Page 89 of Kade

He spoke slowly as he was still processing all that I said, “Shit, Mason. When you unload, you really unload.”

“We can have that beer, but I’m figuring you got things to do now?”

“It seems I do. I’ll reach out later.”

The kid wasn’t going to stop hacking.

He’d face the consequences.

34

MADDY

Iwas leaving school when I heard the loud bass blaring from Beltraine’s car in the lot. As was typical, a group of people had congregated around his vehicle—or now vehicles because he and Axel and Steele all parked together. They were in the back of the lot, and no one else parked there or ventured over unless they were invited.

“Hey, Maddy.” A girl approached me, sounding out of breath as she adjusted her backpack, smiling widely.

She was a little shorter than me, curvy with fitted high-waisted jeans. They were the trendy kind that faded at the hem and were ripped over the knees. She had glossy black hair, in tight curls. Dark eyes. Eyelashes even I could admire, so either she knew what she was doing with makeup or they were fake. She wore white sneakers and a white V-neck tee that showed off her black bra underneath, and she’d layered a black and white flannel over the top.

I knew her. We had a couple classes together. She’d been trying to befriend me. Her efforts hadn’t been very fruitful.

“Lucia.”

She preened. “You can just call me Luce. That’s cool. I mean, we’re already on nicknames.”

“Everyone calls me Maddy.”

She stopped laughing. “Oh. I assumed it was short for Madison.”

“It’s not.” I moved forward, a bout of impatience swirling through me.

I used to have friends. In Boston. In San Diego. I didn’t know what was wrong with me now. I used to want to have friends. They were fun to laugh with, gossip with, do girl things like sleepovers or manicures. I’d gotten my ears pierced with my best friend from Boston. I frowned, thinking of her now, as we hadn’t done very well keeping in touch when I moved to San Diego. Eventually, my Boston friends stopped making an effort.

I hadn’t even tried keeping up with my San Diego friends.

I suppose a part of me assumed they’d be the same as my Boston friends. Why make an effort when they’d stop talking to me too? Since coming to Fallen Crest, I’d focused on Max, but he chose not to go to this school. He went to Public.

Stevie Broudou swept past us, her head down, hugging her bag to her chest. I watched to see which vehicle she’d get into.

Lucia stopped with me. “She’s new, too. Do you know her?”

“No.” But that wasn’t totally true. Stevie was connected to people who were connected to my parents. I knew my mom had a mission to befriend Stevie’s uncle and his wife. My mom had asked a few times what I thought of Stevie, and she’d brought up inviting her to the house. She wanted us to be friends. That was obvious.

I rolled my eyes. The person in charge of forming that friendship wasn’t me. Stevie seemed to be even more antisocial than I did. She talked to no one, hung out with no one.

“She only hangs out with the moody group,” Lucia said, whining.

I frowned at her. Guess I was wrong about Stevie. “Who?”

“You know.” She gestured to the car Stevie approached.

The door opened and a guy stepped out. Stevie ducked into the backseat. That must be the moody group—the guy was lean, tattooed, and pierced.

“Caleb Cieran and his friends.”

I heard the wistfulness in Lucia’s voice. Beltraine, Axel, and Steele were popular, but Caleb Cieran and his group were maybe just as much. Caleb was seriously hot. So was his best friend, Josh—I didn’t know his last name. There were a few others in the group too, and I’d heard they “weren’t privileged” like most other students here. I had no clue what that meant. They had less money than the rest? Or they didn’t make a big deal of how much money their families had?

“Who isthat?” Lucia drew in a sharp breath.

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