The Help (Kings of Linwood Academy 1)

“Where were you?” I ask, turning the question back on him.

“All right, all right.” One side of his mouth tilts up, and he holds out his hands. “We can both keep our secrets.”

Dammit. I want to know where he was—don’t ask me why. But I’m not trading him my secret in exchange for his. It’s bad enough he knows I snuck out at all. It just gives him one more thing to use against me if he does decide to get me fired.

Speaking of which…

“Hey. Why didn’t you tell your dad about the phone?” I cross my arms over my chest.

“What?”

“River’s phone. You guys were all pissed, I saw it. Why didn’t you tell him?”

He shrugs, his large shoulders rising and falling. He is dressed to impress, in a white shirt and perfectly tailored jacket that felt soft and silky against my skin when I touched him. Where the hell was he?

“River’s phone was a piece of shit. He needed a new one. I’d been telling him that for weeks.”

“Oh, so I did you a favor?” I shoot back.

His demeanor, more relaxed than usual, changes in an instant, and he steps toward me, crowding me against the wall. “Pool Girl, don’t think for even one second that pulling shit on one of my friends is ‘doing me a favor’. And if you want me to get you fired, I’d be more than fucking happy to do it.”

I swallow hard. “No. Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t…” I lick my lips, hating every second of this. “Don’t get me fired, please.”

His gaze flicks down, tracking the movement of my tongue, and he stills, the hard lines of his arms and shoulders softening for a moment. “You’re better than the last one was, I’ll give you that. You actually act like you care.”

I press away from the wall. “I do care—”

Lincoln chuckles, holding up a hand. “Save it, Pool Girl. I don’t need to hear your sob story.”

Then he slips through the service entrance and vanishes up the stairs.

6

I spend the rest of the weekend catching up on homework and helping Mom around the house. The cleaning is pretty easy, actually. Mr. Black demands everything be kept pristine, but it’s not that hard to do since the house barely seems lived in.

As I clean the guest bedroom down the hall from mine, I poke around surreptitiously, but I can’t find any sign that anyone was in here at all on Friday night. The bed is made perfectly, and nothing is out of place. If I hadn’t heard Mr. Black and that woman’s voice through the door, I’d never guess that anyone had used this room in weeks.

Lincoln’s gone for a lot of the weekend, which is nice in a way, since it’s easier to breathe when he’s not around. But I also find myself looking for him, expecting to turn the corner and find him staring at me with that intent look he often gets.

On Monday, Max bitches to me about how I should’ve told him I was good at poker, but I just laugh. Serves him right for assuming I wasn’t. He glowers at me as I turn down the hall to head for my next class.

I’m feeling pretty damn good. The high from playing well and winning always lasts a few days.

But it all comes crashing down around me at 3:05 p.m.

I push through the large double doors at the entrance of Linwood Academy, my backpack heavy on my shoulders and a couple books held in my arms. Students are spilling out of the school alongside me, and I ignore the few catcalls of, “Hey, Pool Girl!”

As I walk toward the parking lot, I notice a bunch of people standing around. The crowd around me slows too, and as I step forward, I see—

Mom’s car.

Fuck.

Two windows have been broken, and the car is stuffed full of garbage. Someone scrawled Clean Me, Bitch and drew a dick across the front windshield, and it looks like every single tire has been slashed.