Page 100 of Brutal Little Secrets

“Chase will get in trouble because he’s not supposed to throw a party. We have some plans to help put Olivia in her place.” Cam squeezes my leg.

“Can’t stand that bitch.” Mia nods like this is exactly what they should be doing.

“Annie shouldn’t be left alone with Chase.” Hawk takes my hand. “We don’t trust him. With us circling, he’s getting more desperate to hold onto her. But if Jackson shows, we need to know right away. Some of what he texted is threatening. He’s not to get his hands on her.”

“If he shows up again, I’ll give him the cold shoulder.” Mia leans forward and meets my eyes. “I’m sorry I talked you up to him. I just wanted you to realize there are other options than Chase. You seemed so determined to stay with him, and I couldn’t understand why. Though I get it now.” Her eyes drop to Damon’s hands wrapped around me. She smirks. “I know you aren’t like me. It’s one of the things that attracted me to you. I figured if I went with someone better than me for a friend, someone who took the time to fix a stranger’s tie, maybe some of that might rub off on me. Or I would, at least, have a drama-free senior year.”

“That ship has sailed.” I shake my head. “Sorry, normally I’m completely drama-free. Except when we’re on stage.”

Mia laughs. “So, are we working on our history assignment? Because I need a good grade in this class.”

“Yes,” I say as Damon helps me stand. “I need to go grab my books.”

I start toward the stairs and then hesitate. She’s trying and I want to try too. Maybe I can let Mia in a little more.

“Do you want to see my room?” I ask Mia.

She smiles like I offered her a Golden Globe. “Sure.”

Chapter 30

Cam

We wait until we’re sure the girls are upstairs. Damon takes out his phone and pulls up the feed to Evan’s room. Evan laughs at something Mia says and shows her the room and her closet. Mia goes nuts over the clothes, and they start talking about what Evan should wear tonight.

“Is this smart?” I ask what we’re all thinking. Girls like Mia don’t really change.

“Evan wants a friend.” Damon’s eyes soften. It’s odd to see on Damon, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. He needs someone soft in his life. Someone like Evan.

“Her assistant director, Keira, seems like a better option than Mia.” Hawk runs his hand through his hair. “I guess we just see if she decides totestus again.”

None of us believes she was testing us. She wants to fuck us. She doesn’t care who we belong to.

“Do you think she slept with Chase? She’s blond. She could have been the girl in the car.” Will Damon want to get revenge on the girl? It made sense with Evan because she was dating Chase, and her gold-digging mother was moving in with Damon’s dad.

He hasn’t really mentioned the mother in a while. Hurting Evan isn’t the plan anymore.

And while her mother might be a gold-digger, pushing her out now would hurt Evan.

“She might have.” Damon drags his fingers across his lips as he watches the two of them in Evan’s room.

“We’re not hurting Evan.” Standing, I glare at Damon. “I don’t give a shit if she was the girl in the car or Olivia was. I’m not giving up Evan for your revenge.”

Damon lifts confused eyes to me. “Why would we give up Evan?”

Hawk grunts. “You wanted Annie because she was the girl in the car. It’s not unreasonable to think you might want to fuck over the girl who was actually in the car since we know it was never Annie.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Damon looks down at the screen. “Evan is ours. If we get our revenge, it won’t be by giving her up.”

Hawk meets my eyes. We haven’t talked about Evan’s mother. Now isn’t the time to bring it up though. Not when Evan might accidentally overhear us. I don’t know how Evan feels about her mom, but she might not like that part of our seduction plan was to get her and her mother kicked out.

“Olivia talked about drugging Evan so I could fucking rape her.” Damon raises hard eyes to us. “Olivia doesn’t get close to Evan or her drinks. Evan needs a drink, we provide it. It sounds like Olivia has some sort of rape drug she got from Mia’s brother.”

“Does that make us trust Mia less?” Hawk asks. “It’s possible she doesn’t know about the drugs or that she uses them too. Do we trust her with Evan?”

I glance at the camera where Evan sits on her bed with a smile as she chats with Mia. It’s hard to imagine anyone being malicious to Evan, but then again, we didn’t have the best intentions at the beginning. But we don’t spread our shit, so theonly ones who know about the plan to get rid of Evan’s mother are us.

“Fuck.” I run my hand through my hair. “Can we just claim our girl and be done with it?”