Page 56 of The Bully's Dare

He knits his eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

Um…

“Here to celebrate you, obviously. Happy graduation.”

That pulls a smile from him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. We can do whatever you want.”

He glances over his shoulder. “We should wait for Jason.”

“No,” I say too quickly. The thought of seeing him right now sends my heart pounding. “I mean…I thought this could just be the two of us. For old time’s sake.”

He bites his lower lip briefly in thought. Then he swings his leg over his bike and says, “C’mon.”

We speed down the road, away from the medical center, even as I feel the pull of anxiety tightening like a noose around my neck with every pedal push.

We end up at the very top of the clay cliffs. We find a spot where the grass is cut shorter and flop down. Head-to-head. Watching the clouds. It’s chilly up here, but the sun is hot, and it warms my skin.

“What’s the deal with Jason’s dad?” I ask after a while.

Donovan glances over at me, his eyebrows knit. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…what do you know about him?”

Donovan thinks about it, then says, “My family has a…weird relationship with the Kings.”

“How so?”

A sigh escapes him. “We didn’t always live in a trailer. We had a house in Syracuse. Dad was an accountant. Mom was a teacher. We were comfortable. And then mom got cancer. He really loved her, so…my dad went all out. The best doctors. The best hospital. That’s how we came here. I was thirteen. It was supposed to be temporary. But…she never got better. She fought it. Hard. For two years. But…well…”

His voice trails. I reach up and touch his hair, running my fingers through it. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too. Anyway. In case you haven’t noticed, this place…isn’t cheap. My dad had to sell the house. It ate up his savings. Everything we had, basically. Mr. King…took pity on us, I guess. He gave my dad a job at the marina as a way to settle his debts. And we’ve been working it off ever since.”

“So he got you out of debt? That’s generous.”

Donovan bites his lip. “Sort of.”

“What’s the sort of part?”

“Well…it makes you think. What does the guy value more than money? Control. My dad can’t make move without Mr. King’s say-so. He’s in his pocket. For good. Which is fine, as long as you stay on Mr. King’s good side.”

“And if you don’t?”

Donovan lapses into a long, dark pause. “I don’t even want to think about the ways he could make me and my dad’s lives a living hell.”

And this coming from Donovan, the guy who is bullied on a regular basis.

A knot twists in my stomach and won’t come undone.

He glances back at me. Those chestnut browns meeting my gaze. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” I purse my lips together and turn my head away from Donovan, staring off into the wide ocean below. A seagull swoops across the distance, and I feel instant envy.

Applications will be the death of me. I have a fire lit under my ass now, though. At least applying to internships keeps my mind off of my little (big) problem.

“Kenzi!” Pearl calls from downstairs. “The phone for you!”

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