Page 1 of The Jester and His Outlaw: Part One

CHAPTER1

“Hey, slut,”Foxy says, leaping into my Wrangler. Foxy is my feisty, cut-throat, bombshell of a best friend, or should I say my sister? Because her fiery red locks and deep emerald eyes that are way too big for her face are nearly identical to my mother’s.

Mine, are not.

To be fair, I’m adopted, but there have been many times when we were all out and Foxy was mistaken for their daughter.

We’ve practically been together since birth. Our mothers are best friends—were—until her mom moved a few towns over when she finally left her father after catching him screwing their long time nanny. Now, I guess my mother no longer has time for Ms. Tatum. Convenience really is everything to the rich.

The families in our community are elite members, the richest of the rich.

Word travels dangerously fast and can destroy one’s mental health in a flash.

“Hey, bitch, suck any cocks over your last weekend with Mama T?” She turns to me with a sly smile. It wasn’t her natural red hair that earned her the nickname. It was the grin she is giving me right now that said she was up to absolutely no fucking good over the weekend that deemed her the fox. “No! You didn’t!”

Her grin spreads, exposing her stunning white teeth, perfectly straight, because the Tatums would have absolutely nothing less. The poor girl wears enough retainers to bring radio signals into her room at night. Or at least she is supposed to. Knowing Foxy, they probably sleep next to her and by the time we are thirty, she’ll be getting braces again.

“Who?” I ask as I shift into drive and ease out of the circular driveway, careful to avoid the Bentleys and Rolls that her father has collected.

“Ladies don’t kiss and tell.”

I scoff. “Please, you lost your lady card a long time ago. Spill.” She adjusts her position, kicking off the loafers they force us to wear and crossing her legs in front of her. She is so tiny that she makes the seat seem big. Her uniform, however, is itsy-bitsy and bordering on whorish. The v-cut neckline of our purple and gray polo is a little low on her and while she has quite the rack, I’m fairly certain she has had some polos custom made. They may be v-cut but they don’t show cleavage. That’s the whole point of the uniform—keeping us casual and modest.

Foxy is far from modest.

“Do you remember Ryder?”

“The blonde-haired hunk? The delinquent from the other side of the tracks?” My eyes go wide as I say that, the air from having the top down drying them out. Her Head whips my way, a glare as hot as the morning’s sun pinning me in place.

“Bitch, my mother lives on the other side of the tracks…” She raises a pointed brow as if I’m judging where Mama T lives now.

The Tatums were the ideal couple, together forever, and one of the few rich couples still happy. My parents are happy—I think—but they don’t share the love that oozed off the Tatums. Those two were attached at the hip, never to let go, and they always did everything as a family. Now, their family no longer exists and Foxy has to go stay with her mother every other weekend and for two weeks in the summer because Mama T caught Mr. Tatum screwing their nanny.

We are no longer minors, and she would rather live with her mother, but Mama T is determined to make her own money. So she works her ass off and doesn’t have a lot of time to spend with Foxy. Plus, living here in the manor, Foxy is closer to the university. She also has the staff to be with her. Staff that Mama T doesn’t have.

The Tatum Manor is a gigantic ass house, the biggest in the neighborhood, perched up on top of the hill to peer down at all the rest of us. We all have money, well, our parents do, but the Tatums havemoney. Like, they wipe their asses with hundred-dollar bills and even that paper isn’t rich enough. Now that Foxy knows of her father’s indiscretions, she hates the man and is all but counting down the days until she can kill him. Or so it seems. That’s probably super dramatic, but if looks could kill… I mean… We all know how that phrase ends.

“Shut up, you know what I mean. The bad boy.”

“That’s better. And yes, he is so bad.” Her brows lurch up over her forehead, then shoot back down again.

“You dirty slut,” I purr, shaking my head. Foxy could be the female equivalent of a player. She doesn’t hide the fact either. There aren’t many guys at the school, granted, it is a private academy, that she hasn’t at the very least made out with.

“So,” she flips her thick hair over her shoulder at the stoplight and turns her green gaze on me.

“So?” I’m aware of what she’s getting ready to ask. What the hell am I going to do about Jonas? We’ve concocted many plans over the summer, and my luck of hiding behind the gates of my family’s estate has run out. I have to face him now that school’s back in. There will be no more ignoring him, though I will continue to screen his calls. I refuse to acknowledge that he exists.

Jonas is—was—my first love, the one who stole my first kiss and my virginity.

Last year we were the ‘it’ couple until I found out that he slept with some counselor from his football camp. Or she was a counselor at one camp that lived where the football players did. Don’t know, don’t care. Regardless, she could’ve gone down for statutory rape and he stuck his dick in someone that wasn’t me. That shit didn’t fly with me.

I took a page straight out of Mama T’s playbook and kicked his ass to the proverbial curb. He’s been blowing my shit up ever since—claims that we can’t appear “not together”. How would that come off to society?

Like I actually care. Appearances aren’t my thing.

Out of everyone, even Foxy, I have the least ‘rich’ person attitude. Maybe it’s because I’m adopted. Maybe it’s the years of abuse I took before I came home to my parents.

Whatever the reason, I would never date someone based on social status, like an arranged marriage or something—marry rich to stay rich. I want genuine love or none at all.

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