Page 30 of Sweetheart: Part One

There was no way I couldn’t.

I cycled back to what had happened when I’d first met her, then to the way she’d shrank against Drake on the couch.

I could lie, put on a mask, tell her I was sorry. Then she’d touch me like in that dream.

But what if she didn’t?

The voice was unsettling and foreign. I didn’t worry often. Things simply were, they weren’t, or they were unknown. I didn’t linger on the in-between.

But this murky in-between wouldn’t let me go, mattering in ways it had no right to. There was the predictable behaviour of every Sweetheart before her, who would trip over themselves to have a moment like in that dream. And then there was Vex.

Vex may never want to touch me like that…

Thrill stirred.

Something real.

Something I spent my whole life chasing.

That, if nothing else, was what drew me up, rage simmering beneath the surface at theideathat she could give me that with such ease. In a life in which boredom shredded my mind like a never ending stream of fire ants, thrill was the most precious thing in the world.

She had to fucking go.

I couldn’t use her for that thrill. I had yet to even figure out how she was fucking me up like this. It came with too much ease, and that was a level of power I’d never give to another.

I grabbed my phone from my side table, zooming in on one of the pictures I’d downloaded from her socials. Vex’s hands covered her face, like she was shy, and her hair tumbled loose over her shoulders. In the background were the craggy reddish rocks of the Grand Canyon. She travelled, I’d gathered that from the photos I could see, which meant she had a bold streak.

Was that why she hadn't left? Was I just another challenge to her?

There was an obvious answer: we were rich and famous and becoming our Sweetheart was a dream of many. Yet, that answer wasn’t good enough.

Not for Vex. Her social media was sparse, with very few pictures of herself. I’d read through her file to find nothing special. She came from a well-off family on the Westside. Only child. She’d entered to be a Sweetheart hopeful for a chance at hitting it big. It was typical—far too typical for the person I’d met, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.

I shut the phone and tucked it into my pocket.

FuckRook for offering her a signature. He wouldn’t actually go through with it. There was no way. He was just trying to get under my skin.

But now she was getting to Drake.

I got to my feet. Not a chance would I let that happen. I’d fix it tonight.

The hallways were bright, even when the dark cloak of night covered the grounds outside as I strolled down to the Sweethearts’ room. I didn’t come here often, my Sweethearts always came to me. At the gym, in the living room, and they tried—always—to meet me in my room. I never let them.

Only I was allowed in my room. No cleaners, no pack. No one else came in. Not ever.

When I reached her room, I turned the doorknob slowly.

The light was on in the ensuite bathroom, and she’d left the door open.

Afraid of the dark, perhaps?

That would be too easy, if not irksome, since Ishouldbe more frightening to her than a lightless fucking room.

Great.

Now I was making a challenge of literal darkness.

My head was not on straight today—and that didn’t happen.

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