Page 115 of No Saint
“God, no.”
“Me neither. Fancy a road trip instead?”
“Where?”
“Columbus. To get those scratch-off tickets.” Gravel crunched beneath our shoes when we hit the parking lot. “Remember, I told you about my aunt…”
I couldn’t deny that a distraction would be nice. Not to mention, another day of dodging Wolf on campus.
“I’m assuming you still need money,” she said, heading toward her car.
“Yeah.”
Wolf had helped me almost clear the debt to the bank. He’d done in a week what I couldn’t do in six months, but it would soon build up again if I dropped the ball on the mortgage. The responsibility was all on me again, and the weight felt twice as heavy.
“Get in then.”
Thirty minutes later, the neon light from the Columbus Jet Pep danced over the fifty scratch-off tickets scattered across the dashboard. Cassie tossed a used ticket onto the dash with a huff. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I stopped scratching my ticket, impressed that she’d managed to bite her tongue this long. Cassie hadn’t mentioned anything about me having that penguin, but I’d heard her ranting when she’d gotten home yesterday morning. About the video and me leaving her there. I’d also heard Monroe try to defend me, while letting the whole thing slip.
“Because you’d have used it.”
“You know, what was the point in even telling me about the whole ‘get something to blackmail them back’ plan, if you didn’t want me involved anyway?” The hurt in her voice was obvious.
I felt bad, but I wasn’t sorry for protecting Wolf. He’d done the same for me enough times. I knew Cassie wouldn’t understand it. She was all fire and retribution.
“Have you ever been in love, Cassie? Love so all-encompassing you feel like you can’t breathe without them?”
A frown blanketed her face. “No.”
I scratched the last of the gold foil off my ticket, revealing a grand prize of ten bucks, then put it on the win pile. “I couldn’t screw over Wolf.”
“He blackmailed you! And let’s not forget, dated that cheerleader bitch right after you broke up last time.” She’d paid witness to my whole break-up mess. Had seen how fractured I was when he started dating Nora. In her mind, I was a heartbroken victim, while he was an asshole who’d moved on within a couple of months.
I should have told her what Brent had done with Wolf’s number, that Wolf wasn’t a bad guy, but right then, I thought maybe I needed her to remind me of all the ways Wolf had hurt me. Of the possibility that he might move on even faster this time. After all, it had only been a couple of weeks of us actually dating, so if we were going off last time, he could be shacked up with Megan by tomorrow. A lump formed in my throat at the thought.
“The man doesn’t deserve your love.”
“He deleted the video,” I offered weakly, as if that equated to him loving me the same way I loved him. But if that were the case, he wouldn’t have kicked me out. He wouldn’t have brought the rats over last night like some final fuck you. Through tear-blurred vision, I scratched off another ticket.
“Yeah, and then they let us keep washing their dishes and cleaning their clothes for another whole week!” Judging by how furiously she scratched over her next ticket, she was mad aboutthat. “Hell yes!” She held up the piece of paper with three matching cherries. “That’s fifty more bucks!”
I jumped on the subject change, eager not to talk about Wolf anymore. “How much is that?”
She went through the winning tickets, one by one, grinning as she added them up. “Two hundred bucks.” She grinned. “And you said we wouldn’t win anything.”
“Minus the fifty you spent to buy them. And gas money.”
She lowered the tickets to her lap on a glare. “Will you stop?”
“Sorry.” I held up my hands. “Congratulations on your one hundred and thirty dollars, Cass.”
“Yourone hundred and thirty dollars.”
“You need to take a cut?—”
“Nah. The buzz is all the payment I need.”
