Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Goosebumps spread up my arms, into my hair. He doesn’t look happy. Maybe Dylan does know what she’s doing.
Noah holds out his hand, formally introducing himself. “Noah Van der Berg.”
I look back at him just as I see Lucas glance back at us.
I smile, shaking his hand. “Quinn Caruthers. Nice to finally meet you.”
Lucas
She’s laughing. Why does it bug me?
He smiles, she blushes, they talk, and I run a little faster, so they don’t pass me. And they smile some more. And talk and talk and talk.
I thought I might see her here tonight, but I don’t know why I assumed she’d be alone if I did.
I guess it’s just a reminder of how the world keeps moving without you. Quinn used to want me around.
She has other people’s attention now.
I jerk my head to the side, cracking my neck. It’s good that she has people around her. He has a kind way about him, at least. Easy eyes that look at her like he’s seven and she’s carrying a plate of cookies. Not like the other one who looks at her like he already knows how this night will go, and it will end entirely in his favor.
I exit the track, swipe my hand towel and water bottle off a bench, and wipe the sweat on my forehead that isn’t really there. I’d only been jogging for a few minutes, trying not to think about how I timed my arrival when I thought she might show up.
Madoc was here last night too. I just wanted to catch up with them both some more before I leave. I haven’t seen him yet, though.
I head for the bottle filler and see them jog past, her running partner trailing her just a couple of inches, his eyes dropping to her ass.
Noah Van der Berg.
Madoc told me about him today at the track—the family’s new honorary addition. He’s on Jared’s racing team, lives with him and Tate, and acts as a pseudo-older brother to their son, James. Good friends with Dylan too.
Actually, all of them, I hear.
Saw him for a beat at the Loop, straddling his bike and talking up some girls. I can spot a young guy, new to town, and enjoying a playing field of fresh new faces a mile away. They don’t mind him having fun, but they will mind when he’s having fun with Quinn. I guarantee it.
Tipping up my bottle, I take a drink.
“Is he coming tonight?” I hear a voice ask.
I swallow a little more water and then stop. I think it’s the other kid Quinn was with.
“What time?” he asks.
He’s on the phone.
“What time?” Again, but sterner.
I take a step, then two, and spot the other blond around the corner, his back to the towel station. He holds a phone in his hand, an ear piece is in his ear.
“You think I want his job?” He grins. “I’ll be taking yours first.”
He slides a hand up under his black T-shirt and rubs his stomach.
“And then Reeves will fucking find out how short-lived power is when you have no people.”
I pull back just behind the wall again.
Reeves.
Drew Reeves?
“I won’t be late,” I hear him say. But then his voice softens. “Well, I might be late. Kind of like what I’m looking at right now.”
I take another step, seeing him follow Quinn with his eyes as she runs with Noah.
“Don’t wait for me.”
He ends the call, tucks the phone into the pocket of fitted gray sweatpants, and then he turns.
And that’s when I see it.
RIVER inked vertically down the side of his neck, a line stricken through the word.
My chest caves. Fuck.
I stand there, watching him walk back to Noah and Quinn as they stop running and move to the machines. Something coils in my stomach as I clench my teeth.
The tattoo. The fucking tat.
Green Street.
He had said “and then Reeves will find out…”
…will.
As if he’s still here.
But he’s gone. I checked. He was driven away two years ago. The crooked Shelburne Falls cop who ran the Weston Green Street gang and was caught siphoning confiscated goods for his own benefit and conning a bunch of kids into doing his dirty work. He fled, and an underling took over.
But eight years ago, Drew wasn’t a cop. And he wasn’t alone.
I’m not welcome here anymore, under any condition, but I couldn’t exactly tell my mother that when she forced me home. Even Lance doesn’t know what happened.
And Madoc will never know.
Does Green Street cause him any trouble? If I’m seeing someone with a tattoo after only two days here, the group has to be thriving.
Neither of these fucking guys should be around Quinn.
Lance sidles up to my side, done with the treadmill. “Legs?” he asks.
I’d forgotten he was here.
I watch Quinn move to the shoulder press as her friends circle her.