Page 2 of Snitches and Serpents

“Oh.”

“I would like to remind you that no boys are allowed in our house or garden.”

“Yes, no, of course.” A gust of wind whirls down the street, pulling at my hair. I quickly smooth it down and adjust my ponytail again so that it’s once more perfect. Not a hair out of place. “I know that.”

“And even if we didn’t have that rule, I would still advise you to always steer clear of those guys.”

“Why?”

Her gaze sharpens. “Partaking in drugs is not only against the rules of our sorority, it is also grounds for expulsion from Bercester U. Not to mention that it’s illegal too.”

Panic shoots through me, and I raise my hands while shaking my head. “Oh, no. That’s not what I meant.” I look frantically between Brandi and the group of guys. “I didn’t mean that I was going to approach them to buy drugs. I was just asking if it’s because they’re violent or if…”

I trail off as one of the guys who had been leaning back with his eyes closed suddenly sits up in his chair. It’s one of the guys who look like MMA fighters.

My eyes widen as his face at last becomes visible when he sits up straight.

Utter shock clangs through my skull.

“Tristan Kane,” I breathe, completely stunned.

I said it more to myself than anyone else, but Brandi answers anyway.

“Yes.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Do you know him?”

“I, uhm…” I begin, still staring at Tristan while my mind spins as it tries to process what I’m actually seeing. “We went to the same high school.”

Tristan was a senior when I was a sophomore, so he graduated two years ago. But he didn’t look like that back then.

Back when we were in high school, Tristan Kane was a quiet and practically invisible nerd. Despite having an objectively handsome face, he was never one of the popular kids. Partly because he was into math and science rather than sports. And partly because he was poor. His shoes were always worn out and he circled through the same four shirts every week.

Even though I have now been staring at him for a good twenty seconds, I still cannot reconcile the image of him from high school with the man sitting in the chair across the lawn now.

His black hair has been swept back from his face as if he has just dragged his hand through it, and sunlight glints in his green eyes, making them look as hard and unyielding as cut gemstones. And while his face is still handsome, it has lost all traces of that gangly teenage look. Only sharp lines remain.

My gaze drops down to his bare chest.

He’s only wearing a pair of jeans, leaving his firm chest and defined abs on full display. The muscles in his arms flex when he fixes the back of the chair so that it remains in an upright position.

While his face betrays that it’s still him, his body is something else entirely. Not only is it now made up completely of lethal muscles, it’s also covered in tattoos.

Full sleeves of tattoos cover both his arms, ending right before his wrists. His chest is equally inked, leaving only the space around his neck empty. If he put on a dress shirt, no one would be able to tell that he had any tattoos. But without a shirt, the masterpiece on his skin is clearly visible.

“The same high school?” Brandi says, yanking me out of my spinning thoughts. “Were you friends?”

“No,” I reply distractedly. Then I shake my head to clear it and turn to face her fully while I start walking again. “No, we weren’t friends.”

Brandi falls into step beside me as we continue down the sidewalk and towards our house. I can feel her casting suspicious glances at me from the corner of her eye.

But I was telling the truth. Tristan and I were not friends.

I was the daughter of the mayor, and he was the quiet unassuming nerd that most people didn’t even know existed.

Or at least they didn’t know he existed until that day when I said something that ended up getting him sentenced to a few weeks of community service. Then he was the talk of the town for a little while. The gossip died down pretty soon after that, and no one treated him any differently, so it wasn’t as if it was anything major.

But still…

A flicker of worry ripples through me as I cast a glance at him over my shoulder.

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