Chapter Twenty-Four Master At Work #2
A shame that even when she was done with this favor, I still wouldn’t be finished with her.
I hold my elbow out, motioning for her to take it, “Then let’s get it over with.” I say coldly.
Together we walk into the entrance of the ball.
As I suspected, the lights from the crystal chandlers glint with a soft glow.
Candles illuminate the windows in threes, and everything looks like it was purchased at a 16 th century Renaissance fair.
The students and teachers all wearing similar masks, dancing, chatting, the normal social cues that happen at these kinds of events.
That is until we happen to be noticed by bystanders, both Thatcher and I arm and arm with girls, dressed for an event no one expected us to show up for.
I can’t help the smirk that sits on my face, most of them are probably afraid we’d done something.
Pulled some prank that we wanted a front row seat to.
Briar’s hand clutches onto the material of my suit as I guide her towards an empty table, away from dancing bodies in the center of the room. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake track swarms the room and I only know that because it’s constantly played in my house when my father is home.
It was the only thing he knew how to play and somehow he felt it made him more polished when he showed guests.
“Why are they staring at you? It’s like you’re the pope for Christ’s sake.” She breathes, trying to keep her head down and away from prying eyes. Shying away from the attention she would never be getting if she hadn’t walked into this room with me.
Eyes from every direction stay glued to us and I just know Thatcher is adoring every second of this. The way everyone has paused their evening to give us their undivided attention.
I lean towards her ear, brushing the top with my lips, “Because we are everything they wish they were, Little Thief.”
Taking me by surprise, she snorts, laughing softly, “Just when I think you can’t get any more stuck up.”
“I’m not saying it’s because of my parents’ money.
” I reassure, “We refuse to abide by the rules Ponderosa Springs laid out for us as children. When they look at us, they see the freedom, the rebellion they will never have. Girls look at you and wonder,” My breath is heavy on her skin, I can tell by the way her breathing shallows.
“What does she have that could possibly have grabbed my attention? How can I be more like her? We are crack to rich girls. Because at night when they lay down with their polo wearing boyfriends, the ones that will buy them mansions and cheat on them with their secretaries, it’s guys like me they think about.
” My arm snakes around her waist, letting the soft fabric of her dress itch my palm,
“Gritty, terrifying, shady men like me who make their panties wet. They come harder thinking about me breaking their hearts, then they do while their boyfriends are fucking them. So yes, they are looking at me, but they are also staring at you.” I knead her hip, pulling her into my body more just so I don’t lose the smell of her,“Make sure you are giving them a show they’ll remember. ”
All of that is true.
The girls around us who would be more than willing, but all of them too scared to admit it to themselves. Too afraid their daddies and priests will find out they like to be fucked by the bastards of this town.
That’s what we spend the first hour of our time doing, watching our peers spin around us like puppets, casting their stones in our direction as we sit at the table keeping to ourselves.
Well that’s what Briar and I do.
Thatcher asked Lyra to dance fifteen minutes ago and he’s spinning her in circles on the marble floor, her brown hair swaying behind her as she tries to keep up with him.
Briar was watching them like a hawk, her eyes moving with Thatcher’s hands like she’s ready to cut them off if they make the wrong move.
They looked like mismatched socks out there.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, just in time to see a message show up from Silas giving me the all clear for the next few hours.
They were headed down to the party to help Thatch and Lyra keep an eye out in case Mr. West left the party for any reason.
That way they could text us to head out before he came in his office.
This plan was fail proof.
Hopefully.
“Show time, Little T.” I mumbled to her as we snuck ourselves out of the main hall and towards the exit.
We stopped by Thatcher’s car grabbing the stethoscope she requested before embarking on the short walk to the adjacent building where his office was, the wind blowing her hair just as we walked.
I wasn’t sure if her shivering was from the cold or if she was just nervous.
The dark surrounded us, the little light from the moon beyond the windows was what helped guide our feet up the center staircase. Shadows of trees reach out for our walking bodies as we crept down the halls. Our feet in step with one another the entire way.
