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“No, I’m serious,” he says. He pushes his tray aside and slides over to my small bench. He straddles it, and it’s impossible not to see the pitch in his shorts. My body reacts to his in turn. Suddenly, I’m all too aware of him. Shallow breaths make my breathing falter. He reaches his hand up to cup my cheek. “Jesus, Dakota. You’re—”
“Am I interrupting anything?” Wyatt drops his tray to the table, and it clatters.
I jump, breaking the connection between Lucas and me. “Yes,” Lucas says, eyeing his friend like he’d love to stab him with the cafeteria-issued butter knife.
“Oh.” Wyatt shrugs with a huge grin. “Well, I actually don’t care. I was just trying to be nice.”
He plops his ass on the seat across from us. Sighing, Lucas pulls his tray over, and we all bite into our food like it’s the only thing we want to be doing right now. For me, it’s only a distraction about what’s just happened in the past ten minutes.
It isn’t until I’ve polished off both slices of pizza that I understand the buzzing coursing through me is just the high of finally sticking up for myself. I’m living every dorky girl’s dream right now. The bitches actually got what was coming to them.
I smile as I sip my Lucille-bought chocolate milk. Can I get an amen for dorks everywhere?
18
The last class of the day, I share with Lucas. I get to the room first, but when he comes in, he sits next to me, pulling his desk close to mine, ignoring when the teacher tells him to move it back into his row. Miraculously, the professor doesn’t push it. She rolls her eyes like she has more important things to do than tell a twenty-something year old where to put his desk. Which, let’s face it, she probably does.
However, despite her airs, she plays a video during class. It’s a mythology class, so I guess that makes sense. Five minutes into it, though, it’s apparent that Lucas is either bored or has no apparent interest in a three-headed beast.
Slyly, he moves his desk even closer to mine. “Don’t ignore me, Dakota,” he whispers.
I glance over at him as if I’m bored when I’m far from it. Ever since he cupped my face earlier, staring into me with those deep brown eyes, I haven’t been able to get him out of my head. Actually, I haven’t been able to get Stone out of my head either. The two of them have taken up space in my brain and won’t leave.
I tell myself it’s an easy fix. I’m just fucking horny, so a little alone time with myself with the blinds drawn in my room tonight is definitely in order. In high school, I started to have feelings that just wouldn’t go away. I refused to relieve them, but then one day in the computer lab, I looked up a scientific article about self-stimulation. It turns out it’s perfectly normal and healthy to masturbate, and I’ve been doing it ever since. That particular research incident, however, did earn me an embarrassing conversation with the librarian who told me that there was school-appropriate research and there was home-appropriate research. Yeah, like we had the internet. No way. If Dad needed to look something up, he went to the public library, and even then, he’d tell me it was the slowest connection he’d ever had the displeasure to wait for. I never minded when he went, though, because he would bring me home books. So. Many. Books.
“You’re doing it again,” Lucas teases.
I point toward the screen. “I’m watching this.”
“No one’s watching this,” he scoffs.
I take a quick look around. Literally no one was actually watching it. A few students were blatantly on their phones while others were doing assignments from other courses.
Jesus hell.
He leans closer to me, and I swear I can smell mint on his breath. “We thought we might talk treasure tonight.” He watches for my reaction, waiting.
Talking treasure with them is something I’ve been putting off, but I also know it needs to happen. It’s not just about the treasure for me though. It’s about finding my dad, too, and we won’t be able to do that unless we go up into the mountains.
The note said, “Find the treasure and find your dad.” If these people aren’t fucking with me, then that’s exactly what I need to do. It’s Stone who’s holding me back. I still have a mental barrier the size of the Titanic when it comes to him, and it certainly doesn’t help when he’s a gigantic asshole.
“I promise Stone will be on his best behavior.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I tell him with a sigh. “Because he wants to know everything I know, and if he thinks I’m going to give it to him, he’ll be a stand-up guy for point seven seconds.”
“Meh. Maybe point five.”
I smirk at Lucas. “How’d you get mixed up with him anyway? All of you,” I tack on. I’ve always wondered how their friendship started. First, it was just Lance and Stone all over the news. Then, we started to see Lucas next, followed shortly after by Wyatt. I never dared pose the question to my father. If I seemed at all interested in the Jacobs, I would’ve had to endure an hours long lecture about how evil they were.
Lucas’s brown eyes darken over like storm clouds rolling across the desert. He runs his hands through his unkempt hair that manages to look sexy as hell. If only my curls could pull off that look, I’d be one happy girl.
“That kind of information will cost you,” he teases.
“Cost me?”
“A date.”
“A date?” I say it so loud that the professor shushes me and glares at Lucas again. Lucas and I school our features, pretending to watch the movie until the curious onlookers turn back around.