Page 74 of Defiant
Chapter Twenty – Vaughn
I admit, the moment Dante Storm came to Midpark High, I stopped digging for dirt on Archer and started looking into him. I even got Markus to help, and he had connections galore. There was a slight problem with that, though.
Dante Storm did not exist.
Maybe the name was fake. Maybe he’d blackmailed his way here. It seemed a reasonable explanation as anything else.
I didn’t like him. He was wild, unchained, constantly ready to throw it down and defend Jaz’s honor. Don’t get me wrong, I was all for defending Jaz and protecting her from the demons that stalked these halls, but there was a way to go about it that did not involve getting thrown in jail.
I wouldn’t get thrown in jail. Oliver Fitzpatrick owed us. He was the best lawyer on this side of the United States. Money could truly buy anything.
Did Dante have that kind of money? No, not since he needed money from me to apparently stay at a motel. Oh, I had him looked into. He stalked Jaz some nights, while other nights he simply retreated back to that motel and shut himself in for the night.
He was supposed to take care of Ryan and his friends, which he hadn’t, yet. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to fuck up and get himself caught. My family’s money would not be helping him with his lawyer fees.
I sat at lunch the next Monday, not hungry, staring at him as he reached over the table and pulled my tray towards him, giving me a wide, white smile as he plucked the spork out of my hand and started eating the lunch that was supposed to be mine.
Jaz wasn’t here yet, which was why I felt so comfortable to glare at him openly. He noticed immediately, his mouth already full of mashed potatoes. “What?” Dante asked, meeting my glare with his own lively blue eyes. “It wasn’t like you were going to eat it. All you do is play with your food like a fucking weirdo.”
A muscle in my jaw tensed. Oh, I could show him what being a fucking weirdo meant. I could drag his sorry ass into my family’s basement and keep him there for weeks as he lost his mind.
Hmm. Then again, I was pretty sure he already was halfway gone.
Dante was busy licking the spork clean when Jaz arrived, sitting beside me as she unrolled her bagged lunch. She’d started to alternate who she sat by; I would be lying if I said I enjoyed seeing her sit beside him, seeing the glimmer in his eyes as he looked at me all smugly.
Today, though? Since she was sitting by me? Dante pouted, and he started stabbing the food on the tray a bit harder after she sat down.
Jaz’s warm, luring stare moved between us as she pulled out her lunch, snack by snack. The table was quiet, surrounded by an otherwise loud lunchroom. She seemed to be in a decent mood, fighting not to smile as she finally spoke, “So, how was your weekend?”
I could’ve said a lot of things right then. That it was hardly a good weekend because I didn’t see her during it, that I spent most of it wondering why and how Dante had squirmed into our lives, why he seemed to be so close to her in spite of his newness. I could’ve told her that I dreamt of her, as I often did, that the feelings inside me—as confusing as they were—only grew.
But it was Dante who first replied, “My weekend was great. How was yours? How was that self-defense lesson with that old man?”
Old man? That got me to blink and stare at Jaz, who appeared unashamed at the mention of it. Since I was so startled, I asked, “Who?” Jaz wanting to learn self-defense after what happened was natural, although, by the blood that ran through my veins, I swore she would not have to worry about defending herself for long.
“Jacob,” she answered me, her cheeks flushing as she paused.
That sudden heat in her cheeks, was it for Jacob?
Something inside me twisted; jealousy? I did not like feeling so jealous. It wasn’t like I had any right to her; she wasn’t mine yet. I had to remember that.
It simply grew increasingly harder to do that with each passing day.
“And the lesson went great,” Jaz spoke, meeting Dante’s curious stare.
Hold on a moment. Was he jealous too?
“Not that it’s any of your business how it went,” she added, a bit prickly, as if there was more to the story she wasn’t telling us.
A thought occurred to me then, a sudden and strange thought I did not like. She wasn’t falling for Jacob, was she? The mere possibility made me frown, which she instantly noticed.
“And, just so you know, he’s not working for me anymore,” she told me, probably trying to make me feel better. Alas, her words did anything but. If he was no longer under a contract with her, that meant she’d seen him without it, that she would continue to see him, even if she wasn’t paying him to look into shit he had no right to.
Could I ever win here? Was trying to get Jaz all to myself a pointless endeavor?
“Great,” Dante muttered, stabbing the tray with the spork. The actual tray, not even the food on it. Just…stabbing the tray, like he was picturing it as Jacob, or something. “So, you’re just seeing Jacob on your own, then. That’s just fucking wonderful, isn’t it, Vaughn?”
I snapped back into reality, saying, “Uh, yes. Wonderful.” It was anything but, really.
