Chapter 22 #2
“What’s he do?” I asked, trying my best to keep my smile at bay. She wasn’t very good at the whole undercover thing. Anyone with a brain and bad intentions could connect the dots fast enough to nab her.
“He . . .” Panic filled her eyes. “. . . works at the paper plant. The one that makes all those boxes for Amazon.”
International Papers. That was Sebastian’s cover? Lame.
“Oh!” I licked my teeth and smiled in amusement. “International Papers?”
She looked so clueless. It was fucking adorable. Her eyes widened slightly, and she tried to play it off with a soft roll, avoiding my gaze. I noticed the way her eyes dropped to my lips more than once, the gears in her brain visibly turning.
“Or there’s Crown, Westock . . .” I toyed with her, raising my brows.
This was too easy.
“You know a lot about paper plants,” she pointed out, staring at me warily. “Does your dad work there?”
Did my . . .
I blinked, then blinked again as my smile wavered. Did she not know who my father was? I’d assume Sebastian would have filled her in on everything. It was part of the reason I thought she was so uncomfortable with me at first. Didn’t the name Battles draw any worry in her? Fear? Concern? Anger?
Was she really this clueless?
“He’s a doctor.” I frowned. “You know . . . Doctor Battles.”
Her brown eyes swam with no sense of recondition. She was either a pro at this faking game, or Yankee Doodle Dawson was clueless as ever. Mustang didn’t know she was standing in a very dark tunnel between me, the knife in my boot, the very quickly disappearing light on the other side.
No wonder she was always inches away from being killed, hurt, mauled, or kidnapped.
Sally didn’t know her right from her left when being involved with dirty cops and the mob.
She didn’t know I had stars tattooed on my shoulders, stars on my knees, and a traumatizing ink job waiting for me if I finished this assignment.
“Is he famous?” Quinntessa asked.
I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to take my bike helmet to her car window and shout until she put together every weird thing her father had done since moving here that she hadn’t seen.
And what about me? Did she really believe I was befriending her just to flirt and talk without getting in her bed or some kind of win for me? Was she that na?ve?
“Your dad works at the paper plant near here, right?” I asked, concern wedged in my voice. “And you have no clue who I am? None at all?”
She didn’t. I could see it in her eyes. She had no idea who she was messing with.
“Am I supposed to?” she asked, tilting her head to the left. “I mean . . . you’re just Quincy Battles, right?”
The air in my lungs was suctioned from each vessel inside my brain.
I felt a headache coming on. This was terrifying.
This was a cold-blooded kill by a girl who genuinely had no idea she was talking to her death.
She had no idea how much I took advantage of her every day—how much I could have done and would do!
Quinntessa thought we were friends and . . .
She thought we were friends. She thought we talked with the intention of being friendly.
Quinntessa believed I did all I did because I cared about her enough to be polite.
She didn’t talk much to others. How would she see me and think I’d be a good friend to her? Or even a good person to keep around?
I hung my head and stared at my boots. Guilt ate at my thoughts, every flash of something I had done to benefit myself and my father without wondering if it would affect her.
I thought about her the night I snuck into her home, the nights I’d sit against the brick wall and watch her dance in her windows, subconsciously smiling at how goofy she was.
About how adorable she was. And about how sweet her face looked when she smiled enough to trigger her dimple and those scrunched up freckles.
I tapped on her car door thoughtfully and lifted my eyes. My face heated when she nervously smiled at me. I returned the gesture, suddenly feeling my stomach swarm with butterflies.
“Yeah.” I exhaled, the weight on my shoulders disappearing as her soft eyes scanned my face. Her lip gloss was iridescent. It was a bit distracting. “I’m just Quincy Battles. And you’re just Quinntessa Dawson.”
Quinntessa.
“Loner . . .”
I’m sorry.
“ . . . booklover . . . ”
I’m sorry.
“ . . . green-thumbed . . . ”
I’m sorry.
“ . . . football player.”
