Page 76 of Enemies to Prom Dates
Saturday Night
In war,sometimes sneak attacks were most effective. Taking a deep breath, I rang the doorbell then took a step back.
Wearing the tightest jeans I owned, paired with the tightest sweater I owned, I’d blown out my hair to its fullest potential, letting it fall down my back instead of wearing it up. Not one for a lot of makeup, I kept it simple with some mascara and lip gloss. I was as sexy as was possible for me.
More so than I’d been for Chas’s party really. For this evening, I had a different agenda.
The door opened and I smiled brightly.
“Hello, Wick.”
I could hear the pulse of the music in the background, the sound of teenagers drinking and laughing. This was nowhere close to the blow-out party Chas had hosted, but Wick’s family didn’t have money like the Bingleys did so his house wasn’t nearly as big.
No, this was a party for just his friends. A smaller, intimate crowd that would serve my purpose perfectly.
“Beth?” he asked, clearly confused by my arrival. “What are you doing here?”
I beamed at him. “Well, I’ve placed a significant amount of money on me losing my virginity tonight and you’re going to help me.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re not serious right now.”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious. Can I come in?”
He let out a puff of air. “Sure, but why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?”
I patted his chest as I passed him into the house. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”
* * *
Later That Night
Fitz
I lookedat my phone and frowned. I’m not sure why I thought she might text. She was far too proud. I knew that. Did I think she might go so far as to text me three times?
Yes.
Three times wasn’t needy or desperate. Three times said you really, really cared.
Two texts seemed weak. Like I wasn’t worth the potential embarrassment of a third unanswered text.
Which, of course, would have gone unanswered since that was the plan.
I had to make the world, which equated to my high school, believe I wanted nothing more to do with her. This was not uncommon. Things started and ended quickly all the time. Look at Ed and Bee. They were ten minutes of romance, followed by months of shit show.
I took Beth to a party then moved on. People would most likely assume I wasn’tthatinto her and decide she was no longer worthy of any extra attention.
A perfect plan. If only she didn’t hate me when all was said and done.
“You’re brooding,” Heath said, tipping back a bottle of beer. “That’s my job.”
We were in my game room, the three of us, but instead of playing video games, we were strategizing ways to take Wick down. The problem was, as Ed put it, to do something without having any backfire or potential negative ripple effect.
A forceful confrontation in two instances hadn’t worked. It was time to be more subtle.
“What if we found the bank?” I suggested. “The money has got to be held somewhere, right? Locke said he couldn’t keep tabs on the Venmo accounts people were using to send their bets because they kept changing. Which means Wick must have several accounts. But if we could nail down one, maybe we could use that to figure out where he was transferring the money to. Odds are it’s a single bank account that’s just linked to all of his Venmo ones.”
“Brilliant idea,” Ed said. “All we need to do is steal Wick’s phone, hack his code, take a look at all of his Venmo transactions, somehow do a reverse transfer of all the money from the linked bank account back into his Venmo where we would then move it to one of our accounts. Or I have another idea. We could ask all the lovely girls of Haddonfield High to stop having sex. That might be easier.”
