Page 26 of Crew Princess
Cross frowned. “Except those guys weren’t from the Academy. They were from Public.”
Zellman shrugged, going back to spinning his stool around. “Who cares? They’re both the same.”
I picked up a pillow and threw it at him. “My future sister-in-law went there. They aren’t the same.”
He caught the pillow, incredulous. “Seriously? You’re vouching for the public school?”
“I’m not going that far, just doing my sister-in-law duties here.”
“And Heather is right chill, but she doesn’t go there anymore.” He raised his hand, rubbing his thumb over his two front fingers. “She’s busy making money now.”
Jordan coughed. “Back to the matter at hand.” He nodded to Cross. “I doubt we need to worry about payback. They were going to burn our school down. They got caught, and we didn’t. That’s on them.”
I laughed. “We’re better at being criminals.”
Jordan grinned before resting his elbows on his knees. He cupped his hands together. “I’ve never heard of anyone from the Academy being a problem for us. We’ll have to find out the truth, whether Alex set them up or not.”
Cross nodded, resting a hip on the couch next to me. “That’s what I was thinking. Alex said he had nothing to do with it, that he’s stupid but not that stupid.”
“You agree with him?” Race asked.
We all turned to him.
“Doyou?” Cross asked
Race was silent a beat, his eyes downcast. “I don’t know. As much as I truly hate my cousin, he was twisted up about hurting Taz. The fucker tried to kill himself, and he would’ve if you guys hadn’t been there.”
One of our rare “good guy” moments. Let’s just forget the reason we went there in the first place. In the grand scheme of things, does that really matter?
“I can’t see him stewing over it in the hospital,” Race continued. “Drake told him he’d be back in the crew if he let you guys give him a beat-down for Taz. Then he went back on it and actually laughed in his face. That’s what I heard, anyway. If he was going to be pissed at anyone, I’d think it would be his brother. Not our school. Alex was king of the dipshits at Roussou.” He grunted. “He fit right in.”
I pursed my lips. Was there an insult in there? Then I shrugged. I somewhat agreed with him. There were a lot of dipshits at our school, just not anyone in this room.
Zellman was still spinning.
Well, maybe one. Though we loved him immensely.
“Okay,” Cross announced. “We’ll ask around and see what happens.”
Everyone nodded, and the matter was decided—for now.
Race and Taz weren’t in any hurry to leave.
They stayed until Taz’s phone, Jordan’s phone, and even Zellman’s phone started blowing up. The girls wanted to party, but there was a rule. Jordan’s parents were okay if he had our group here, but no big blow-out parties. So everyone was heading to Tabatha’s.
I’d never been there, but it was a big Normal party place, and once we got there, I wasn’t surprised. I had to laugh softly.
“What?” Cross asked, parking his truck.
“I always think of Roussou and Fallen Crest as an us-versus-them thing. We’re the poor ones, and they’re the wealthy ones.” I gestured to Tabatha’s three-story home. “But I think I’m getting it wrong.”
It was obvious Tabatha’s parents were doing well.
I knew Race’s family was wealthy, and Alex and Drake’s parents had a huge estate themselves.
Cross reached over and took my hand in his. “It’s a mix. A lot of the Normals’ parents work for companies in Fallen Crest, but yeah, I think it’s a little more evenly distributed than it was a few years ago.”
There’d also been a boom in business recently. I knew Channing’s bar was drawing in local college students from a town thirty minutes away.
