Page 23

“Here,” Stone says. A flash of silver shines in the air. I hold my hands out, and by some miracle, I catch a set of keys. I glance into my palm and see the truck keychain. “You owe me,” Stone says. “Not only did I have to pay that old mechanic for the truck, but I also paid him to fix the engine. I knew a guy who could find me one, and we had it overnighted to your pal Dickie’s shop.”
I want to jump up and down. My dad’s truck! I can’t believe I’m holding the keys again. I thought I had to say goodbye to it forever. Stone’s words keep me grounded though. He tries so much to control everything, and that’s not going to work for me. “Let’s get one thing straight, Stone. I don’t owe you anything. We’ll call it even. You’re not getting everything you wanted with the contract and I don’t want your money anyway, so let’s say our partnership costs you this truck. Oh, and my laptop. Deal?”
Stone narrows his gaze at me. I’m a good people reader, but I’ve never figured out Stone. I’ve always just thought it was because there were too many differences in our upbringing. I can’t even fathom what it would be like to be rich, and he can’t understand what it’s like to be me. I don’t even want to try to figure him out anymore. I’m not sure I need to go down that winding path.
“Deal,” he says. “Though that laptop’s a piece of shit. It broke when my father’s assistant tried searching through it.”
He holds my gaze as I grind my teeth together. “I have a paper on that laptop that’s due next week.”
“Not anymore you don’t. It’s in the trash.”
Asshole. I open my mouth to tell him where he can shove my trashed laptop, but Wyatt interrupts me. “Lucas, go back with Dakota. Sober up and be on the lookout.”
“Sure thing,” Lucas says, voice bored again, like the effects of the alcohol are wearing off. He’s so different from the guy who danced with me out there in the middle of the party.
I don’t argue with Wyatt because apparently Lucas has had enough to drink, and he doesn’t need to stay and drink anymore.
Stone points at the keys in my hand. “She’s parked a few down from Wyatt’s.” He nods toward Lucas who’s already heading that way. Lowering his voice, he says, “Make sure he’s okay.”
“I didn’t know pairing up with you guys made me a babysitter.”
He gets that fierce look on his face again. “Oh, it makes you so much more than that, Wilder. You can deny it all you want, but you’re ours however we see fit.”
Wyatt snickers. “Oh, I bet she loved that conversation.”
“I’m pretty sure it made her all hot and bothered, actually.”
“Think again,” I call back, waving over my shoulder at them as I follow Lucas up the trail.
Wyatt’s dark laugh carries with me as I head toward the parking lot. Just as Stone promised, my dad’s truck is here, so close to Wyatt’s that I’m not sure how I missed it when we were solidifying our partnership in the back of Wyatt’s truck. When I get in and it turns over, I place my head on the steering wheel and smile. It’s such a dumb thing to equate a possession with a person, but I can’t help it. This truck is my dad personified, and I’m thrilled to have it back in my life again.
I’d be more appreciative, but all Stone had to do was throw his money around to get me this, and it probably wasn’t even a drop in the bucket for him. I don’t care what my body says around him or the others, the line of men in my life who’ve warned me off the Jacobs can’t be wrong.
The Jacobs—and any of their friends—can’t be trusted.
12
Lucas sprawls out in the passenger seat of the truck like he owns it, hands resting on his thighs. He’s quiet as we make our way back into Clary. Even though we don’t talk, I’m attuned to him. Every steady breath he takes makes my nerves ratchet higher. I can’t get over the things he said while we danced. The claim he made on me. It was easier to be mortal enemies with these guys from far away with a history between us a mile wide and stories told around a campfire buzzing in my ears. Now that they’re here, they seem dangerous but in a different way. Not like they want to take the treasure from my family, but like they want to take something from me instead.
“A picture lasts longer. You’re going to break your neck if you keep looking over at me, Wild Girl.”
I choke on my next breath. “Wild Girl?” I ask, my face flaming. “You clearly don’t know me.”
He smirks when I peek over at him again. “I think I do.” He lifts his hands to wrap around the seat back. The way he’s lying there so casually, yet domineering, plays with my emotions. He can find a comfortable spot almost anywhere. Maybe that’s why I get that stray cat feeling when I watch him. “I think there’s a caged tiger in there just begging to be set free.”
I bear down on my jaw, trying not to let his words get to me. They shouldn’t hit so close to home, but they do. Being an outcast has always kept me in the background. The only place I’ve ever felt alive was in the mountains, and even then, it was the Jacobs who got all the attention.
“You think so, too, or else you never would’ve worn that outfit.”
Jesus Christ. That’s the second time someone mentioned this outfit. I’ve had it for years. Literally years. The only reason why the shirt fits me like a crop top is because it was one of mine from almost a decade ago. That’s what happens when you’re poor. You don’t get new clothes on whims. You have to make do. “I have clothes like this, you know?”
“So, why do you dress like a farmer at school?”
“You’ve been in my school for two days. You can’t possibly know how I dress.”
He chuckles. “That’s where you’re wrong. When you’re me, it’s easy to spot who people really are. If you weren’t comfortable in the clothes you wore to school, I’d be able to tell. But what you’re not comfortable in are the clothes you wore to the party. You keep pulling the shirt down despite the fact that you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You should have zero self-esteem issues on that front. Unless you were lying and you actually do let Meghan get to you.”
I glare at him as we hit the city limits. “Sounds like you fancy yourself a therapist, Lucas. I got a question for you then. What’s up with you and Stone claiming me like some sort of possession?”