Never His Girl (Kings of Cypress Prep #2) - Rachel Jonas Page 0,6
people, find out something like that? Only me, Dane, and Sterling even know about it, right? I mean, aside from Casey herself, but she sure as hell wouldn’t tell anyone.”
When I don’t have a rebuttal to that, Joss reaches her own conclusion.
“Wait… Casey told?” she asks, sitting forward in her seat to shoot me a look.
I draw in a breath, ignoring how my chest tightens.
“They ran into each other recently. At least that’s the story Parker’s sticking to. She says Casey had a little too much to drink and told her everything.”
Joss falls back against her seat again, then says something unexpected.
“The party.”
I peer over. “What Party?”
“Casey’s nineteenth. The one I came back early from vacation to make it to,” she reminds me. “A bunch of the girls from the CP dance squad were invited. Also, most of Casey’s former squad-mates from Everly Prep, plus some of her college friends.”
The pieces are beginning to fall together.
“I didn’t even think anything of it at the time, but she and Parker were hanging pretty tight that night. And there was definitely tons of alcohol, so…”
I’m at a loss for words. Not that I had all that much to say before this conversation.
“I’m so sorry, West.” Joss’s hand lands on mine and she squeezes. “I know this is, like, a worst-case scenario for you.”
Everything I’d done until now had been to prevent fallout from a mistake I made so long ago. But with this info now in Parker’s hands, that may have all been for nothing. I can’t remember a time I’ve been more on edge.
I worked twice as hard on the field to create a safety net, hoping to secure my spot at NCU even if the truth about me and Casey one day came to light. More specifically, I wanted to keep it from getting to anyone on NCU’s athletic staff, because if that happens, I lose everything.
Me and all parties involved.
But the video of me and Southside’s out there now, which means it might all go up in smoke anyway.
“Why go through all this trouble?” Joss’s question has me revisiting the conversation from a couple nights ago and anger follows.
“The short answer? Because Parker’s a bitter-ass bitch,” I grumble.
There’s a stormy past between us, a ‘relationship’ with a foundation built on empty sex and empty words. Words void of feeling and sincerity on my part. The lack of an actual connection made it easy to miss that she’d fallen for me. Made it easy to ignore how using her, and then disregarding her completely, eventually broke her. She was never ‘good’ by any means, but Parker Holiday had definitely gone from bad to worse on my watch. I can own up to that.
“I still don’t understand,” Joss speaks up.
“What’s not to get? Parker has me by the fucking balls. End of story.”
“I know you’re telling the truth, so don’t take this the wrong way, but things still don’t add up,” Joss points out. “Like, how the hell did she end up with video footage of you and Blue? Was she planning that the whole time? Then again, I guess that doesn’t make sense, because you didn’t even know Blue was coming to your room.”
Joss is mostly rambling to herself now, trying to make sense of things. But lucky for her, Parker’s cocky ass answered most of these questions for me last night. Without hesitation, actually. Seemed she wanted to rub in the fact that she somehow managed to pull this whole thing off, and that there isn’t shit I can do about it.
“She screen-recorded a fucking video call,” I grumble, finally answering. “She stopped at the dresser on her way out of the room while I was busy talking to Southside. She set us up without me even realizing.”
Just thinking about how simple it all was, I’m pissed all over again. A few small tweaks to how things went down that night and I wouldn’t even be in this mess.
If only I’d thought to keep an eye on Parker while she got her shit out of my room.
If only my phone hadn’t been on silent when she called me from her line to connect us by video.
If I hadn’t been so fucking naïve, none of this would’ve happened.
“So, she just wanted to know what would go down after she left the room?”
“Fuck if I know,” I answer with a shrug. “Whatever the case, we gave her a shit-ton more than access to our conversation. She ended up with everything she’d