Page 61 of A Heart of Bluestone

But Oliver probably would.

I don’t think that is a wise take for her.

“I can take it by force,” he says, a challenge in his smile, a dangerous one, “or buy it for ten.”

“Ten?” she scoffs. “It’s word at least sixty.”

“Brand new,” he says with a shrug, “or vintage. But that is neither. The band is scratched, the face cracked at the rim. It’s worth forty at most.”

£40,000 is still a hefty amount—particularly to a gentry, like Mildred Green. So I am not surprised by her response:

“Then pay me forty.”

“Twenty, and I won’t break your leg on the slopes next weekend,” he says with a smile.

Her eyes narrow, brown like her hair, tugged back into a plain, mid-scalp ponytail.

The pink of her tongue runs over her bottom lip, and she thinks, hard.

She takes a moment. Weighing up the money, weighing up the risk of a broken-then-healed leg before her next game, calculating.

And I am on the edge of my seat.

I forgot all of this.

What it’s like to be with them, with the Snakes, as though I belong. Sure, when we were children, this wasn’t exactly how we spent our time, drinking and gambling, but the dynamics are so close that I almost feel like a hand reaches through time and snatches me back to Serena’s tea parties and Landon’s vineyard chases and lounging around the stunning grounds at the Sinclairs estate.

“Fine.” Mildred tugs the watch off her wrist. The clasp rattles, in dire need of repair, of love and care. And like it’s a mid-tier brand, she tosses it away.

Oliver swipes it, then hands it back to Landon.

He is quick to fasten it onto his wrist.

Oliver turns his severe stare on Dray. “Truth,” he states the word with a slow enunciation, “or dare.”

Dray’s mouth pulls into a small smirk. The brightness of his eyes glitter in the dim light. But that edge of ice still cuts from him, icicles in his aura, the darkened dimple slashing along his cheek.

Everyone falls into silence.

I watch, we all do, as Dray drapes his arms over the spine and side of the couch, then sinks into the corner—and dead-stares my brother.

A standoff.

Not the kind between two friends having a little fun. Not a playful challenge. No, this is the side to their friendship that has blood spilled on the sparring mats, that breaks noses, that tackles in the corridors.

They can be punching each other bloody one minute, then the next, they are sharing a drink and cigar on the roof.

They act more like brothers than friends.

I can’t claim to have ever understood them.

Dray lifts the glass in a salute. The sawdust hues of his hair flicker with the movement that dances firelight off the crystal glass.

His pink lips move around the word, move as they did against Melody Green’s mouth, soft and tender—

“Dare.”

Dare?

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