Page 2 of Casual Felonies (Wildlings #1)

RAMI

FOUR YEARS LATER

Someone let Senator Bracehurst’s wife loose on the margarita bar, and now her left tit is falling out of her dress. This has to be a punishment of some kind. My fathers are probably somewhere in a corner laughing their asses off.

Worse, the wolves are at the door—mostly social media influencers with their phones at the ready—and they would love that kind of scoop on my very first foray into big-time social justice work. Not to mention that one creepy guy with the orange bow tie.

Shudder.

He’s been to every public event I’ve participated in this year, and there’s something about the way he stares at me that I don’t like.

Having spent nearly every day of the last six months planning this damned thing, I don’t have time for his nonsense.

Cursing under my breath, I refocus and slip off my jacket, making my way over to the problem of the moment.

“Mrs. Bracehurst, you look chilled. Here, take my jacket,” I say, slipping it onto her shoulders.

Maya, my twin and saving grace, floats over and makes a brief adjustment, scooping Mrs. Bracehurst back into her dress before sliding in next to me.

“Oh, darling, call me Cordelia,” the older woman purrs, floating her gold-tipped manicure over my tie.

Maya coughs, covering her laugh, and I give the now-decent Mrs. Bracehurst a small bow.

“Of course, Cordelia. Thank you so much for coming tonight. Your support for Austin’s veteran groups is so appreciated.”

“There’s more charity where that came from,” she says, sending me a wink.

I bow again, then link elbows with Maya and drag her away before she loses it in front of our largest donor.

“Stop it,” I hiss, trying not to laugh myself. “I’m never getting that jacket back.”

“Honestly, the piercing was a surprise,” she says dryly, causing me to break.

“You are the worst .”

“And by worst, you meant the best .” She tightens her arm around mine, pulling me in close enough to whisper, “By the way, did you see your biggest fan is here tonight?”

I follow her line of sight and see Orange Bow Tie in the corner, sipping a drink, his eyes trained on me as if there’s no one else in the ballroom. Ugh .

“Yeah, well, we need to check out the attendee list because if I end up with my spleen in a jar somewhere, his name goes to the top of the list.”

She snorts. “Fear not, broseph. If OBT gets you, I’ll make it my life’s mission to avenge you and your poor spleen.”

“Oh shut up,” I complain, nudging her head with mine.

There’s no way I’d try to make it through tonight without my sister.

Maya’s a straight-up badass, not to mention the youngest surgical resident in the state of Texas, and we just get each other.

We both blew through school at super young ages, but she’s study smart , and I’m what Baba calls ether smart , and together, we’re pretty dangerous.

Maya can top-sheet almost any subject you put in front of her, and fast. I, on the other hand, tend to just know things. New-to-me concepts, people’s behavioral patterns, random insights—like my brain skips straight from A to Z without stopping at the steps between.

It’s a neat trick…until I run into something that isn’t intuitive. Then I’m not just a slow learner, but I have to practically reverse-engineer the whole thing before it makes sense. Take math, for instance. Anything past geometry can go fuck itself.

You know, for someone who gets called smart a lot—especially after starting college at fifteen and double majoring in Applied Neuroethics and Immersive Communication Design—I can be stunningly dense sometimes.

It’s kind of mortifying, really. I come across as either psychic or like I shouldn’t be left unsupervised. No in-between. Monetizing social media and knowing exactly what to post to build a following? Easy. Introduction to calculus or spotting a “friend” with an agenda? I’m a babe in the woods.

I passed my calculus pre-req exam even though I didn’t understand any of it until the day before. Why I picked a major that required something called Mathematics and Machine Learning , I have no idea.

Maybe I’m hardheaded.

Maybe I like the challenge.

The world may never know.

Laying her head on my shoulder, Maya reaches up and tugs on my slightly overgrown hair. “Speaking of mildly obsessed, aren’t you overdue for a visit with your Hottie McHottie barber?”

I run my fingers through my hair, self-conscious. “He didn’t have an opening until tomorrow.”

She laughs because we’re well-known and rich enough to conjure a stylist last minute, but Truett Valentine adjusts his schedule for no one.

He’s the kind of Texas man who feels stereotypical but is actually quite rare.

Broody and rough around the edges, with an artist’s soul.

His attitude and muscled, tattooed exterior are a spiky Keep Out sign you’d be wise to obey.

Still, he lets slip his achingly gentle side in the way he cares for vintage things and takes to social media to wax poetic about the inequalities of life in that surly, earnest way of his.

