Page 31 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

Another hand. A larger hand. This time holding mine.

“I’m so sorry, Scarlett. I should’ve been there.”

August.

9

August

“I’m concerned about this, August,” Rhoda Bolden, Sylvia’s mother is saying to me. “If she starts a tour next month, it’s going to run right into the start of the school year. We’ve been telling you from the beginning that if she’s going to do this, it can’t get in the way of school.”

“Mama,” Sylvia pipes up, giving her mass of tightly-wound, black curls a shake. “How much damn money am I making—”

“Honey-child.” Rhoda scoffs. “Do not even talk to me aboutmoney.Thatmoneyis forcollege. Because you have no idea how long this whole thing is gonna last, so you need to prepare yourself for what you’re gonna do afterit’sover.”

“Mama, why is it so hard for you to believe that I could do this forever?” Sylvia presses her index finger against the center of her chest, and I sip my drink, averting my eyes to give them a moment to hash through this. “I have all the talent to be alegend, and—”

“Evenlegendsneed a damn education,” Rhoda snaps. “No child of mine is gonna go through this life as an ignorant person, no matter how much money they have.”

The two of them continue to banter back and forth, and I go back to watching Scarlett across the room with some random dude. They’ve been laughing about something for the past ten minutes, their body language getting progressively more touchy and close, and that’s exactly whatwedid the night we met. She’ll probably get his phone number, and they’ll probably hook up after the party, and that shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

When she takes a step close to him and drops her cheek to his chest, and he wraps his arm around her waist, it bothers me.

When he places his mouth next to the shell of her ear, and her eyelashes slowly flutter closed, it bothers me.

When he dips his face to kiss her neck and grazes his hand over the curve of her ass, it really fucking bothers me.

And when he gives her a nudge to step away from the bar, and she follows him into the crowd, it bothers me so much that I turn my attention back to the bickering mother and daughter at my table.

“Ladies, if I may,” I interject politely, causing the both of them to turn to me and silence their argument as though they’re equally worn out from it.

I open my mouth to continue, but pause for a half-second as I catch a glimpse of Brennan literallysprintingacross the ballroom and shoving people out of his way. It’s so out-of-character for him that it distracts me for another beat, but then I turn my full attention back to Rhoda and Sylvia.

“What I’ve done in the past is arrange for a tutor that coordinates with a student’s school,” I continue. “They obtain all the same curriculum for each of the classes that the student would be doing under normal circumstances, and then they create a schedule that—”

My phone lights up and starts buzzing on the table, the caller ID flashing on the screen.

Brennan Riley.

My brow pulls low because the combination of him sprinting out of the party and calling me leads me to believe there’s some kind of issue that requires my attention.

I pick up the phone and gesture with it at Sylvia. “Basically, you’d be doing the same work and meeting the same academic deliverables, you’d just be doing it in a remote capacity.”

“Hmph,” Rhoda huffs. “I don’t know.”

I offer her an understanding nod. “Maybe mull over it for a second.” I wave the phone at her. “I think Mr. Riley’s got a small emergency, so I need to answer this.”

She waves her hand. “Sure, sure. By all means.”

I swipe to answer the call as I stand up and place the phone to my ear. “Hey, what’s going—”

“Come to the back exit immediately.”

“What?” I squint. “Why? What’s going—”

“Don’t fucking move, you piece of shit,” he grits out, and I pull the phone slightly away from my ear for a second.

I raise my eyebrows. “I beg your pardon.”

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