Page 12 of Dirty Love

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“Hey.”

I frown and lift my head from my math notebook, finding the new guy standing in front of me in the middle of the busy cafeteria. He’s got his ghostly white hands shoved into his pockets, his white hair seeming even brighter up close. I’ve tried not to look directly at him since Kade caught me checking him out this morning, but we share a couple classes together and I know I’ve felt his eyes on me more than once.

“Hey,” I say back, struggling to maintain eye contact.

“Can I sit here?” he asks, gesturing to the empty bench seat across from me.

“Um… yeah, I guess.”

He smiles freely and drops his ass down, leaning in a little too close for comfort with his forearms resting on the table. “I’m Jasper.”

“Nicky.”

“Yeah, I know,” he chuckles, tipping his chin at something behind me. “That Kade guy everyone’s afraid of. You’re his… friend?”

My brows dip at his strange question and I look over my shoulder, grinding my teeth together when I find him talking to Arianna in the middle of the lunch line, his eyes narrowed, her bony little hand wrapped around his arm like she owns him.

“I’m his brother.”

“You’re his brother?” Jasper echoes, scrunching his nose as if the fact confuses him, but then he cocks his head in thought. “Wait, aren’t you both seniors? Are you twins or something?”

“Stepbrothers,” I mutter, forcing myself to tear my eyes away from Kade and his ex-girlfriend. “He’s three months older than me.”

“Oh,” he says, nodding to himself with yet another chuckle. “Right, okay. That makes more sense.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs and opens his mouth to answer, but then he looks up at something over my head and leans all the way away from me, almost like it’s a natural instinct, his expression quickly changing from light to wary. Kade sits down beside me and hands me a sandwich and a bottle of water, his dark eyes never leaving the guy sitting opposite us. Beneath the table, he locks his ankle around mine and I’m quick to obey, silently sliding closer to him without hesitation. Jasper’s pale blue eyes bounce between us and I drop mine to my lunch, anxiously picking at the corner of my sandwich.

What the hell is he staring at?

“Was that your girlfriend?” he asks Kade, raising a cocky ass brow like a brave fucker.

Instead of answering him, Kade tilts his head and uncaps his water, his impatience clear.

“Okay, then,” Jasper mouths, lightly tapping the table with his fist as he moves to stand. “Good talk, man.”

I roll my lips together and he winks at me again, seemingly unbothered by the glare on his back as he walks toward the door on the other side of the room.

“Maybe they just wink a lot where he’s fro—”

“Shut up, Nicky.”

“Okay.”

CHAPTER 6

KADE

Friday night, we drive out to the woods and park beside the long row of cars lined up next to the gate, ignoring the rusted chains and the signs warning us not to trespass. We could get into a lot of trouble for this, especially considering what we’re doing out here almost every weekend, but we’ve been coming for years now and no one’s been caught yet.

Once I’ve helped Nicky climb over the six foot fence, we take the old path towards the abandoned church about a half a mile away, following the sound of the music blaring in the distance. Just behind the rotting building, there’s a small clearing between the trees, filled with high school kids and college students walking around with solo cups filled with cheap beer. The spot we use is just a sunken pit of land, surrounded by a few logs people sit on to drink, get high and watch the bloodshed.

The guy who runs these things was a little spooked to have me at first considering I’m the son of a well known cop, but it didn’t take long for me to earn my place here and prove I’m no snitch.

Mark and the boys catch up to us and I look around, finding Skully talking to a group of guys by the campfire, probably closing the last of his bets before it’s my turn to fight. He’s a scrawny little shit with dark curly hair cut down to his shoulders, and even though he knows he’s too old to keep partying with a bunch of high school kids, he needs the cash to make rent and put himself through college, same way I need the cash to get me and Nicky someplace far away from here.

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