Page 132 of Heartless Beloved

I can’t control the yawn that makes its way up my mouth. We’ve been hanging out in the parking lot in front of a convenience store for forty-five minutes. We hand out flyers inviting people to join boxing classes at Dickie’s gym. The leaflets sayGet off the streets, it’s free!In bold letters and I cringe every time I see it. How to not address young people 101.

Cassie, the girl with me, huffs as she shifts from one foot to the other. “I really need the bathroom,” she repeats for the fifth time.

I smile kindly at her. “There’s a diner across the road. Just go and ask if you can use their bathroom.”

“We’re not meant to leave each other alone.”

“It’ll only be two minutes,” I reassure her. I can’t believe I’m the one reassuring someone on the North Shore. “I’m not worried about being left alone.”

She nods and bites her lip as she thinks. “Okay. I’ll be super quick.” She hands me her flyers and runs to the crosswalk.

I sit on the metal bench outside the convenience store and force myself to appear relaxed. It’s all fine. She’ll be right back.

A dark matte green truck parks in the spot in front of me, and two men walk out. They’re tall; one of them has wavy, ear-length blond hair that he flips as he gets out of the passenger seat while laughing. He walks around to join the other one. With black hair and a severe look on his face, he couldn’t be more of a contrast from the first one if he tried.

They eye me as they walk past me, looking at me like we know each other but not sure where from. I’m confident that I don’t know them.

They walk in and I let out a breath, my heart beating hard against my chest. I look across the road, but Cassie hasn’t returned from the diner yet. I didn’t even look if she got in. She’s nowhere to be seen so she must have.

A few minutes later, the two guys from the matte green truck come back out. They walk my way again, and I discreetly put a hand on the flyers, covering them so they don’t get curious. I pray they don’t talk to me because I have a strange feeling about them.

No such luck.

The blond one stops right in front of me, hiding the sun still shining, and covering me in his shadow. “What’s that you’re handing out?” he says with a bright smile. His blue eyes shine with excitement.

“Oh, um,” I grab a flyer and hand it to him. He eyes it and snorts as he passes it to his friend. As he does so, I catch a tattoo on his forearm. A crown.

My heart drops to my stomach. That’s the tattoo of the Kings’ crew. This guy is part of a gang and I have no doubt the other one is too.

The serious one looks down at the flyer and the corner of his lips barely lifts. I guess that’s his amused face.

“How kind of you, rich people, to get us off the streets,” he says sardonically.

I shrink on the bench, not knowing what to say. I want to join Cassie at the diner, except they crowd me so compactly that I can’t even get up from where I’m sitting.

“I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere,” the blond one jumps back in.

“I-I don’t think so.”

He snaps his fingers and points at me. “Xi. You’re Xi’s girl.” He eyes my t-shirt.

Shaking my head, I say, “That’s just the name of my sorority.”

He laughs. “But I’ve seen you around town with him. The other day in his car in the middle of the road. You were having a pretty good time, if I remember right.”

My cheeks flush as my eyes widen. I’m at a complete loss for words. Many cars overtook us while we brazenly had sex in the middle of the road. They must have been one of them.

“You guys looked close,” he chuckles. “Are you going to his fight tonight?”

Time stills for a few seconds before I can repeat, “His fight?”

“Yeah, at the warehouse. You should come.”

A fight at the warehouse.

What is that? He never told me about this. He said he had work.

Just like he never told me if he has a tattoo of NSC on his left shoulder or not.

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