The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,275

alone. Can’t meet. Sorry! Call you 2morrow.”

His reply comes right away, “Cool. L8r”.

It stings my pride that he didn’t even pretend to care. The scowl forming on my face softens when I look down at the sleeping, bruised face pressed to my chest. Weston can wait a few days, but I’m not sure that he can.

I manage to lift and carry him into the bakery’s restaurant. I lay him on one of the plush sofas, rush back to the workroom, and grab the pashmina in my bag to drape over him. It covers him completely and makes him look impossibly vulnerable. I need to know who hurt him. When he wakes up, I’ll coax it out of him with some milk and scones.

Then, I’m going to make sure the person who did this and the adults who let it happen make things right for him.

I engage the deadbolt so he can’t leave through the front door. Then, I get back to work.

The butter I’d taken out has softened too much to be used in my scone recipe, so I pop it into the freezer. I set a timer for twenty minutes, pop in my Love Jones soundtrack CD and get to work zesting lemons and ginger. I’m only on the second lemon when the sound of shattering glass from the restaurant splinters my focus.

I drop everything, grab the chef’s knife off the wall, and run. Images of him bleeding, or in the clutches of whatever villain broke that glass make me dizzy with fear.

With my arm raised to strike, I take a fortifying breath and burst through the swinging doors with a primal scream that nearly chokes me when I take in the scene.

He’s gone. An entire pane of glass is missing from the store front window. And one of the small silver footstools my mother handpicked lays sprawled on the sidewalk in a sea of fractured glass.

What an idiot I am. I bet he wasn’t even really asleep.

I run to the window, stick my head out of the gaping hole he made and look each way down the deserted street. He could have gone anywhere, and I don’t have time to go looking for him now.

I need a really good story that explains how that window got broken. Otherwise, my whole plan is shot to hell and I can forget this sliver of freedom I carved out. I glower at the yawning hole in the glass and curse the little delinquent and my irrational instinct to protect him. As angry as I am with him, it’s clear that the kid has enough problems without adding Owen Wilde to them.

That little shit may have escaped my grandfather's wrath, but he won’t escape mine.

Chapter 2

I Want To Fight

Regan

"Come on, gimme a kiss, Regan. You used to like it, remember?” Billy, aka Mr. Boring Enough to Make my Mother Happy, leans across the center console of my car with his eyes closed.

I roll my eyes skyward and lean as far away as the small interior of my Ford Mustang will allow. I don’t remember if I liked kissing him or not, and I have no intention of refreshing my memory.

In the distance, a bell rings and I put a hand on Billy’s chest and imbue my voice with regret. His eyes pop open and confusion creases his brow.

“I don’t want to make you late.” I glance at my watch meaningfully.

“That was just the warning bell, we’ve got time. If you want that schedule, it’ll cost you.” His smile is smarmy, his voice heavy with entitlement as he grabs my wrist and tugs me forward to close the space between us.

His eyes drift closed, and I let him draw me closer while I keep my eyes on the piece of paper he’s holding as ransom. He should have been holding it out of my reach.

I snatch the paper from his distracted, slack grasp and yank my wrist free.

“What the fuck?” he snaps, shoving away from me with a huff of disgruntled annoyance.

“I’ll just take this and skip the kiss,” I say with a tight smile.

“Aren’t you even going to say thank you?” he asks, peevish resignation in his voice.

Even though I didn’t engage them when he got in, I hit the switch on the door locks for the sound effect. “Thank you,” I deadpan, and eye him impatiently.

His expression crumbles and he pouts. That little kid has more backbone than him. “Aww, come on, Regan. At least let me see your titties.”

I level