Truett’s style can best be described as worn-in rockabilly.

He’s a couple of inches shorter than I am, and stockier.

He wears a heavily textured undercut, usually raked back and subtly highlighted by a love of the outdoors.

Honey-whisky eyes that burrow into your very soul.

Varying lengths of scruff, depending on his mood.

Trucker hats and cowboy hats held together with frayed threads and spite.

Carefully cuffed jeans and artfully worn pearl-snap shirts rolled up to reveal sexy, tattooed forearms. Symbols of love and war on his knuckles.

Vintage Doc Martens, perfectly polished.

Fuck me sideways, please and thank you.

He could be a shit barber, and people would flock to him to have the hot, irritable guy hatchet their hair. But he’s not shit.

The way Valentine tames my rebel cowlicks with those talented hands of his…

“Earth to Rami,” Maya says, swallowing her amusement. “Jocelyn is headed our way, and she does not look happy.”

I blink back the steamy visuals in my head, and our catering contact is heading toward us like a guided missile through the crowded ballroom, her lips thinning as she nears.

“Jocelyn,” I say with all the false positivity I can muster, “how are things?”

She responds with the gravity of a White House aide informing the president that Los Angeles has floated into the Pacific after a massive earthquake .

“We are, I regret to inform you, running out of tortillas.”

Maya snorts. I send her a withering glare, then turn back to Jocelyn. “That is unfortunate, considering that your world-famous street tacos were a major draw for our donors.”

Yes, I booked a taco bar for a fancy event, but street tacos plus margs are fire, and as the newest generation of charity organizers, I refuse to serve the same stale-ass, rubber chicken dinner people have been putting on since the onset of colonization.

I check the massive ballroom just to be sure and, thankfully, everyone is having a good time.

Except for Jocelyn.

“I am sorry, Mr. Bash, but?—”

I hold up my hand. “It’s okay, Jocelyn. One of my high school friends manages the boutique H-E-B down the street.” I pull up my phone and scroll until I find the name. “How many do we need?”

“Couple hundred, to be safe.”

Nodding an acknowledgment, I set to typing. You might think grocery store tortillas are a serious step-down, or that a boutique store can’t handle an order that size last minute, but that’s only because you’ve never seen what Benji’s staff can do with flour and fat.

Me: I’ve got a tortilla emergency.

I haven’t spoken to Benji in a hot minute, but we’re the type of friends who can pick up as if no time has passed. His reply is immediate.

BenDog: Can I assume that’s not a euphemism?

Me: I’m down the street at the Winchester, big gala, bigger taco bar, and no tortillas.

BenDog: How do you run out of tortillas at a taco bar?

Me: Just tell me you can get, say, a dozen 20-packs of your mixed butter minis to me in the next 3 minutes.

BenDog: It’s like running out of limes and salt at a tequila tasting .

I roll my eyes. I love the guy, but I don’t have time for this.

Me: Do you have the tortillas or not?

BenDog: I’ll bring them over myself. Give me 10.

Me: You’re a true friend and a total asshole. Text me when you get to the main lobby.

Me: Also, maybe bring a couple of pounds of limes, just in case.

What follows is a string of laughing emoji and a fist bump emoji, just like in high school. In my defense, I was twelve when I entered high school, and Benji was the only senior who didn’t haze the super geek.

I like to think I’ve leveled up since then.

“Problem solved,” I say to Jocelyn as I send Benji a digital bird. “He’s dropping them off in ten minutes.”

She places her hand on her heart. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“No worries,” I say, looking around for my co-chair.

“Brant’s in the back, powdering his nose,” Maya whispers as Jocelyn runs back to the taco bar. “ Again .”

Brantley Whitaker, the region’s newest state representative, is rolling out his coke habit in the middle of our gala. Great .

“He’s had a few close calls, broseph,” Maya warns as she waves to a friend. “I know you were doing him a solid by looping him in on this event, but I’m not so sure he’s good for the direction you’re going in.”

“You’re right, sissy.” I rub my brows, a headache brewing. “This is what I get for co-chairing with the guy who cried when our tenth birthday party was better than his.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, his rented ponies had nothing on Uncle Hen belting out ‘Let It Go’ and ‘Dance Monkey’ to a bunch of kids strung out on birthday cake and Kool-Aid.”

While Uncle Hendrix is a true-blue punk rock legend, he isn’t actually a blood relative. Our fathers, who’ve been together since the dawn of time, are known for collecting friends over the years, and now we have an infamous, chaotic found family who I love to pieces.