The Sinners - Ruby Vincent Page 0,67
hand. Clay and Cas were blasé about the growing number of times silent communications passed between me and Hiro. The guys were cool as long as I kept it between the Angels, so what was it?
Just because Clay, Cas, and Royal are cool, doesn’t mean Hiro is, I thought as Clay and I walked to lunch. Pushing it down and moving on is preferable to getting in a relationship you’re not comfortable with.
I bit back a sigh. I could go around and around it all day. The fact remained that it was down to Hiro to tell me what he wanted.
Royal fell in step with us in the main hallway. We joined the line, picked up our food, and headed upstairs. Discovering Julian was Royal’s cousin put their entire dynamic in a new light. Julian wasn’t only fighting for dominance of the school. He was competing against the other boy who claimed his mother’s attention.
Julian and Pomona’s table sat empty every day. They permanently moved to the Angels’ old table which changed the seating charts. Raveners moved to their side of the loft, and OB kids went to the other.
We didn’t go anywhere. The shifting politics earned no attention from the Angels, and underlying the whole ordeal, there was a sense that nothing was happening out of their control. The Raveners sat at their table because they allowed it. And if they changed their minds, they’d go back to where they belonged.
I went to our table to nibble on my food while I waited for Cassius. Gabriel was already half into his meal. We hadn’t spoke about what I overheard at the country club. I shouldn’t have been snooping and we weren’t that close. There was no good way to bring it up.
Royal’s pocket buzzed as I sat on it.
Pulling out the burner phone, he held it up where we both could see. The screen alerted us to a message that could be from only one person. Royal tapped to open.
My brows snapped together. “What? What is that supposed to mean?”
Staring back at us were two simple words.
555-8546: Nice try.
I kept it vague, aware of the cafeteria full of people. “What are you supposed to do with that? Will he do it or not?”
“Don’t know,” he said quietly, voice not carrying. “Maybe it’s the unknown number. I said I got his from a friend, but it’d be smart to ignore anyone he doesn’t recognize.”
“What do we do now?”
“We’re fine. I’ll tell him how much I’m willing to pay and he’ll get over his trust issues.”
Cassius topped the landing.
“I have to go,” I said. “See you after.”
After a bout of mind-scrambling sex. Cassius brought me down onto his pillows and sandwiched his face between my breasts.
“It’s been too long,” he moaned.
“It’s been five days.”
“Exactly.” He kissed my collarbone. “I got you something at the beach.”
“You did?”
Cassius got a box out of his nightstand. We rose up, the tiny silver gift between us. Cassius held it delicately as if it would break.
“It’s not much,” he said. His cocky, self-assured grin faded. “I just saw it and I thought—thought you’d like it and—”
Nuzzling his cheek, I whispered, “And what?”
“And we were there and Clay was texting you and cheesing, and all-around acting like a lovesick bitch, and it pissed me off.”
“Why?”
“Because he knows where he stands with you. You guys are dating. He’s your boyfriend. While I’m the guy you’re still figuring things out with.” Cassius grasped my chin between two fingers and raise me to drown in seafoam eyes of sunlight glinting off crashing waves. “I don’t want to be just your hook-up, Ember.”
Cassius removed the lid, uncovering a shiny silver necklace with a rectangular pendant holding browns, ambers, blacks, and oranges inside.
“It’s the sand from the beach,” he said. “The world outside of this town does exist. You’ll get out of here before me, but one day I’ll follow you, and it’ll just be us.”
I clasped his hands and the necklace within them. Longing, love, affection, and laughter bubbled in the piece of my soul that was undeniably Cassius’s. The power of one was enough to crumble the façade that I was happy being just his hook-up. But all together, it was razed to dust.
I threw my arms around him, delighting in an explosive kiss that stripped us down to our core and laid us bare. Cassius wasn’t the abandoned son forced into a harsh life. I wasn’t the most hated girl in Raven River—despised by everyone including myself.
It was just