Page 77 of Enemies to Prom Dates
I snorted and glanced over at Heath to see what he thought. He was staring down at his phone, frowning as if he didn’t like the news. Given that there was rarely the good kind anymore, I braced myself for impact.
“What?” I asked him.
He glanced up, clearly startled to have been caught looking at his phone. He slid it into his back pocket and took another slug of beer.
“Nothing. Earnshaw is checking in like a fucking parent. I seriously wish he would give it a rest.”
“The Earnshaws aren’t bad people,” I reminded him. “If you took that chip off your shoulder and let your foster parents be cool with you, you might realize that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“Uh, Fitz, we might have a problem,” Ed said. His phone had buzzed and was now in his hand.
“What?”
“It’s from Janie. Beth found out about the list and she’s pissed. Janie thinks she might be doing something batshit crazy.”
“Like what?” I asked impatiently.
Ed read the next series of texts and his eyes grew wide. “Oh shit. She wouldn’t…yeah okay, maybe she would.”
“Tell me!” I demanded.
Ed looked up from this phone. “Beth went to a private party at Wick’s. She told Janie if everyone’s so interested in her virginity, she might as well give it up and make some money at the same time. She placed a bet on herself and now plans to offer it up…to Wick.”
I couldn’t name the emotion that took hold of me, so I didn’t worry about it. I just knew I had to take a few breaths and think my way through the problem. Brains over emotions.
My current objective had been to remove Beth as a target.
My new objective. Stop Beth from sleeping with Wick.
Nothing else mattered.
“Ed,” I said softly, “I’m going to need you to drive.”
* * *
Wick’s House
“You hit him again,in his home, he’s likely to call the police,” Ed said as we pulled to a stop in front of Wick’s home.
“I’m not going to hit him,” I said calmly. Because I was, in fact, calm.
Heath had bailed on us saying something had come up that he needed to take care of, so it was just me and Ed. Which was all I needed. I had no plans to muscle my way into the house. I was simply going to knock and ask to speak with Beth.
And I was going to do this calmly.
Because I was calm.
“She wouldn’t really do that, would she?” Ed asked me. “I mean, for real?”
No, she wouldn’t. She had too much respect for herself as a person to treat sex so casually. She certainly wasn’t going to barter her virginity for money, no matter that she’d previously joked about it. Which is why I knew, when I was able to think rationally, she’d simply figured out what I’d been doing this past week and she was doing this to send me a message.
Message received.
I’m sure she expected me to bust through the door, pick her up over my shoulder and abscond with her. However, I was not to be outwitted. Still, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
Ed and I approached the ranch house, one of the smaller homes on the block, and I rang the doorbell. A moment later Wick answered wearing a smug expression and two, still, severely black eyes.
