Page 177 of Falling in Reverse

She frowns. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “Positive. I’m going to go grab a burger. Stay back and watch.”

Pivoting for the street, all I need to do is walk twenty yards to the nearest grill and take whatever I want.

Yet, it’s Mr. Jennings’s and he tends to burn the shit out of his food because he’s a man and men don’t need to wear glasses when they cook because it distorts something or another.

I wasn’t listening when he told me earlier.

I hit up the next grill, happy to find juicy burgers just waiting to be eaten. I’m quickly assisted by Mark Vavasor, the seventeen-year-old kid I caught looking in my window last year like a peeping Tom, and I’m instantly irritated.

“How’s it going, Bay?”

“I dunno, Mark, you tell me.” He smiles at me from over his shoulder as if him watching me dress and tearing out of my front to beat his ass with only shorts and a bra on was a fun time.

“Nothing much,” he claims. “Just school and stuff, ya know?”

“Practicing track?”

His blond brows clash in confusion. “Huh? I play baseball.”

“You should practice track,” I repeat. “You know, for when I slammed your head against the lamp pole when I caught you that night.”

Mark’s expression clearly shows he remembers when he averts his gaze and quickly grabs a bun. “Not sure what you?—”

“Give a cool story out for that one to your friends? I mean, I guess you couldn’t have because I was pretty much yelling like a banshee for you to get your ass over here so I could kill you.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t call the cops for child abuse,” he mutters under his breath as if I haven’t learned that trick from Ellie already or from doing it myself.

“There’ll be plenty of child abuse if I ever see you lookin’ through any of my windows, day or night, you little shit.”

“Fuck you,” he mutters underneath his hat. “You don’t scare me.”

“No, but I’ll make you piss your pants because, if I was dating her, I would’ve killed you.” The waistband of my jeans is given a small yank from behind, and I’m spun around to find a very casually, semi-hidden Reeve standing behind me.

However, his hazels aren’t on me, but Mark, who’s doing…fuck knows.

Nothing is said for what seems to be a very long minute before Reeve extends his arm for me to willingly step into.

However, my next thought barrels into me like a freight train and causes my paranoia to ramp up a notch.

What the fuck is he doing in South Shore?

To keep the peace and yelling down, I do as he silently asks. His arm wraps around my waist as I walk with him in a daze because…wait, is he stupid?

“What are you doing here?” My question goes unanswered as Reeve walks us down the rest of the street with my neighbors out and about and having a really good time.

Meanwhile and, thankfully, they aren’t paying much attention to my company.

Not that I should care because it’s his ass, not mine.

He’s wearing a hat over his face that’s tipped low and the only reason why I could see his eyes is because I’m much shorter than him.

“Reeve.” I feel the slight indentation of his grip on my hip but keeps moving. “Reevie.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, gets him to glimpse down at me for the first time, yet he doesn’t stop moving.

“Did that kid watch you undress in your window?” he asks me, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. His jaw is tight, appearing as though it’s about to crack at any second. “Is that what I just fucking heard?”

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