Page 100 of Rebel Romeo

“Um, Jill… are you okay?” Katherine asked, holding their door open for her. Jill groaned and walked inside like a zombie.

“I feel worse than I look,” she mumbled.

“Well that’s saying something.”

Then, pausing, she slowly turned and looked over her shoulder at me, her gaze drifting to where Katherine and I were holding hands. She blinked, a little bit of the fog hazing her face clearing. “Wait a minute… are you two… I mean, did you spend the night here?” she asked me.

The way Katherine beamed at her friend did flippy things to my stomach that I wasn’t really sure how to process. I nodded at Jill who immediately grinned and launched herself at us, hugging both Katherine and me. “Oh thank God! I thought I was going to have to watch your broody weirdness for months!”

“Broody weirdness?” I scowl.

“Yeah, like that!” she pointed at my face and I playfully tapped her finger away from my face.

“Stop that. I’m not broody or weird.”

Katherine squeezed my hand. “Aw, c’mon. You’re a little broody.” I shifted to direct my scowl at her, but she merely peered up at me with those innocent eyes. Eyes that were becoming less and less innocent with every moment she spent with me. “It’s a sexy broody, though,” she added.

“Well I guess that makes it better.” I bent and brushed my lips across hers, shivering with the contact.

Beside us, Jill made a gagging noise. “Ugh, I take it back. This might be worse than broody weirdness.” She crossed the room to her bed and face planted on it.

“Want me to bring you back anything after work?” Katherine asked.

“Anything with carbs. And chocolate.”

“Noted.”

Hand in hand, Katherine and I walked to rehearsal. “You have to work after rehearsal this morning?”

She sighed. “Yeah. You know, now that my sugar daddy is no longer allowed to pay me to do things… I sort of need the money.”

I bent down to whisper in her ear. “Your sugar daddy would still be happy to pay you.” I finished the thought with a nip to her earlobe.

“No,” she snapped, but I didn’t miss the way goosebumps covered her arms. “I’m pretty sure that’s very illegal now that we’re, um, you know.”

“Why?” I asked. “People buy gifts for their loved ones all the time. Why should it matter how we exchange?—”

“Holden, I said no.”

Her voice shifted. Harder. She meant business.

And I got it. We were already dancing along a dangerous line that was, well, not illegal exactly. At least, I didn’t think it was. But now if I were to continue paying her? That felt definitely illegal. Or at the very least, breaking some sort of ethics code the school might have for scholarship holders and athletes.

I pressed my lips together and didn’t say another word about it. It was yet another fucking reason why I tried so hard to stay away from her.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose.

No.

I’m done thinking like that.

I deserve to be happy.

Katherine deserves to be happy.

And we can be happy together. As long as I keep her far the fuck away from my parents.

“Have you given any more thought about what you’re going to do?” Katherine asked. “About the show and your football schedule?”

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