“You won the state championship?”
“Yeah.”
“So the one loss didn’t hurt that bad,” I said sardonically.
“It hurt enough. They had to revise an entire new game book.” I could hear the acid dripping from his voice.
“You don’t even play football. Why do you care?”
“Because this is my school. I take care of what’s mine,” he promised firmly.
But this wasn’t my school. I didn’t have a school. Wait—Pedlam?
“I know people at Pedlam.”
“What? You go to school there or something?”
“Yeah…a few times.”
“So—”
“So…I don’t know if I want to help you screw with a school that I’m probably more welcome at than I am here.”
Tray sighed, rolling his eyes. “You’re Mandy’s sister. This is your school too, Taryn.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard him say my name. In fact, until lunch, he’d never spoken to me.
“Get out. I’m not helping you.”
“What? Come on.”
“Out!” I snapped, glaring fiercely.
“Fine,” he clipped out, getting out and slamming the door behind him before stalking off.
Watching him, I narrowed my eyes. Well, if I ever had hopes of climbing the social ladder, it just walked away with him.
*
As I let myself inside the house—correction—the mansion where my new family lived, I dropped my keys in the bowl beside the coat-rack. The place was just massive. I already knew no one was home. My parents—it was hard to think of them as parents, I had to keep reminding myself not to call them Shelley and Kevin in my mind—were gone on a business trip. Kevin was either on-call at the hospital, or, like this weekend, he was at a conference and he always took Shelley with him, leaving me, Mandy, and Austin home alone. Austin, my new brother, was a fourteen year old brat, but I could beat him up so he left me alone for the most part. Our bonding was a work in progress.
Grabbing a pop, I landed on the couch in the media room. I was having a hard time immersing myself in the movie I had put on when I heard the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. Groaning, I could make out Mandy’s friends’ voices.
The gods of the gods.
Ugh.
“She’s down here,” Mandy called out, bouncing down the stairs.
“Hey,” she exclaimed, plopping down beside me.
“Hey.”
“So, Tray said you said no. A big fat no actually.”
“No, Mandy.”
“Come on…why not?” she whined with a pout, looking at me with big puppy dog eyes.