know why they were still pretending when at least half the student body was flouting the rule.
"I take it you already know what he said to me, then?" I asked Steele when we were both inside his car.
He gave me a furious look. "It was livestreamed, so yeah. I heard what he said, and I saw that punch you threw. Not bad, Hellcat." He reached out and took my injured hand in his, smoothing his thumb across my tender knuckles. "I'm still going to kill him for what he said to you, though."
Steele raised my aching hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles before he reversed out of his parking space.
"That's if Kody or Arch don't get to him first," I muttered, checking my phone. Sure enough, there were replies from both of them.
Archer D'Ath: He'd better fucking hide.
Kodiak Jones: How fucking dumb is this asshole? He must know we're gonna beat the snot outta him for that.
I sighed and sent a reply to both of them in a group chat. I figured we were all involved romantically, so we were probably okay to share a chat thread.
Madison Kate: His brother is a cop on Wraith payroll. Maybe it's a trap.
There was a long pause, but I could see they'd both read my message.
"What's the decision?" Steele asked, unable to join the chat while he was driving. "Are we executing that little prick or what?"
I rolled my eyes at the melodrama of it all.
Madison Kate: Insulting me isn't a killable offense today, boys. Save the aggression for the octagon, yeah?
Kody just replied with a glaring emoji. Archer didn't reply at all.
Heaving a sigh, I tossed my phone back into my bag and gave Steele a wide smile. "Forget all that. What are we doing with our afternoon alone?"
His brows hitched, and he peered at me from the corner of his eye. "Well for starters, we're icing your hand. Cass must be slacking in his old age if he couldn't teach you to throw a punch without the padding of gloves."
I snorted a laugh. "He's thirty-three not fucking eighty."
Steele just shrugged like I'd confirmed his point. "And then... I might have an idea. It's hard to get you alone these days, you know? I think I might have had better luck when you still had your own apartment."
"I know... but you have me for at least an hour and a half now. Longer if Arch and Kody go straight to the gym when they get home." I gave him a suggestive look, and he clicked his tongue stud against his teeth.
Shooting me a quick look, he nodded. "I can work with that."
My phone started vibrating and chiming in my bag, and I fished it out, thinking it was the guys. It wasn't.
I sighed heavily. "Scott."
"Is he dense?" Steele asked, genuinely confused.
"Apparently." I rejected the call and changed my phone to silent. It didn't stop Scott trying to call again four more times before Steele pulled into our driveway.
"Come on, let's sort your hand out," Steele said, opening my door for me like a gentleman. "Then I was thinking we could go swimming?"
I gave him a curious look as we headed through to the kitchen to get an ice pack. "Swimming? I mean, it's not exactly a warm day." It wasn't freezing anymore, but it sure as hell wasn't bikini weather.
Steele just grinned, heading to the freezer to find the medical ice packs. "It's an indoor heated pool, beautiful. So, do you want to?" He found what he was looking for and came back over to place it on my knuckles.
Swimming with Steele? As if I'd say no. "Hell yeah, just give me five minutes to change."
He grinned. "I'll meet you in there. I just need to make sure the guys haven't committed murder in broad daylight, alright?"
It was a valid concern. I left him in the kitchen and hurried out with the ice pack clutched to my knuckles, almost running straight into Steinwick.
"Crap, sorry," I apologized, stepping aside at the last second so we didn't collide. "My head was a million miles away."
"Not a worry at all, miss," he replied with a wrinkled smile. He reached out and stopped me before I could dart around him, though. "My apologies for the intrusion, miss, but what happened to your hand?"
"Oh," I started, then paused as I searched for a plausible reason. For some reason I didn't want to tell this well-mannered, proper old man that I'd punched a boy for calling me