Going Wild (The Wild Ones 2)

This is my Friday morning.

Chapter 18

Wild Ones Tip #270

If we won’t call you a cunt, it’s because you lack warmth and depth.

In other words, we like people in a weird way.

KYLIE

“So you just left him in bed?” Krysta asks as she shuts the hood of the trooper’s car.

I’m half-assing my lookout task, seeing the troopers cursing the ants that are all over them, running as they try to strip down to their…plaid boxers. I could have lived without ever seeing those hairy backs. But the one trooper has a rather nice, hairless, somewhat alluring back.

It’s not Liam’s back.

Damn Liam.

Damn perfect body.

Lilah’s right—he’s freakishly gorgeous, and I’m sure as hell not.

“What if I’m just a phase? It’s all because he thinks I’m real—whatever that means. I was just something different that landed inside his stagnant lifestyle. It’s like finding a new series to watch, but then getting bored when it starts getting a little too…out there for ya. You know? And this town will get more out there, eventually. And I’ll get more out there.”

“By ‘out there’ you mean crazy, right?” Nila Wilder asks from under the other car.

“Exactly.”

Krysta moves on to the tires, putting two nails in one, and four nails in another. “Daddy’s making me pay for these damn tires, by the way,” Krysta grumbles under her breath. “He said it’s not PC to make them pay for it themselves.”

Lilah watches out for Nila’s side as she bats a hand in my direction.

“I don’t think that’s what PC means,” Nila says from somewhere.

“He’s crazy about you, Kylie. You should have seen the way he talked about you when he first spilled the beans about why he moved to Tomahawk. It isn’t just a passing phase,” Lilah argues. “If he’d told me your name then, I would have shoved you to him sooner.”

“But—”

“They’re coming back!” Lilah hisses, jogging in her combat boots, and jumping over Nila’s legs as she runs toward the back of the car.

Krysta and I both grab Nila’s feet by her hiking boots and drag her out from under the car, causing her to hiss—because the gravel and all.

She darts to her feet, and we all laugh as we reach the woods, moving through them and far away from the troopers who will be cursing their bad luck—A.K.A. us—shortly.

They need to go. There’s nothing to do in town when the damn troopers are here. The grocery store is even closed.

“They’re not staying in town this time, so the fake disease heist is off. Gotta be crafty this time,” Krysta says, then points a finger at me. “Back on topic: If a guy gave up his life, chased me here—of all places—and was totally cool with just how crazy my family and I are, I’d give him a ring.”

I snort, and Lilah outright laughs. She’s so full of shit.

“To be fair, your family would send almost any guy running away, so that means—”

“That means I don’t have to worry about someone ambushing me with a wedding and asking when my babies are going to be born,” she quips, causing Lilah to scowl, but the scowl fades to a smile, which pisses her off, so she looks away to hide her very expressional face from us.

“I think Lilah Vincent is happily married,” Nila mocks.

“Speaking of your family,” Lilah says, ignoring Krysta’s juvenile kissing noises, “aren’t your brothers supposed to be helping you today?”

Krysta rolls her eyes. “Tate and Porter are at the challenge committee meeting. I told my other two siblings there was going to be a comet crash if they didn’t do the rain dance in reverse until the sun sets.”

Don’t ask. Krysta’s family would take too long to explain. There’s a reason their family flag has a squirrel on it…

“You’re letting her distract us from explaining why she stepped out on Liam before he woke up,” Nila, the dead girl walking, says with a coy little grin on her face.

“You should have heard the way Nila talked when she met Liam,” I decide to say, the little dig causing that angry wrinkle to form on her brow.

She flips me off without looking at me, and I laugh to myself.

“Gibberish? Was it gibberish? Why did I miss it?” Lilah groans as we step onto the road, beginning our half a mile walk to the section of lake where we tied our boats off. I rode with Lilah, and Krysta rode with Nila. Since only two of us are technically allowed to be together at the same time.

Town rules are a pain in the ass when you have besties from all four families of Wild Ones.

“We really are being distracted. What’s the deal, Kylie?” Krysta, dead girl number two says.

I open my mouth to speak, when we hear a car coming. Nila shoves Krysta at the same time I shove Lilah, both of us reacting before those two can do it to us. They land in a heap, rolling down the ditch bank, as the car passes.