I’m so sorry, Quinntessa.
My head spun as her cheeks flushed with color, up from her neck and seeping into her embarrassed smile.
“Aspiring.”
“Hm?” I held her shy eyes and watched the sun shift to show the specks of gold.
“I’m only an aspiring football player,” she clarified. I could hear the soft tremble to her voice.
“You’re much better than those idiots on the team. I see you out there every afternoon,” I confessed.
She didn’t know I expected to see her out there, nor did she need to know I waited to see her run a few laps and practice her silly little touchdown dances with Jazz.
Sometimes, I’d even see her out there alone with her headphones taking all her attention, hips swaying and curls tussled from her many imaginary fights with opposing football players, invisible to everyone but the pretty girl holding the football.
“I like to practice, but that’s all it is.” I wanted to punch her in the face for doubting herself. “It’s just practice, and?—”
“Erica told me you’re always running laps around the Groves. You’re fast,” I said, once again avoiding the fact it was me who watched her run every day.
She didn’t need to know how devoted I already was to knowing her schedule.
It would help me in the long run. Like now, as I tried to remind myself she only made me feel like the center of her attention because she had no other friends.
Quinntessa felt good about someone finally coming into her life who cared and wanted the best for her, even if I was entirely fake about it. It was only a few months.
And then, she’d be gone, and I’d be free from this feeling.
Guilt.
All I felt was guilt, and not a tick more.
“I like to run,” she scoffed.
“You like to play football.” I wiggled my fingers at my sides before giving in and brushing the leather of my fingerless gloves across her chin. Her face turned slightly at my action, eyes flicking with surprise.
I worried I had overstepped for a moment and pulled my hand back. She smiled, through it felt like she was searching my eyes for something more I refused to give her.
“Give yourself some credit.” I cleared my throat with a soft chuckle. “Oh, and a knife. Don’t be stupid and run around the wrong part of Coven alone. Bring a weapon.”
As if she could fight me off. That image was laughable.
“Oh? Is a ghost going to come out of the graveyard and haunt me?” she teased, clearly not taking me seriously.
Once again, I felt disgusted by her obvious disregard for danger. She was adorably stupid. Her father had thrown her into a dark hole and told her to live on.
I glared at her. My chest tightened as I leaned closer and stared at her nervous giggling nature with a taut jaw.
“Mustang, not everyone here is who they say they are.” I inhaled deeply and looked over my shoulder toward Briar with a soft sigh. I returned my eyes to hers while her brows furrowed into one.
My fingers brushed the top of her knuckles on the door. It was accidental. Or at least, that’ wa what I was going to tell myself.
“Don’t let people take advantage of you. You’re sweet like honey.” I toyed with my lip piercing. “I like that about you.”
“I think you could be sweet like honey too, but you forget.” Her head tilted the other direction, to the right. Her curls fell over her shoulder, and I lost myself watching the way her neck sparked in the sun.
I wondered if glitter would stick to my lipstick if I kissed under her jaw, or if my lipstick would stick to her angelic skin. I wouldn’t mind a glitter dark red. That was what I guessed her gloss and my lipstick would blend into.
“And I . . .” I looked down as Quinntessa’s fingers twitched beneath mine, pushing closer into my light movements. “I think I like that about you. Besides when you forget.”
I glanced down at our hands multiple times before scoffing.
“You don’t like that I forget to be kind to others?” I asked.
Quinntessa took a big breath and slowly let it fizzle out from between her lips. “I don’t like when you forget to be kind to yourself.”
Oh, fuck me.
No. I was so serious. Forgive me for imagining so many scenarios right now that involved me jumping through the window of this Mustang and shoving my tongue so far down her throat—What the fuck? Stop.
Mustang was a target.
My breath hitched. Flashes of Quinntessa’s honey eyes and me holding a gun to her head flickered behind my eyes. I licked my lips and felt the throbbing in my chest as her eyes fell to follow the motion of my tongue.
“Noted.”