The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

“Yeah.”

“Holy hell, Taryn. I can’t believe you.” He shifted and fell beside me, he rubbed one hand over his face. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “Sorry I laid all that on you like that.”

“No. It’s…wow. I’m just…I just slept with a chick that broke into a police station.”

I let a laugh escape. Couldn’t help it. But when it’s put like that—yeah, it was funny. And I slept with a guy who had tarred a high school’s gymnasium and tilled their football field. All to get revenge because they had their game book stolen. At least he wasn’t in the drug trade.

Wait.

“How frequent is your steroid business?” I asked.

“Uh…” he mused. “It’s not really something I talk about.”

“I just told you I broke into the police station. You can humor me,” I said shortly.

“It’s…it maintains itself, mostly.”

“Jace warned me about you.”

Tray didn’t say anything, but I could feel his body stiffen.

“He said you were the lesser of two evils.”

“Between him and me?”

“You and Brian.”

“Fuck, Taryn, we’re just messing around. It’s not like we’re in some relationship,” he cursed, shoving off the bed.

I stood up, uncaring that I was naked. “Hey,” I stopped him, grabbing one of his arms, and swinging him back to me, “that’s not even where I’m going with this.”

He took in the fierceness in my eyes and then slowly slid down my body, a faint grin coming to his mouth. Those lips—I tore my lustful thoughts away. “I’m just saying, we both have some shit on each other. That’s all it has to go—nowhere else. Alright?”

Slipping one arm around me and pulling me against him, he murmured, “I seem to remember a few of your threats to Gentley.”

“You’re not immune,” I shot back, melting into him as one of his hands came to my neck, already tipping my head back as his mouth descended, slowly to mine. “You leak anything I just spilled—we’re at war.”

He kissed me and murmured against my lips, “I don’t really want to piss off a girl who can break into a police station.”

When you put it like that, I could see his point.

I deepened the kiss and then pushed him away. “I should probably be at the house when my parents show up.” Bending over, I grabbed my clothes and quickly dressed.

Tray ran a hand through his hair. “You want to shower?”

“We don’t have time.”

He chuckled. “I’ll stay out. Just thought you might want to be all fresh and clean when you see the parents.”

“I’ll open my windows in the car,” I said dryly, snagging my purse and already heading out the door. “Come on.”

As Tray drove, I called Pedlam Hospital.

“Charles Josephson’s room, please.”

The phone rang twice before I heard a female’s voice answer, “Geezer’s room.”