Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,90

two about your parents not giving a shit about you.” I swallow my drink, picking up another shot. “I can’t even go home—not that it’s my home anymore. My dad won’t take my calls. He has my email blocked. Email blocked. I had to break into the club just to get a face-to-face with him, which ended in security chasing me out. Oh, and then there’s the dry cleaner.” I pitch forward, holding Carlton’s confused stare.

“The dry cleaner?”

“They took away my fucking dry cleaning privileges. I just want you to let the pettiness of that sink in. I’m using a fucking fifties-era coin Laundromat like a goddamn bum.” Okay, maybe I’m a little sloshed. My stomach is going to pay for this tomorrow. “But he’s apparently the reason I’m currently working this Preston probation gig.”

“Yeah, Vandy said you were coaching swim.” I can tell Emory’s getting sloshed too, going off how loose his shoulders have gotten, that arrogant tilt of his smile as he chuckles. “Two steps forward, three steps back?” He’s still suspicious and bitter, though. Fucking quarterback metabolism. This asshole’s probably going to drink me out of house and home before he gets properly shit-faced.

“Laugh it up,” I mutter, pouring him another glass from the pitcher. “It’s not so bad. Coach James has always been pretty cool, and it’s not like it’s hard. No one in this town swims better than me.”

“Not since Hamilton left.” Emory’s voice is slurring on the consonants, which is the only thing that keeps me from biting back.

I slouch into my seat, ignoring the obvious jab. “Preston sucks without you guys around, though. The Devils were fucking legendary. I can’t believe Collins shut us down.”

“Collins? Please. Everyone knows you were the reason we got shut down. Picking on that kid was fucking dumb.” Emory shakes his head. “God, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I wanted to raise some hell because Hamilton was fucking Gwen behind our backs.” It was petty and dumb, but it was high school. If you can’t be petty and dumb at seventeen, then when can you? “But I like this rewrite of history you’ve got going on, Em. Like you weren’t up there with me, laughing your ass off about it. Like you didn’t go into that room with Skylar and—” He bangs his glass down and I pause, fighting down a smirk.

Yeah, I know all the dirt on this self-righteous asshole.

“That was a mistake,” he says, voice hard. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut about it.”

I hold up my hands, palms out. “I’m just saying, we all made mistakes. It was a dick move to pull that on a little kid, I know that now.” I shrug. “Honestly, I’ve gotten to know him a little. He’s in one of my swim classes. He’s a mouthy little shit and a total pain in my ass, but he’s actually pretty cool. You know. For an Adams.”

Carl throws his head back, laughing. “Right? Micha is hilarious. He has zero fucks to give. I mean, he took that prank and went fucking viral with it. He became a legend. You can’t not love that kid. I’d throw fists for him.” Carlton is no football player like Emory. He’s already fast approaching three-sheets-to-the-wind status. Despite that, I can hear the warning in his voice, loud and clear.

“I just said I liked him, didn’t I?” We drink for a long while, shooting the shit, things growing a little more lax. I watch as Emory’s eyes glaze over, reminded that the drunker he gets, the louder he is. We take a stroll down memory lane, reminiscing about some of our less damaging pranks. “Remember that time we stole Collins’ car—”

Emory snaps his fingers, bursting, “And parked it in the lobby! Holy shit, I’d almost forgotten about that.”

This was before Carlton got drafted in, so I explain, “We had to take the doors off the admin building to get it to fit, then put them back.”

“Which,” Emory adds, voice way too loud, even over the music, “we didn’t have the proper tools for.”

“Or skills.”

“Or time.” Emory busts out laughing. “It took them for-fucking-ever to figure out how we did it. We had to donate all our athletic equipment to some Northridge alternative school as punishment.”

“And Hamilton threw a tantrum,” I add.

“The biggest fucking tantrum,” Emory agrees, wheezing with laughter. “And he was just on swim, so he didn’t even have to let go of much.