Page 87 of Cruel Prep (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 1)

It sounded like a man who was getting ready to do something very, very drastic.

33

Finn

In the end, Lily’s absence from the game is completely innocent.

Sorry!she texts.Mom wanted to do a girls’ night. We watched a trashy movie and did face masks.

It sounds too cutesy to be real, until she sends me a selfie of her face covered in green slime.

I should be pissed off. Thoughts of her fucked up my game in front of the whole town.

But I find myself smiling instead. The picture is cute, honestly. Endearing in a way I didn’t know I cared about.

I don’t show any of that to her, of course. I just text back,I’m coming to get you. Be ready in five.

“Gotta go, boys,” I say to the rest of the crew. They’re all slumped around the truck bed, gazing up at the night sky.

“Where you off to?” J.C. inquires.

“To fuck your mother,” I retort.

He flips me the bird as I hop down and head off to my own vehicle.

A couple minutes later, I’m in the motel parking lot, waiting. Lily slips out of her room, closes the door slowly behind her, and then tiptoes across the gravel parking lot to my car.

She has on a pair of thin cotton pajama shorts and a T-shirt with paint splattered all over it. When she climbs into the car, her vanilla scent fills the space. Her hair is damp from a recent shower.

I survey her and grin. “Your mom didn’t say anything about you walking out like that?”

Lily smiles back and shrugs. “She drank a lot of wine and was asleep for the entire second half of the movie we were watching. I didn’t want to wake her, so I left a note.”

She reaches back for her seat belt and turns to buckle it, but before she can, I lean across the console, grab her chin, and bring her lips to mine.

Kissing her is not something I’ve made a habit of. Mostly because it goes to my head in a rush, muddying the rest of my thoughts. I can’t think straight when her soft lips are sucking on mine, when I can feel the warmth of her breath on my face and taste her. It’s a sensory overload that makes it hard to be calculated.

But right now, I don’t want to be calculated.

Right now, I have no plan whatsoever.

Lily’s hand cups my cheek, her fingers curling around the back of my ear, pulling me close. When we part, her hand stays there for a minute, stroking my hair.

“What was that for?” she asks, blinking.

“Because I wanted to.”

I immediately shift the car into drive and focus on the road. Driving is something that will keep me from touching her. As long as I’m driving, I’m not giving in to the weakling inside of me that spent the whole night searching the stands for one sight of her smile.

“Where are we going? It’s late, and I’m in pajamas.”

I don’t know the answer to her question until I see a sign pointing out the direction of the park.

“You’ll see.”

When we pull up to the park, Lily frowns. “I don’t have my running shoes on. Or a sports bra. Or a bra, period. I’m not getting out of the car.”

She never mentioned her jog in the park the other night. I’ve been waiting for her to bring it up, to mention something weird or creepy happened, but she hasn’t said a word.

---