go back to my place,” I suggest, letting my palm fall on her leg. When I sweep it up and inward, wedging it between her soft, warm thighs, she pulls in a breath, teeth sinking into her lip. Huskily, in that way I know she likes, I add, “I can unwrap you like a present.”

It’s a dirty play, and the look she gives me tells me she knows it. There was a time this would have gotten her in my backseat, legs spread, tits out. But there are just some things she refuses to cast aside for sex. Schoolwork. Friends. Family.

She doesn’t fuck me because she needs it. Not anymore.

She only fucks me when she wants it.

Georgia sighs, turning to glance into the back seat. I don’t need to follow her gaze. There’s a box of gift bags sitting back there that she’d probably protect with her life. “I need to hand all those out.”

My girl’s been knitting up a goddamn storm, keeping her hands busy when I can’t be there for her. It’s a pretty good coping mechanism, and she’s getting really good at it. I still wear mine, uncaring when people rib me for the fluorescent green. These are things Georgia has made with her hands. I’ve watched her do it, seen the concentration and care she puts into them. Hours upon hours of not just labor, but thought, too. Colors and designs. Gradients. Fiber types based on allergies.

I might not be the most social person anymore, but I’m smart enough to understand that this—giving them to people, showing them off, seeing their reactions—is the payoff to that. And she deserves to see it.

In a decisive move, I open the car door. “Okay, let’s do it.”

She seems surprised for a moment, lagging behind while I duck into the back seat, pulling out the box. When she catches up, she’s wearing a bright, cheerful grin that I just can’t bring myself to tarnish. A minute later, we’re on the front step, stopping in front of the door. The star over our head makes her hair shine like a halo of fire, which seems appropriate.

Georgia is the Devils’ angel.

And maybe, if I keep doing stuff like this, she’ll be mine.

She rings the doorbell, stepping back to clasp her hands in front of her. “I love you,” she says, ducking her head to hide her smile.

Something catches in my throat to hear it said like that—so casually, like she’s losing nothing to give it away. I plaster over it with a suspicious look. “Are you just saying that because I’m totally pussy-whipped and you know I’ll do anything you ask me to?”

She cocks her head to look at me from the corner of her eye. “I’m saying that because it’s true.” Quietly, she adds, “And because I like the way your face gets when you hear it.”

I shift the box, shoulders feeling tight. “How does my face get?”

She looks at me, mouth pushed into a sideways pucker as she thinks. “Happy,” she decides.

I’m still staring at her when Vandy swings the door open, grabbing her friend in a hug.

Huh.

So that’s what that is.

I was right.

No one wants me here.

Luckily, Georgia was also right about everyone expecting me. It’s always a little better that way, able to sit tucked away in the corner armchair while they all gush over their presents. If I’m lucky, they ignore me.

If I’m not…

“This is the alternator,” Sebastian shows me his phone, swiping through the pictures of something round and silver and weird looking. He neither looks nor sounds happy about it, jaw tight as he explains, “I think this is the problem. That grinding noise…probably the bearings.”

I flex my shoulders, brows crouching low. “And?” Brunch yesterday had been one unkindness shy of seeing actual violence. The only good thing about it was that my mom looked normal. Clear-eyed. Nervous and wary, but not unwilling to sit at the same table as me. That’s something.

Sebastian is something else. “And I’ve got it in my trunk. So I’m going to change it.” He says it forcefully, in much the same way an irritated parent would send their child to bed without dinner.

I can’t stop myself from bristling. “I don’t want you banging around in my engine again. It still doesn’t