We finally make it to the door so I reach inside of my pocket to pull out the tool Rook had given me to help me unlock it, but Briar had already pulled out bobby pins. Gliding the metal past her plump lips, using her teeth to bend them the way she needs them to go.
With finesse she makes quick work of the lock, lifting and pushing all the correct pins inside to make the door click letting us know it’s open.
Once we are inside I chose to leave the light off in case anyone is to look up to the windows I didn’t need them seeing a glow coming from Mr. West’s office when he was supposed to be at the party.
“Grab me a pen and some paper.” She says, after I show her the safe behind the curtain.
“Is please not a part of your vocabulary?” I walk to his mahogany desk, opening the drawers until I find a pad of paper and a pen.
“Do you want the safe open or not?” Her eyes turn back to me, arching a thick eyebrow, everything about her presence tells me she’s in work mode and she needs to focus.
“Touché.”
I hand her the things she asked for, leaning on the wall next to the safe looking down at her as she begins to play with the dial. Spinning it left a few times, then right. Feeling the gears inside shift and click into place.
Placing the stethoscope in both ears, placing the chest piece right above the dial. From here, I witness what could only be called pure genius. The way she sticks her tongue out, biting down on it absent-mindedly as she listens for what she needs from the machine.
Then she begins writing down numbers, creating graphs on the paper, plunging them into formulas and my mind is twisted with misunderstanding.
In movies, they just twist the dial with the stethoscope listening to the right ticks.
Apparently that’s not all you have to do in order to get the correct combination.
Taking the earpieces out and laying them on the ground as she scribbles numbers down on the page, doing math most would need calculators for in her head.
“Where’d you learn how to do this?” I ask, curious how one gets into the hobby of stealing.
“Shouldn’t you already know? You read my criminal record, I’d assume you read other things about me.”
I roll my eyes, “Sorry, there wasn’t a section in your file about hobbies. Well, minus your sophomore team swimming picture.” I crack a small smile in the darkness, catching a glimpse of her tinted cheeks.
“My dad,” She breathes, scratching out a set of numbers and rewriting them, “He was in and out of jail my entire life, but when he was home he taught me the skills of the trade. Pickpocketing, safe cracking, card counting, if it involved quick cash he showed me.”
“Odd bonding technique.” I note, her fingers starting to try different combinations in the lock. I imagined a smaller version of Briar, sitting in the floor of her house playing with locks and stealing wallets.
We were proof that survival had little to do with money and everything to do with the environment where you grow up.
“Well not all of us can bond with our parents over winters in the Swiss Alps and summers in Prague.”
I click my tongue, “Yup, that’s me,” I say as I flex my fists, stretching out my fingers, “Spoiled, arrogant, rich boy with the entire world at his feet. What more could I want in life?”
She looks up at me, pausing her work, “You expect me to believe that your life hasn’t been golden platters and butlers?
Don’t stand there and pretend you had it rough.
You have no idea what it was like growing up without enough money to keep the lights on, worried about when you’d be able to eat again, or when the next time the police would bang on your door wanting to know where your dad was.
You’re no better than any of those people out there, you and your friends just happen to be more unhinged than the rest.”
“You wanna sit here and argue about whose life is sadder? Whose childhood was worse? You think you’re the only one who has been through shit? If it makes you feel better to think all those things about me, go ahead. I won’t stop you.” I retort.
By all accounts she’s right.
I don’t know what it’s like to be poor.
I have always had money, I’ve always had food in the house when I was hungry. I had the basic necessities of life and then some.
But what she doesn’t know, what she doesn’t deserve to know with her snotty, woe is me attitude, is that when I was a kid I begged to trade all the money I had for parents who loved me. For a family who cared. I would have rather been starved and loved, than starving for love.
Then you grow up and you realize you work with the cards you are dealt. You shut the fuck up and you move forward because all the pleading, all the praying won’t get you anywhere. Sometimes you are just the bad apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.
I wasn’t going to argue with her.
It wasn’t worth it. There are just some things people will never understand.