Page 39 of Friend
It was probably the one thing Damen had going for him.
My sanity almost snapped as Cory stepped towards her, and a light wind caused their hair to wave wistfully. From my point of view, the two of them seemed shadowed in a romantic glow.
It made me sick.
Then she spoke, and the moment shattered. “I know you’ve been using steroids.”
Cory froze, hand mid-reach in the air as he’d already moved to touch her shoulder. His voice was a strangled grunt as he answered, “What?”
“I’ve been thinking it over, but I just don’t understandwhy,” she said, finally glancing up at him. The only indication of her nervousness was the way she still gripped at the hem of her shirt. “You’ve always been fine without them.”
The stunned expression dropped from the idiot’s face, replaced, slowly, by a confident grin that made me want to punch something. “You think so?” he asked, then added, slightly more panicked as he caught his slip. “Not that I am using them. I mean, I’d get kicked off the team and—”
Bianca clenched her fists in front of her, the beginnings of fire burning in her gaze. She’d obviously given this argument a lot of thought. “You said it was your dream to work in private security.”
Surprise passed over me, and I pushed from the ground slightly. He’d told her that? When?
‘During their date,’ my shikigami said. ‘Did you think they wouldn’t talk at all?’
I narrowed my eyes at the two of them, my chest burning. Of course they would talk. And it was better for them to dothatthan any other of Cory’s regular date activities.
“You need to stop,” she warned him, and my internal alarms began to sound as Cory’s flirtatious expression began to grow into something much darker. She closed her eyes, shoulders tensing as she added warningly, “You’ll lose your scholarship and your internship if you get c-caught!”
My pulse picked up; she was growing nervous, which set my already over-triggered thoughts into overdrive.
“What do you know about it?” he asked, stepping away from her. His posture changed from calm confidence to something much more threatening. It was most likely because Bianca wasn’t even looking at him anymore—but was rather staring at the ground again—that she hadn’t already run away screaming.
My blood burned through me. This was stupid. So, so stupid.
It was my job to take care of this.
I was already half-way to my feet when Cory moved to touch her again. It was at that moment when her gaze turned up once more, and her reply, in one of the smallest, most sincere voices I’d ever heard from her, caused both of us to halt in our tracks.
“But you’re already strong,” she said. “And mean and scary; you’ve been for years. Half of the school is terrified to mess with you, and even the other teams avoid you on the field. Why do you evenneedmedical intervention? You’re perfectly evil already.”
Oh my God.
He was going to kill her! I mean, we both knew that Cory and his followers were the evilest people around,but why did she have to say it?
“Wow…” It was only because, instead of fury, he’d dropped his arm back to his side as the most confusing, perplexed expression passed over his douchey face, that I didn’t charge in there. “You’re right.”
I almost fell face-first through the bushes—as it were, one stabby branch poked at my eye. But that wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was… whatever this was.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while now.” Cory touched his chest, and his features morphed into something resembling respect. “But it’s like you’re the only one who knows me.”
“A while?” Bianca asked with a frown. “How long is that? Because last Monday you made fun of me during speech class.”
“So, it’s been a few days!” he protested, seemingly genuine. And while this whole thing might have started as a joke—just another conquest—it was obvious that the ruse was now becoming somethingmore.
Oh no.
“The point is, no one else even suspected!” Cory lamented, glancing up at the sky. “Butyoudid. My mom is strict about sports and classes—she took away my phone because I didn’t win the last home game. I felt like… I had to make myself better.”
He wasn’t lying about not having a phone?
My eyebrow twitched, and the branch I’d been holding cracked under my hands.
This really did not bode well.
