34. willow
CHAPTER 34
WILLOW
THAT'S WHY HE GOES OVERBOARD
Thanks to Elijah, King earned a little break before I tortured him again. The hockey player took a sharp left towards the line of closed food trucks that sat outside the law building.
"They don’t open until eleven," I reminded him.
" Ribs For Her Pleasure opens up for fifty bucks." He hit his fist against the food truck. A tired man in an apron poked out to take his crumpled dollars.
"You’re not getting the Meat Monster, are you?" I wrinkled my nose. "That’s like three thousand calories. You’re going to sleep through class."
"You don’t want any?"
"Hell no, I’d sleep through class."
I checked my phone but there weren’t any more texts from my dad. Just the cryptic ones I already opened. The moment classes were done, I’d give him a call. I slipped it in my backpack and took out my water bottle.
Elijah folded his arms over his chest. "King has a boner for you."
I choked on my water. " What? "
On some level, it put butterflies in my stomach, because if King was that obvious about it, I achieved what I set out to do. The goal was to give him a boner after all. But that didn’t include Elijah finding out about it. I liked Elijah but he was a gun without its safety, a guy who basically did anything he wanted, and damn the consequences.
"He wants to fuck, for sure."
The door opened and the food truck employee held out a paper plate with a five-meat sandwich smothered in onion rings, held precariously by a single skewer.
My stomach turned but Elijah dug in. "You should’ve seen King’s face when I took some fluff off your shirt. He was ready to kick my ass."
"He wasn’t going to kick your ass."
"You’re a girl, you don’t get it. It’s guy code. King wants to fuck you and he wants it like a dry-humping chihuahua, the day before he gets his balls cut off. I didn’t even know he had that in his programming."
"You’re an asshole," I muttered, walking away. "I don’t know why I hang out with you."
"Because everybody else treats you like the Campus Barbie."
I sighed. "It’s getting better. People don’t crowd me at the park anymore."
"Wait until fall semester."
I winced. The moment summer ended campus would be back in full swing to its forty thousand student population. I'd be starting all over again to get the attention to die down. I didn’t want to think about it.
"Hey, Pruitt?" Elijah jogged up to me, taking another huge bite of his sandwich. "Did you know King was a high school bully?"
"Chewing your food is a lost art—" I stopped myself. "What?"
"Yeah."
"You’re joking."
"No."
There was no way Elijah was right. I saw how gentle he was with Jasmine whenever he brought her to the training center and King always put his friends above himself. Everyone knew that.
I couldn’t picture him as a bully. Not for a second.
"He has a bunch of fucked-up charges against him."
All of a sudden, I remembered who I was talking to and sighed. "Where did you hear this from?"
"Uh…" Elijah chewed a piece of sausage. "My twin."
"And?"
"Zariah is Kassie’s best friend. I overheard them before she left for her internship. King has some charges from high school or something."
"Let me see if I understand this right. You heard a fourth of a conversation from people who obviously didn’t want you to hear it, and those same people weren’t even there? What is this supposed to prove? You shouldn’t be eavesdropping?"
"I mean, look at him, Pruitt. All the shit on his face. How’d he get that?"
The fact that Elijah Contractor, of all people, thought he could talk about King’s scars made me furious. I yanked away the paper plate remainders of the Meat Monster and dumped it in the nearest trash can. Elijah groaned but I didn’t care.
"That has literally nothing to do with you. Just because he has some scars does not make him a bad person!" I snapped. "You have nothing besides a black eye, and you’re such a dick, half of this campus can’t stand you!"
Elijah hesitated. "I’m sorry."
"Not good enough!"
"I’m worried about you," he admitted. "I’m shitty at trying to show it."
I sighed. "Okay. I’m sorry too. But that’s no reason for you to be an asshole."
"I think he’s dangerous. I want to make sure you’re safe."
In his own way, Elijah was looking out for me. I appreciated that but I also hated the idea that he was going around, spreading rumors about King.
"Lawson told him to keep an eye on me," I said carefully. "That’s why he goes overboard."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Damn."
"Yep."
Understanding dawned across Elijah’s face and he nodded, walking back to the trash can. "That makes a lot more sense. Hey, would you freak if I grab my leftovers? It cost me fifty bucks."
"Leave. It."
" Fine. "
Halfway to the comms building though, I gave him another look. "What do you mean it makes sense?"
"King wouldn’t risk it."
"With…his coach? I know about the off-limits thing."
"It’s not a real off-limits tag." He snorted. "Ryan put one on Kassie. Yours is more of a soft rule. You can fuck half of the football players if you want." He snickered. "Most of them won’t make it beyond college reunions, much less the NFL. But King—don’t tell him I said this—is a great player. He’s getting the Nike endorsement. I mean, he’s one big motherfucker. And Coach Lawson will be helping him with the draft. How much would he really help the dumbass fucking his stepdaughter?"
I hadn’t thought about that. Not really.
Lawson and I were in such a precarious place, but I knew he wanted us to have a positive relationship. How far would he go to get that? If Lawson found out about King…following me to my shows…making me cry…and those weird situationship breakups we kept having…
A cold feeling settled over me. "Do you think Lawson would…?"
"Even if he doesn’t do anything shitty outright, there’s all these side conversations and handshakes that don’t have to happen for King." Elijah shrugged. "His whole future rides on this."
"Oh."
"You got venom pussy, Pruitt."
I smacked him with my textbook.
"Ow—it’s true! You can fuck almost any football player you want. It won’t matter. But if you want to fuck King, you might as well shoot him in the head, day before the draft."