Trick Me Twice

“Good. That girl might be your type on paper, but she isn’t right for you.”

“Truth.” We’d never really had much in common, and we both knew it. Not that Anastasia had admitted that to herself. She still wanted me. Wanted the prestige of being my girlfriend. Too bad for her, I wasn’t interested in a trophy girlfriend.

Not anymore.

Kian was silent for a minute, scrolling through his phone, before he spoke again. “Nothing on his socials about anyone from school. You want me to check with Weston?” He named Cassius’ best mate, who had been our football team captain until he left to go to Alstone College.

“No. I was just curious because I saw him at our school ear

lier, picking up one of the girls.” I played it casual, gritting my teeth at the image that was burned into my mind. Raine, jumping into his arms, both of them looking way too fucking happy.

“Who?”

“Raine.”

“Who’s that? Wait—Raine Laurent? The girl you’re always talking about? What’s your obsession with her, mate?” His tone became sly.

“I’m not fucking obsessed.” My grip on the steering wheel tightened. “She’s my neighbour, and a fucking pain in the ass. That’s it. Just having a hard time believing she’d be hanging out with Cassius Drummond.”

“Hold up.” His thumb swiped over his phone. “No pics… Ah. She’s been tagged in a few.” He studied them closely. “Oh, yeah. I remember her now. She’s been hanging out with Lena Drummond lately. Can’t say I ever remember seeing her around school before that.”

Yeah, that’s because my little trickster liked to hide herself away.

“There’s your answer, then.” He tapped on his screen. “She’s Lena’s friend, so that’s how she knows Cassius. He was probably doing her a favour.”

A favour. It hit me then. She knew I wasn’t going to be giving her a ride home, so she must’ve arranged for him to pick her up. I still couldn’t believe she’d dared to slap me, but the outrage had faded as soon as I’d seen her go to Cassius, replaced by a feeling I definitely didn’t want to associate with her.

“She’s not his type,” Kian continued. His words conjured more images—Raine, wrecked after the orgasm I’d given her. Kissing me. Distracting me on the big wheel. If Cassius had seen her the way I had…if anyone else had seen her the way I had, they’d want her, too. It wasn’t such a stretch to imagine Cassius being interested, after all.

“Did you ever hook up with Halloween girl again?” Kian suddenly asked. When people had asked me about it after the picture of me holding her hand had been blasted on the gossip account, I’d brushed it off, telling everyone she was from out of town and she was a one-night hook-up. Everyone accepted my explanation—why wouldn’t they? I was surprised Kian had brought her up, though, since we’d both been chasing after her to begin with. At least he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge.

“No,” I said shortly and changed the subject. “You want to go to the bowl this week? I need to blow off some steam.”

“If you want.”

I glanced over at him, brows raised, before turning my gaze back to the road. “No need to sound so enthusiastic.” He was always down for a fight. Both of us had our moments when it all got too fucking much, and fighting was the best way to relieve the tension. Anyone could fight at the bowl—it was only for fun, and Kian fought there way more than I did. So to see him so unbothered about it all, yeah, that was really out of character. “Blowing off steam in other ways, are you?” Come to think of it, he’d been a lot more mellow this last week. He’d even patched things up with Preston, something I never thought would happen.

“Yeah.” He grinned.

“Who is she?”

He fell silent and eventually said, “I’m not ready to talk about it, yet.”

“Alright.” I wasn’t about to push him, not when I had things I wasn’t ready to talk about, either. Glancing over at him, I steered the conversation to safer topics. “Did Mack get back to you about the warehouse?”

“Yeah, I forgot to say. We can pick up the keys after school on the Friday and take them back on the Sunday.”

“I can’t fucking wait for this.” We shared a grin. “Party of the year, for sure. Everyone’s gonna want to be there.”

“Yep.” His tone was satisfied.

We pulled up outside the Cutler house, and after I’d parked on the overgrown driveway, I looked over at him. “I’ll wait here. See you in a few.”

“Fuck off. If I’m going in, you have to.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “She likes you better, anyway.”

“Only because I pretend to like her tea.”

“Whatever. You coming?”