Empire High Betrayal (Empire High #3) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,103
Could you maybe…help him get off?”
He smiled down at me. “You want me to take care of it?”
“Yes.” I knew it came out as more of a question than a direct answer. But the way he’d said take care of it gave me pause.
“It’s not so bad to have connections,” my dad said.
That was true. I just wasn’t sure his connections were on the up and up.
“Anything else I need to know about what happened with Felix before I make a call?”
“No, he’s innocent.” Several weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been. But Felix was trying to be better. His past mistakes shouldn’t ruin his future. There was one piece of information that my dad needed to know though. “I guess you should probably know that Cupcake and Isabella framed him.”
My dad looked down at me. “Cupcake?”
“Joe Dickson. He’s a kid from school. I think Isabella is sort of dating him. I’m almost positive that they put the drugs in Felix’s locker. Isabella said something to me a little while ago about breaking everyone around me. I think she’s trying to make everyone hate me so that I leave town.”
“When were you planning on telling me this?”
“Today?”
My dad sighed. “Princess, it’s of vital importance that you tell me everything Isabella says to you. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“I mean it. Every single thing.”
“I will.” I honestly wasn’t worried about Isabella right now. Well, minus the fact that she’d probably been hitting on Matt for the past 30 minutes. “So you’ll help Felix?”
He smiled. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment. I need to have a conversation with Isabella about this…Cupcake. It’s the first I’ve ever heard of him.”
Crap. I wasn’t trying to get Isabella in trouble today. I knew my dad required weird relationship contracts and stuff. Isabella was going to be furious with me. But would it really make anything worse? The psycho already wanted me dead.
Chapter 36
Thursday
I turned down a hall that I thought lead to the living room. But it was the one that went to the library. How did I not know where the freaking living room was? I turned around and ran straight into James.
“Hey,” he said with a smile.
“Hi.” God, I couldn’t be alone with him in a random hallway. If Matt saw us together he’d be so beyond pissed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” James said. “I just saw you going to the library and figured it would be a good place to talk.”
He clearly knew this apartment better than I did. “I don’t really have time to chat right now. I left Matt with Isabella. Do you have any idea where the living room is?”
He laughed. “Back that way to the left.” He pointed over his shoulder.
“Great.” I tried to step around him, but he stepped the same way, trying to let me pass, and we both laughed.
“Actually, while I have you, I did want to give you something.” He pulled out something from his pocket.
And for just a second I had a terrible feeling that he was about to propose again.
“What’s with the face?” He held up a thumb drive. “It looked like you were worried I was about to pull a prank on you instead of Isabella.”
Yeah, something like that. “Sorry. What is that?”
He handed the thumb drive to me. “Your completed project for your entrepreneurial studies class.”
“Wait, completed project? You were only supposed to do the coding.”
He shrugged. “I figured with Matt and Rob fighting it would be hard for you to finish. Now you don’t have to worry about it.”
Wow, that was really nice. “Thanks, James. But that wasn’t necessary.”
“It was no problem.” He gave me one of his real smiles. The ones it seemed like he reserved just for me.
“But it wasn’t necessary. You and Matt are about to be friends again,” I said. “Because the deal was…”
“That we’d talk to him.” James shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we’ll magically be friends again. He kissed my girlfriend.”
“And you kissed me.”
“True. And I don’t feel an ounce of remorse. It was a great kiss.”
I could feel my cheeks getting red. “Well, don’t say that when you talk to Matt. How about you try apologizing instead?”
“That wasn’t part of the deal, Brooklyn. You just said we had to talk.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Did I?”
“James!”
He laughed. “I’m just messing with you. I’ll talk to him. I’ll be nice and everything. I promise.”
“There you guys are,” Rob said and ran over to us. He seemed out of breath, which