Page 125 of Swallow Your Sorries

“Who cares,” Aria puffs. “Gant tore your clothes off?”

Stassi grins wickedly. “So I was wrong when I said nothing good happens in that creepy old greenhouse?”

“I already told you, nothing happened,” I say, backing away slowly from both girls and heading to the corset section. They look like vultures ready to tear me apart for every detail.

“But you wanted it too,” Aria says, her pink wig going askew. “I knew you were panting for Daddy Gant.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Gant is notdaddymaterial.

Is he?

“In your dream, you muttered ‘good girl’,” Stassi says. “Everyone knows you only want to be a ‘good girl’ for a dom or daddy. In Gant’s case, I bet it’s both.”

“How do you figure that?” Aria asks.

Stassi shrugs. “I own a Kindle. I’ve been on a praise kink lately. Is that okay with you?”

“I bet Zedd’s a daddy.Zaddy Zed.”

“Don’t ever say that again,” Stassi hisses.

“Can wepleasestop talking about this?” I ask, flustered. “Gant is none of the above. Not with me anyway, but you’re free to find out for yourselves. Be my guest.”

Aria and Stassi exchange wicked looks.

“Yeah, hedefinitelyedged her,” Aria says. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t be offering him up to us.”

“She doesn’t mean it anyway,” Stassi says. “I bet you’d lose your shit if you saw him with someone else.”

“Why would I care?” I ask incredulously, pausing my search through a bin of plastic corsets.

“Anyone would care if the guy who pays them attention twenty-four-seven suddenly chases some other chick,” Aria says.

“I wish someone was as obsessed with me as Gant is with you,” Stassi says, putting on a stocking cap and donning a horrid reddish-orange wig on her head.

I gape at her incredulously. “Gant humiliates me. Blackmails me. Stalks me! Everywhere I turn there he is with his shit-eating grin.”

“But it’s kind of sexy, right?” Aria says dreamily.

“What’s sexy about him torturing people? Poor Sylo…”

Aria snorts. “You clearly don’t know Sylo, because nothing about him is poor. He’s probably worse than Gant.”

Impossible.

Then again…they are related. Still, it’s not their relationship that keeps nagging at me. At first, I thought maybe Sylo reminded me of Gant but with different colouring. Maybe that’s where the distant recognition kept coming from, but no. I’m convinced Gant has nothing to do with it. They don’t look alike at all.

I could ask him if we’ve met before, but he’s a sheep now. Following Gant’s orders to pretend like I don’t exist whenever we cross paths in ballet class, I rarely see him on the massive campus without Gant’s constant supervision.

Still, I feel obligated to say something. An apology for not taking Gant seriously? Then again, Gant’s his cousin. He knows his cousin. Maybe trying to corner him alone would only make things worse. After all, he isn’t innocent either. He only agreed to help me to piss Gant off too.

So then you share a common goal.

No.Shared.

Sylo isn’t playing anymore.

“What did Gant say when he tore off your shirt?” Stassi bumps my arm, forcing me to look at her. Her amber eyes are wild and desperate like she’s trying to live vicariously through my tale.

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