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

It’s difficult to swing my weak leg over the edge, and I spend a moment trying to find the best way to brace myself. I can hear Reyn down below, shifting, like maybe he’s anticipating having to catch me. I don’t exactly have time to tell him that I’m fine, I just have to strategize. I clamp down on the top bar with one hand so that my other can grab a handful of my jeans and yank it up.

Once it’s over, I carefully turn, putting my chest to the cardboard. I grab onto the bar with both hands and carefully lower myself, hanging. It’s about three feet to the ground—an easy drop for anyone else, but not for me. Obviously sensing this, I feel Reyn’s hands come up to my hips, clutching me in his sure grip.

“I’ve got you,” he assures, but I still take a deep, steeling breath when I let go.

He lowers me to the ground without so much as a grunt.

When I turn to him, still feeling a little winded, he’s smiling—dark eyes and dimples and all. He holds his phone up. “Five minutes. See? Piece of cake, Baby V.”

I laugh breathlessly, too high on both the victory and the sight of Reyn’s signature smile to form anything coherent.

We take the cardboard with us as we hurry through the tennis court toward the first door. We decided the best way into the gym was through the girls’ locker room. When we arrive, a quick peek at his phone tells us he has about twenty-two minutes to pick the lock.

Reyn crouches down, pulling a black roll from the pouch of his hoodie. When he flips it open, there are all kinds of tools inside—picks, I suppose, though some look crude, fashioned from thick, stiff wire. Maybe even just regular paper clips. I chew on my lip as he takes one of the flatter-looking tools and eases it into the lock. Next, he takes one of the thinner, hooky-looking tools and puts that in.

It’s too dark to make out more than the sharp silhouette of his face, but I can tell his eyes are laser-focused as he works. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but his fingers—skilled and sure—are doing it gently, fingertips easing the rod through the keyhole, back and forth.

I step away for a moment to look out over the court and toward the large air conditioners on the other side of the building. I don’t see or hear anyone, and the time on the phone tells me we still have twenty minutes. I try not to jitter around, because I assume it’ll be distracting, so I go back to watching him.

He’s quiet, and the curve of his back as he crouches, combined with the easy movements of his fingers, begins to make something inside me go a little bit liquid and hot. It takes me too long to realize why. The memory of him on his bed, using that same hand to skillfully stroke himself, tramples right through my thoughts. I stare at those fingers for far too long, mentally pasting them into the memory, since he was too far away for such distinct details before.

“Time?” he murmurs, never taking his eyes off the task.

I fumble with my phone. “Ten minutes.”

He spits a low curse, slowly removing one of the rods from the keyhole. He ducks his head to wipe his face on the shoulder of his hoodie, but then hangs it for a moment, holding the other tool inside the hole. “Left or right.”

“What?”

He looks at me, jaw tight. “If I turn the tension wrench the wrong way, it’ll reset the pins and I’ll have to start over. I need you to choose, left or right.”

I panic. “Why me?” We only have ten minutes left. There’s no way he does all that again in ten minutes.

“I just need you to do it,” he grits out, and he looks so inexplicably frustrated that I hastily throw something out.

“Left.”

He turns it left.

His posture suddenly deflates, and I think for a second that I’d chosen wrong. But then he levels me with that dimpled smile again and turns the knob. “Lucky charm.”

We get inside the locker room with nine minutes to spare.

The room is dark and smells exactly like a locker room. I can make out Reyn’s outline as he shifts beside me, putting away his tools.

“One down, one to go.”

He precedes me through the row of lockers at first, but then seems to hang back, waiting to walk at my side. When I get there, his hand comes up to the small of my back, leading me the rest of the way. I always hate when Emory or my parents do that, but when Reyn does it, it just makes me feel all viscous inside.

Stupid.

The second door—the one that will lead us into the gym—goes much like the first. Reyn crouches down and gets to work, while I keep track of the time. Chances are, we won’t make the guard’s next pass and will have to hang around a bit.

When he whispers, “Left or right,” I don’t even hesitate this time.

“Left.”

The door opens easily.