Page 46 of Enemies to Prom Dates
I hated that Gigi knew it before I did.
“They really pushed Beth around?” Ed asked. He was trying to reach his toes with his fingers, but as lean as he was, he wasn’t that flexible.
I, on the other hand, could fold my body practically in half.
“Yes,” I bit out as I felt the tension in the muscles in the back of my legs as I stretched.
“What the fuck is happening in this school? We’re betting on freshmen losing their virginity and pushing girls around over fashion shows. I can’t wait until I graduate. I’m so done with this place.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve got two years to go. And while we’re here, it’s up to us to stop this shit from happening.”
“You ask Wick about the List like we talked about?”
I shook my head. “I was too busy crushing his windpipe. I just wish I had some proof I could confront him with.”
“Nobody is talking to me,” Ed said. “I even made a suggestion to someone that I wanted in on the action. He looked at me like he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. I didn’t buy it for a second. They know we’re tight and everyone knows you’re pissed about it.”
“Look over there,” I said as I got to my feet and pointed at a strange meeting.
Wick, dressed in his pads for practice, was jogging off the field, over the track and into the first row of stands.
Locke was sitting there, blowing out plumes of steam from his vaping pen. I could only imagine what he was vaping. Locke seemed to be an equal opportunity drug user. Sure, most upper classmen were drinking and smoking pot by now. Some were into more hardcore shit.
But Locke seemed to be into the weirdest shit.
The other day he asked me if I’d ever tried something called absinthe. Like I would even know what that was. Maybe it was a British thing.
“Do you trust him?” Ed asked me.
“Who? Locke or Wick.”
“Locke. Reen’s fascination with him aside, maybe we shouldn’t overlook that there is a new guy in school and suddenly a betting ring has started up.”
“Why tell us about it then?” I asked him.
Ed shrugged. “To deflect attention away from him? Make it seem like he’s on our side.”
I considered that. It wasn’t inconceivable. Get close to us, make us think he’s working with us all the while running the show behind our backs.
“We need to follow him,” I said.
Ed snorted. “What are we private investigators now? I doubt we’ll know how to do that.”
“Not us. We just need to get someone who naturally wants to be close to him.” I smiled, waiting for Ed to figure it out.
“She likes him,” he insisted. “Reen’s not going to spy on him for us.”
“No,” I corrected him. “It’s what you said before. She’sfascinatedby him. There’s a difference. I’ll talk to her.”
“Great, so now we have two suspects. Wick and Locke. You’re going to get Reen to follow Locke, then what are you doing with Wick?”
I smiled as my current plan was playing itself out.
“What the hell,” Ed growled as we watched another person join Wick’s circle. “Aren’t you going to do something about that?”
Gigi had walked over to where Wick and Locke were still talking. What had piqued Ed’s outrage was watching Wick put his arm around Gigi’s shoulder and pulling her against him. Gi was smiling up at Wick, like any a girl infatuated with her first boyfriend would.
“Nope. Gigi’s got a good head on her shoulders. She knows what she’s doing.”
