Page 4 of Give You Up

I roll my eyes but do as Riley asks. Small fingers part my hair and rub along my scalp.

“Holy shit, Syn, you do have naturally white-blonde hair. Damn it, now I’m stuck pulling weeds from Gwen’s flowerpots.”

“You made a bet with Gwen Bliss?” I straighten. “Two of her four brothers are serving time for murder.”

“What’s that mean exactly?”

Her amber eyes flash annoyance, drawing my attention to how dark her hair is. What is darker than black? What is lighter than white? I tuck strands of my hair behind my ears.

Our friends, Gwen, Arie, and Ever have lovingly nicknamed us Yin and Yang, though Arie Kim’s hair is as dark as Riley Lee’s.

“What if our friendship with her goes south and she decides to send her brothers after us?”

Why am I concerned? The guy I hang out with might have committed a horrible crime, though for the life of him, he cannot remember that godawful night.

“Are you thinking it will?”

“No,” I concede. “We made a pact freshman year. We ride together. We die together.”

Riley smiles. Bites down on her lower lip. “God, that’s the dumbest line, but it sounds so cool when the dirty trio says it.”

The “dirty trio” would be Xander Brody, Zeke Harrington and Galley Rutherford, three of the hottest rugby players.

“Isn’t that the truth.”

“Anywho”—Riley hands me my latte—“Gwen’s brothers’ troubles have nothing to do with my bet with her. I made it to see who spends more time with you. Obviously, Gwen does.”

I would tell Riley she is more than welcome to hang out with me more, but I understand the reason she doesn’t. It has to do with a guy she has history with dating back to when they were teenagers.

Where my friend Dare is—which is with me for the majority of his time—his cousin, Midnight, is guaranteed to be close by.

Riley rings up my purchase. “Her brothers are scum of the earth, but Gwen has a heart of gold.”

She does. Gwen keeps my cupboard well-stocked with her family’s yummy lavender tea and doesn’t ask for a dime, though I’ve offered to pay her good money I don’t have much of. Instead, we came to a compromise. Tea in exchange for piano lessons. Someday, the lessons will come in handy for my sweet friend.

Riley hands me the romance paperback that has seen good reading days. The pages are generously earmarked, and there are coffee stains on the pages when I flip through them. God, I hope those are coffee stains. I stick the book inside my backpack.

“Forget what I said. And don’t you dare tell her I questioned you speaking with her. She’s my friend, too, and I don’t want her feelings hurt.”

Gwen, like Riley, is sensitive when it comes to talking about her family. It’s something we have in common.

“You have to admit gray eyes and white hair isn’t a common mix.”

I lean into the counter and bat my mascara-laden eyelashes. “Look close enough and you’ll see they’re bluish-gray.”

Riley narrows her eyes. “Are you coming on to me, Syn? You know I like dick, right?”

“Yeah, Midnight’s.” I give her a sly grin.

She makes a rude noise under her breath.

“Fess up. You have a thing for His Royal Hotness.”

Midnight is a year older. Riley won’t go into the details of life growing up in the town of Cambridge with Midnight other than he failed his senior year of high school on purpose so that he could graduate with Riley. If that’s not true love or a bad case of obsession, I don’t know what is.

That juicy tidbit got me all sorts of curious, but I kept my mouth shut. The topic of Midnight is sensitive, and I understand the need to avoid sensitive topics such as our hearts and the guys who have broken them. Or bring up guys who have the status and the money to ruin our lives with.

Midnight is that kind of guy. He and his family are beyond rich and are also one of the original founding families of Dumas.

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