Page 68 of Devious Gambit

“Thank you,” she whispered, nestling down into the blankets with only the top of her brown head showing.

“For what?”

“Everything.”

TWENTY SIX

Jace

Another game won.

And another party to celebrate once we got back to the Vault. We were beginning to believe that Greene and Sweeney were jinxes that made us lose, because with them gone we were back on a winning streak. The math added up.

The boys were sitting on the couches in the large living room, downing beers as if our lives depended on it while lines of coke and pills rested on the coffee table. The music was pumping, chicks were everywhere and I wasn’t in the mood for any of it.

“Do we have a murderer in the midst?” Ridge joked, wiping his nose after taking a line. “Where were you last night, Luxon?”

“Fucking the virgin,” Cody answered for me.

“You know it’s physiologically impossible to fuck a virgin,” Ridge argued. “If she’s already been fucked, then she ain’t a virgin.”

Cody flipped him the bird as a chick in black hot pants caught his eye. “Is she still seeing her daddy on Thursday?”

“Friday.”

“Let’s hope she comes through with the goods.”

“Yeah, I’m just looking forward to the pina coladas you’re gonna buy me in Maui, dude. In fact you should be buying me a whole fucking barrel of the shit with cherries in top.”

“How about I get ya a nice hula girl hooker as well?”

“Get me two girls and let’s call it a deal.”

Cody cocked his eyebrow at the hot pants girl who immediately gravitated towards him as if he’d just waved a wand. “What’s your name?”

“Carly,” she giggled.

“Do you know how to suck cock?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Get down then,” he demanded as he unzipped his jeans. “Hurry up.”

The chick knelt before him like an obeying slave and did the job. Before long, every one of the boys had a chick either fucking or kissing or whatever, except me.

I spotted Stacey McMillan in the crowd and was close to dragging her upstairs, until I came to my senses. I grabbed my car keys, left the Vault, and found myself on the doorstep of the bookhugger.

The security light was on outside when I tapped on her door, listening out for her footsteps. Nothing but an empty shell. I sat down on the damp step and waited for her to arrive, wondering where she would be 11.19pm on a Saturday night. I knew she wasn’t at work and unlikely to be in the library, perhaps she was with Fontaine and her cousin.

After waiting ten minutes in the cold, I climbed back inside my car and waited for her in there. I was about to send her a message when a car pulled up and she climbed out. The driver of the car hopped out as well and I immediately recognized him as that math geek with the glasses from Detroit. He’s her cousin’s best friend, named Brendon or something, and a damn fine kick boxer like Fisher. I heard he made a meal out of Greene a few weeks back. Good job.

I slipped my phone under my sweater, so they couldn’t detect the light, slid down in my seat, and peered at them under the yellow glow of the security light.

Jealousy stirred in my belly as they stood together on the path, chatting. They were a perfect match made in nerd heaven. I ought to leave them to it so they could go upstairs to have nerd foreplay that likely involved robot porn and watching reruns if the Big bang Theory.

I thumped the steering wheel with my hand, feeling angry. The jealousy was fucking doing my head in.

“Why the fuck am I jealous?” I asked the darkness. “Am I sick? Am I coming down the flu and misinterpreting it as jealousy. It kind of feels the same.”

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