Page 48 of Those Heartless Boys

He shakes his head. “Yeah, it’s not much, but you have to find something to do around here.” He rubs his face, his smile growing wide. “You know, we should catch up sometime. I haven’t seen you since high school.”

My brows furrow. Catch up? In order to catch up, we’d have to be caught up at some point in our lives and that never happened. I can’t remember any definitive memories where Matt made fun of me, but he certainly wasn’t a friend either. When I say I was a no one, I fucking mean it. I’m not just being dramatic. No one ever looked at me to see me.

Stone breaks our staring contest by stepping into our line of sight. He dwarfs Matt. They all do. It’s like the Jacobs and their cronies are from different stock than the rest of the population. It’s not just that they were born from an asshole tree and hit every branch on the way down, they’re out of place in other ways too. “Wilder’s going to have to pass.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, man.” Matt says. “I didn’t realize she had a boyfriend.”

“She doesn’t,” Lucas says, moving to stand next to his friend.

I clench my jaw and step forward, but Wyatt stops me. He grins down. “Ours, remember?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Mmm. I love it when you talk dirty. I think I’m going to have to make you my pet project, Tits.”

I growl at him, and he just laughs.

Behind us, Stone is telling Matt to get fucked. He throws money at him. It hits his chest and falls to the floor. Several twenty-dollar bills that Stone just pulled from his wallet stare at him from the ground. I cringe when Matt falls to his knees, grabbing it up. I don’t blame Matt. I’d be doing the same thing if I didn’t think I’d ever hear the end of it between these guys, and right now, our lives are irrevocably stuck together.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Lucas says, charging to the door and throwing it open.

Matt doesn’t look at me again. He stuffs the twenties in his pocket and takes off. As soon as he’s stepped over the threshold, Lucas kicks the door shut and the guys return to normal as if they didn’t just act like giant dicks. They head toward the pizza, Stone getting plates out for everybody, not even discussing what just happened.

My mouth drops open. “You guys are insane, you know that, right?”

They all gaze around at each other and just shrug. They give zero fucks about this. Zero fucks about whose lives they interfere with or who they make act like a fucking animal, scrambling around on the floor for the scraps they deem to throw like he’s a peasant and they sit in a gold tower. Actually, they kind of do. Jacobs Manor might not be made of real gold, but it feels like it is. Everywhere you look, they’re showing off their wealth. The house. The cars. Their clothes. No wonder why everyone is drawn to them at Saint Clary’s. They’re shiny, dressed up like new toys every single day. People say being wealthy doesn’t matter, but that’s all a crock of shit. Beauty always attracts the eye, and it doesn’t even have to be from the person itself. It’s from the expensive shit they surround themselves with.

Lucas hands me a plate with what I assume is my calzone. It looks like what Wyatt described earlier. Suddenly, I don’t have an appetite though. Am I just being one of the adoring masses, falling to my feet with the scraps they decide to give me? Good food. A nice bed. An orgasm to pass the time, even if it was the most daring thing I’d ever done. For a few minutes, I wasn’t Dakota Wilder, and that was nice.

But I am, aren’t I? I’m just like Matt, picking up twenty-dollar bills from the floor.

I’ll never be one of them.

“You okay?” Lucas asks, reaching out to touch my cheek.

I pull out of his reach. “Why did you guys just do that?”

A smirk starts to pull Lucas’s lips up. “Because you’re ours, Wild Girl. We’re not going to sit back and listen when some asshole tries to hit on you. He was practically tenting his pants.”

“Not that,” I say through clenched teeth. “Treating him like a dog. Throwing money at him like he’s no one. Practically making him bow at your feet. It’s disgusting.”

Stone drops his plate to the island, and it clatters. The sound makes me jump. Haven’t they ever heard of paper plates for crying out loud? Within a moment, I’m not thinking of that anymore because Stone Jacobs is once again breathing my air, taking it all up for himself because that’s what he does. He’s selfish and greedy. He steps into my space, taking more and more from me without a care in the world. “No one told him he had to lower himself to pick up the money. He did that on his own. You want a tip?”

“From someone like you? No fucking thank you.”

He grins evilly. “If you don’t want to be seen as a low-life subservient, don’t cower at my feet.”

“God, you think so much of yourself, don’t you?”

“If I don’t, who will?”

I open my mouth with another cutting barb at the tip of my tongue, but his response wasn’t what I expected.

His smile smooths out, lingering somewhere between ringing so completely false that it almost tugs at my inner heart strings and holding so much truth that it’s hard to decipher who he really is. “There you go, Dakota Wilder. That’s the secret.” His gray-blue eyes hook into mine, keeping me there for much longer than I want. He’s giving me a window into his soul. When I peek inside, it’s not all bad. It’s fucked up, yes, but it isn’t laced with cruelty like I imagined. “Now,” he says, making sure his polo is sitting right across his shoulders. “We’re going to eat and discuss. I will act civilized, and I’m asking you to do the same. I think there’s something we can agree on. It’s in both of our best interests to get the treasure. Working together is the only way we’re going to do that, so...can we start?”

I breathe out a breath I’d been holding captive. If I was in a book, this would be the moment I could tell them all to go to hell…or finally put our differences aside. The thing is, that’s assuming this whole thing is going to end up as a happy ending, and in real life, there are just no guarantees that’s ever going to happen. My life isn’t destined for that prize at the end. No matter how much I’ve tried to make it happen, I’ve come to grips with the outcome. The only thing I can hope for is getting my father back, so that’s what I’m going to focus on. “Let’s do it.”

22

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