Page 86 of Riot Rules
He’slookingat Elodie. Looking in the same kind of way that a lion looks at a mouse before it pounces, and I will not let that motherfucker pounce on this poor girl. I even warn him off her. Verbally. To his stupidly good-looking face. Not that it does much good, of course. See, I catch Elodie looking back at him. It’s not quite the same as any of the looks Mara used to send Wren’s way, but I can see the infatuation in her eyes. I canseewhat’s happening, and I want to scream. To shake her. Warn her to run as far and as fast from him as humanly possible. There’s only so much I can say to her. At the end of the day, plenty of people warned me to steer clear of Dash. And did I listen to any of them? Did I hell. I had to learn that mistake for myself—a mistake I will never, ever repeat. A part of me thinks that Elle should learn this lesson for herself, too. But then I remember how bad shit gets when people fall for Wren Jacobi and I do a complete one-eighty.
I’ll do whatever I can to stop this poor girl from getting hurt by Wren. It might not be much, but it might make a difference. If I can save anyone from going through the type of pain I suffered because of Dash, even if it means rehashing the past and opening old wounds in the process, then so be it. It’s a price I will gladly pay.
37
DASH
It was Pax’s idea.Instead of running the same route every single day, he demanded we run on different tracks at the weekends to break up the monotony. We get up at the crack of dawn, our teeth chattering against the cold, and Pax drives us over to a campground on the other side of the Sullivan Mountain Range. The three of us race each other up the loose, rocky trail, our breath forming clouds of steam in the early morning sun, and for once everything feels normal.
Pax shoves Wren. Wren shoves me. I flip them both off and surge past them up the hill, enjoying the feeling of burning lungs and aching quads as I leave them both in the dust. My head pounds for the first ten minutes of the run, but my pseudo-hangover evaporates as I get my blood pumping. It wasn’t a real hangover, anyway. I got high with Wren last night and weed doesn’t make me feel as dusty as alcohol. It was good to chill with him on the couch and shoot the shit. It feels as though we haven’t done that in so long, and reconnecting felt good.
There were a few revelations, though. Wren’s traded away his time on his father’s yacht in Corsica to Pax in return for dibs on Elodie Stillwater. Turns out he’s got it bad for this new girl. Like,bad.He denied it, as I knew he would, but I’ve lived with the guy for years now. I know him. I thought he might open up and tell me that he’s caught feelings for the blonde, but oh no, that would have been too easy for the bastard, wouldn’t it? He changed the subject. Toldmeto steer clear of Carrie, or I was risking getting my balls clipped.
This advice, coming from him, made me want to punch a hole in a wall, but I kept my cool. At some point, Wren just openly accepted the fact that I was seeing Carrie. I don’t even know when it happened. There were no fireworks. No reaction from him. My brief relationship with her is just common, unremarkable knowledge at Riot House now, and that, my friends? That isseriouslyfucked up. After all of the hard work I did to hide what was going on between me and Carrie, both of us worrying so badly about what was going to happen if Wren or Pax found out…it irks theshitout of me that neither of the boys seem to care that I was screwing her last year. All of that sneaking around, missing out on sleep, lying, pretending, hiding… It was all for nothing.
I didn’t take any of that out on Wren last night. I kind of hoped he would open up to me—I asked him whether he’d ever experimented with guys, curious to see if he’d finally confess about sleeping with Fitz—but he’d remained frustratingly vague. Seems he’s still not ready to come clean about that particular mess, even though it’s ancient history by now.
I’m the first to reach the top of Mount Sullivan. I beat Pax and Wren by a clear thirty seconds, and I make sure I rub salt in their wounds all the way back down the mountain. And while we make use of the shower block at the camp site.Andthen all the way back to Mountain Lakes. I’m still giving them shit about it when we drive pastScreamin’ Beansand I see Carina’s beaten-up old Firebird parked out front in the lot.
“Hey.” I dig Pax in the shoulder. “Let’s grab some breakfast.”
Pax scowls. “I don’t eat breakfast.”
“I know you don’t, man, but Wren and I aren’t vampires like you. We need to consume solid food. Not everyone can survive on the blood of innocent virgins. You can get a coffee or something.”
He keeps driving, a stubborn set to his jaw.
“I swear, if you don’t pull into that parking lot…”
“Do it, Davis,” Wren commands. “We could all use some caffeine.”
Pax can go against one of us at a time, but not both. That’s an unspoken rule. He grumbles unhappily as he swings into the café’s parking lot, making sure that he pulls up alongside a huge bank of wet, rotting leaves on my side of the car.
I huff down my nose. “Child.”
“Dumbass,” he retorts, stabbing a finger at the black Firebird three cars down.
I vault over the pile of rank leaves, smirking smugly at Pax, who flips me off as we head inside.Screamin’ Beansis fairly quiet. It’s nine thirty on a Saturday morning, so the really early crowd have already cleared out, and the lunch crowd won’t arrive for a while yet. It’s easy to locate Carina, sitting at a booth, tucked away in the corner.
A guy in a grey waistcoat greets us, already pulling out a notepad. “Morning, guys. For here or to go?”
“Table for three, please,” I tell him.
Wren looks like he’s mentally crowing; the new girl is here with Carrie, too. They’ve both seen us. Must have. Why else would they be sliding down in their seats? “God, I’m such an idiot,” Pax grumbles. “Scratch that. You two are the fucking idiots. I should have known something was up whenyouwanted to get a fucking drip coffee.” He jabs an accusatory finger into Wren’s chest.
“What? I felt like eggs.”
“Yeah, wellIfeel like a fucking vomit bag. You know. One of the ones you find in the seat back things on planes. You think they have any ofthosearound here?” He stalks off in the direction of the rest room.
“This way please, gentlemen,” our server says, smiling very wide as he holds out a hand, guiding us to a booth at the front of the café, right in the window. Wren follows him, but I…I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Ineedto be closer to Carrie. I drift toward her booth, unable to stop myself.
“Hah!”She shakes her head, looking up at the ceiling. “Romantic? Yeah. I guess you could call it that. He was charming and polite. A real gentleman. Treated me with respect. Took me out to dinner. Wined and dined me. Made me feel so special that I thought I was the only girl he’d ever been interested in. And that fucking accent. He got me good, Elle. I swear, I’ve always prided myself on being smarter than the dumb girl who gets duped by a handsome guy with a few cheesy pickup lines. I should have seen it coming. I should have seen him coming a mile off, but he totally blindsided me.
“I was saving myself. Hadn’t even let a guy graze my fucking kneecap with an index finger before. I was a virgin. And I’m talkingvirgin. No experience whatsoever. And then, low and behold, Lord Dashiell Lovett the Fourth comes along with his family fucking title, and his airs and graces, and he looked deep into my eyes and told me that he loved me, and I just…”
What…the…fuck?
“I just spread my damn legs for him like it was nothing. Two days later, he asked me to meet him in the observatory after dinner. So, I went along, excited about getting to see him, getting to kiss him, getting to tell him that I’d fallen head over heel in love with him…and I walk in to find Amalie Gibbons on her knees with his dick aaaaaallllll the way down her throat.”
