Page 82 of You Owe Me

Ainsley. Backpack slung over one shoulder, phone pressed to her ear, animated like she’s narrating a documentary no one asked for. The sun catches in her brown hair, making her look like she belongs to some other world—one where nothing is broken, where girls don’t lie, where boys like me don’t need backup plans written in blood.

She looks normal, which makes it worse. Because I know better. I know what she did yesterday. I know what she’s hiding. And today, she’s going to learn what it means to wear my name for real.

I tap the horn once, sharp, just enough to turn heads. She flinches, scans the lot, then sees me. That’s when it hits—her face shifting in real time. Surprise. Recognition. Relief. And finally, wariness.

Good. She should be scared.

She mutters something into the phone, hangs up, and walks toward me with deliberate steps. Not slow, not fast, just careful, like she’s walking into something that might detonate.

She opens the passenger door and tosses her bag into the back. Her eyes catch the card on the seat, and she pauses briefly—a barely there furrow between her brows. Then she covers it with a smile.

“Thought you were working.” She says it like this is just another Tuesday.

I don’t answer that. Just shift into drive. “Plans changed.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

She studies me, and I can feel it—the way her gaze traces my jaw, the twitch in my fingers, the unspoken charge in the air. She’s cataloging the tension, trying to find a way in.

“What’s the card for?” She nods toward the IOU.

I glance at it, then at the road. “That’s part of the surprise.”

“Maverick.” Her voice sharpens, the edge she only uses when she knows she’s not in control. “What’s going on?”

I take a left, then another. Not toward home. Not toward campus. Toward the ink. She notices—of course, she does, she always does—but this time, she doesn’t speak. She just folds her hands in her lap and waits.

Good. Let her sweat. Let her try to guess what happens next.

She doesn’t move when we pull into the lot, just stares at the sign:Blackout Ink. The O flickers like it’s dying—the kind of place that doesn’t take IDs, just cash and conviction. A place for impulsive mistakes and irreversible choices.

Fitting.

She finally speaks, voice tight. “Why are we here?”

I tap the IOU card with two fingers. “To make it permanent.”

Her head turns slowly. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

Because you went behind my back. Because you thought you were above the rules. Because you played in my world without understanding how deep the water runs. Because I can’t get the image out of my head of you marching into Jin’s lab and bendinghim to your will with nothing but my name and your mouth. Because if you’re going to carry my reputation like a weapon, you’re going to carry the weight of it, too.

But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I meet her eyes. “You spent my power. Now, you wear it.”

She stares at me long enough that I can see it happening behind her eyes—every wall going up, then cracking. She’s doing the math, weighing the humiliation against the high, the sting of betrayal against the slow-burn thrill of being claimed.

“Where?”

The word hits harder than I expect. I didn’t think she’d ask, didn’t think she’d bend so soon. Part of me wanted her to fight, to rage, to push back so I’d have an excuse to break. But this? This is something else.

I nod to the glove box. “There’s a marker.”

She opens it without a word and pulls out the Sharpie I always keep tucked next to my spare cards. For contracts. For IOUs. For moments just like this. She doesn’t even hesitate—just rolls up the sleeve of her hoodie and holds out her wrist. The inside. Pale. Soft. Honest. The same wrist she wraps around her coffee when she’s cold, the same one she presses to her mouth when she’s trying not to laugh.

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