Never His Girl (Kings of Cypress Prep #2) - Rachel Jonas Page 0,23

the video,” Sterling cuts in. “Is there a connection? Did you leak it to get revenge because of what Vin told you?”

My stomach’s in knots now.

“No,” I sigh. “It wasn’t me. Parker’s the only bitch twisted enough to do shit like that.”

I’m not looking up at either of their faces, but I imagine the looks they’re giving me right now.

“Fucking knew it,” Sterling seethes.

“And why haven’t we ratted this bitch out already?” Dane wants to know.

“Because it’s not that simple.”

I feel those judgmental stares on me again after I speak.

“Why the fuck not? She screwed you over, now we rain down hell on her head. Sounds pretty fucking simple to me,” Dane reasons. He’s worked up like it’s his name on the line. Not mine.

“I can’t snitch because she knows,” I respond, already sounding defeated.

“Knows what?”

I peer up just as Sterling asks. And with what I say next, he shoots me a knowing stare.

“About Casey. From Casey,” I clarify before they can ask who the hell would tell Parker Holiday any-fucking-thing.

Their immediate response? Silence. Then, both take a seat to think—one in the armchair near the window, the other on the floor with his back to the wall.

“Damn,” Sterling sighs, finally getting it.

“If I tell what she did with the video, she’s telling everyone what she knows about me and Casey. Starting with Casey’s father.”

Both understand why that, in particular, would suck for me.

“Damn,” Sterling repeats.

We sit there for a while, not saying a word as they take in the full scope of the whole fucked up situation.

Dane shifts in the chair and he has me and Sterling’s full attention.

“You weren’t the only one who found out early who and what Vin really is. I was ten,” he admits. “It was when he hired that babysitter to look after us while Mom went home to The Bayou for a week.”

He flashes a humorless smirk

I remember that week, and the “babysitter” our piece-of-shit father hired to keep us out of his hair while he dicked around, doing absolutely nothing.

“I couldn’t sleep one night, so I got up for water. On the way to the kitchen, I heard weird sounds coming from one of the bathrooms,” Dane continues. “Not thinking, I walked in and caught them. He had her bent over the sink, pants around his ankles.”

I shouldn’t be surprised Dane has a story of his own, but I am. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought it best to protect the others from what I knew.

“He bribe you with ice cream, too?” I ask, half-joking, half-not.

“Nah, fifty bucks and mention of Mom having threatened to overdose on pills the week before. He said that, if I snitched on him, she might make good on her promise.”

“What kind of asshole tells his own damn kid shit like that?”

Dane shrugs before answering my question. “Only Vin Golden.”

None of us argue with that.

“What a sick fuck.” Sterling scoffs. “I’ve never caught him in the act, but you couldn’t have paid me to believe he’s ever been faithful. Someone with an ego like that was never meant to be a family man.”

We’re quiet again, and I wonder if they’re reflecting on our hit or miss childhood, too. Yeah, having money made it easier to ignore some of the bullshit, but those highs have always been punctuated by some pretty unhealthy lows, shit no kid should ever have to see.

“So, what’s the plan?” Dane asks. And I note he didn’t ask what ‘my’ plan is. Now that they know the truth, they’ve made it their problem, too.

I shrug, feeling fired up and defeated all at once. “Hell if I know.”

“We need to get to the bottom of Vin’s lie, and we need to fix this shit between you and Southside,” Sterling says, but then he eyes me. “Unless … you still think you got the whole truth out of Vin.”

I think about that for a moment and consider how he’s manipulated all of us over the years. As easy as it was to believe I had this all figured out, it’s no longer just about me being aware of what Vin’s capable of. I saw something in Southside that night, and I know what I felt when I touched her.

That, alone, has me ready to throw my theories out the window, because of the reality I can’t outrun—I want this girl. Maybe even more than I want the truth. It has me thinking that, even if we never uncover the whole story, I might just