A Deal With the Devil (Boys of Preston Prep 2)

My stomach erupts in feral flutters when I arrive at Cain’s Ink and see Reyn’s Jeep in the parking lot. I linger a bit before going inside, finding him curled over the reception desk, flipping through a binder. His head turns just enough to peek over his shoulder, eyes locking with mine. The flutters turn into wild twisting when he gives me a small grin.

He turns back to the binder, finger tapping against the counter. “I see we’re paired up again.” He sounds perfectly neutral about it, neither approving nor disapproving.

“I thought you had practice.” I’d come straight from school, still in my uniform. I’d had to catch a ride with Elana since Emory was tied up in football duties, and I was half expecting to find someone else here waiting for me.

“I got the afternoon off to let my injury heal,” he explains.

“My brother’s work, I suspect.” I know Emory. He’d flip out if he knew how close Reyn and I had become, but he also trusts his best friend to keep an eye on me more than any of the other guys.

I’m relieved.

He nods and I watch him closely, prepared to mentally document where his eyes go. But he’s not looking at me anymore. “Any fallout from the other night?”

We hadn’t really spoken since our accidental sleepover. It’s weird, but sometimes it’s like Reyn is everywhere, and other times, he seems to just be nowhere. This week has been one of those instances where I didn’t see him around the quad or in the driveway. My furtive peeks through my curtains have been met with an empty room, as well.

“Not really,” I reply, grabbing another of the binders and opening it. I flip through it unseeingly. “Mom and Em are a little more hovery, but that’s just business as usual.”

Quietly, he asks, “And the sleeping pills?”

I glance at him in confusion before I remember

my mom’s comment that night. My face heats. “My mom’s just obsessed with fixing every little thing wrong with me.” I roll my eyes and mirror his pose, elbow propped on the counter. “But no, I don’t need that.”

He nods again, muttering, “Good,” and that has to be a sign, doesn’t it? Someone who didn’t care wouldn’t give my addiction that much thought. It’s a weak concession, admittedly.

I flip through the images in the book; peace signs, half-naked women riding tigers, daisies and snakes. I barely process any of it. Instead, my ears slowly and intensely fixate on the buzzing coming from the other room. Suddenly, all my musing about whether or not Reynolds likes me seems completely idiotic. It hits me why I’m actually here.

I push away from the counter. “This is a bad idea.”

Reyn eases his binder closed. “What’s a bad idea?”

“This. The tattoo. I thought I could do it, but I can’t.”

He finally looks at me, languidly twisting to watch me pace by the door. “Freaking out, huh?”

“You think?!” I try to keep my voice low. “I’m becoming a Plaything to get access for my article, but I didn’t think I’d have to…” I wave spastically.

He studies me for a minute, tongue swiping out across that bottom lip. Every time I look at his mouth, my stomach bottoms out. If he’s watching me for signs, then they have to be clear as day. “Is it about the pain?” I give him a look and the corners of his eyes crease. “No, we’ve both been through way worse than this. It’s about the permanence.”

I wring my hands. “I know it’s good proof. Like, indisputable. It’ll be great for the piece, but god. It’s forever.” Even if I cover it up, even if I laser it off, it’ll still be a part of me, flesh and blood. “Aren’t our scars enough?”

He gives a lazy shrug. “You’re looking at this all wrong.”

My eyebrows fly up. “How do you figure?”

“The scars are...” He goes still in that odd way of his, looking away. “They remind us of a mistake. There’s no making them into something pretty. But maybe in ten years, you’ll look at this tattoo, and you won’t even remember all this stupid Devil stuff. You’ll just remember why you did it. The people you did it for.” When he meets my gaze again, there’s something heavy and significant in his eyes. “If you think of it like that, it’s not a such a scary thing to immortalize, right?”

I chew on my lip as I try to see it from that angle. Can I do that? Can I make this tattoo less about being bribed by some shadowy cabal, and more about the reason I did it? The more I think about it, the more it grows on me. I don’t want to be forcibly branded like a piece of cattle. But the memory of being able to protect Emory for once, of feeling passionate about something—about justice and truth—for the first time in my life, of doing all this with Reyn at my side, becoming two people who are more than just the product of a terrible accident?

Suddenly, I need this damn tattoo.

I cut my eyes at Reyn. “Oh, you’re good.”

A slow smile dimples his cheeks. “Am I?” His eyes drop. It’s only for a split second. If I hadn’t been watching him so closely, I probably would have missed it, the way his gaze locks on the bare skin just below my skirt hem. I watch his gaze flick away just as fast, and now I’m flooded with all kinds of memories of him doing that. At the party, when I first closed myself in that room. In the bunker, when he asked me to wear jeans. That time in the driveway, the moment that started all this, when he accused me of eavesdropping.

Reynolds McAllister has been looking at my thighs.

Before I can formulate a response, a skinny guy walks out from a back room, arms covered in tattoos, a series of earrings glinting off the shell of his ear. “I’m finishing up with my other client,” he says, “but if one of you wants to wait in the other room, I’ll be with you shortly.”