Never His Girl (Kings of Cypress Prep #2) - Rachel Jonas Page 0,3

and I feel something I’ve lacked for a while now. Since Mom bailed, since Hunter was taken away.

Peace.

And … I missed this.

“Sleep,” he says again, just before yawning.

I lift my head when his arm replaces my pillow, and I already feel myself relaxing. Guess I needed this, needed him.

“Thank you for showing up,” I breathe against his skin. “Not many people do that for me.”

A soft kiss to the back of my shoulder comes before words, a declaration I would’ve known even if he never said it.

“I’ll always show up for you.”

Chapter 2

WEST

Something told me not to let Joss pick the music, but I fucking did it anyway. Should’ve gone with my gut.

When the hell did sad-girls-on-acoustic-guitars become a music genre, anyway? A montage of weak-ass breakup songs is the last thing I want to hear right now.

She’s been over at our place practically all day. After the bus brought us back to the school parking lot early this morning, she only went home long enough to drop off her things and check in with her parents. Then, half an hour later, security phoned to announce she was on her way up.

But in hindsight, if I’d known I’d be forced to listen to this shit at some point in the day, I would’ve removed her ass from our list of authorized visitors without hesitation. Friend or not.

Mostly, she hung with Dane, either in his room listening to music, or in the theater room binging bad reality TV. But when she got bored, she’d wander into Sterling’s space or mine to check in. She never pressed for conversation, though, which was a good thing because I had none.

My notifications had gone off nonstop from the time the game ended yesterday until a few hours ago, when I finally silenced them. The sudden explosion of interest had nothing to do with the team being one step closer to the championship. The vultures were hitting me up to be a part of the shitshow, to get the details everyone’s after. And their main question?

Why’d I post the video?

“Ready to talk?”

Joss’s voice drags me from my thoughts as I hit a left half a second after the light turns red.

“If I wanted to talk, I wouldn’t have left to get away from everyone,” I grumble, thinking of how she insisted on tagging along when I announced I’d be heading out for a drive.

“Didn’t get away from me,” she quips.

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

Hopefully, she hasn’t taken anything I’ve said in the last thirty-plus hours to heart. She knows I’m kind of an ass when I’m pissed. Well, more of an ass than usual.

“Fuck.”

Joss peers over when the word leaves my mouth, purely out of frustration.

“You know,” she says way too calmly, “I have her number if you want to call.”

My heart leaps when she offers, and I hate that it does. Still, I give nothing away. Instead, I press the button to crack my window a bit. Like it isn’t only forty-something degrees outside. It helps when anger suddenly makes my temp spike, though.

I fucked up. No one knows that better than me. Directly, indirectly, however you look at it, everything that happened is on me. Still, even with the bull that’s taken place since the video went live, my biggest regret right now has nothing to do with that. It’s got to do with those three stupid words I last spoke to Southside—‘You should go.’

Basically, I’m a dick who can’t seem to deviate from dick behavior.

“So … you want the number or not?”

A few seconds pass and I say nothing. But in true Joss-form, she grabs my phone, unlocks it because her nosey ass seems to always know my codes, then she puts Southside’s info in herself.

“There,” she huffs. “Now you have it for whenever you get your head out of your ass and man up to call this girl. And you better have some sort of monumental apology ready, because what the fuck, West? Have you lost your mind?” she scolds. “Not only is this about the sickest power play I’ve ever seen, but even if you don’t care about her, what about football? The state championship? Next year? The coaches at NCU are definitely gonna hear about it because everyone’s passing it around. There won’t be any hiding from this.”

“You don’t think I know that?” I snap, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

Her accusation, and the subsequent warning, make my jaw tick with rage but I hold my tongue from saying more. For