Teagan
Quaid was built like the Incredible Hulk. A big lumbering dude with the grace of a drunk elephant. But when he wanted to escape capture? He was like a jungle cat. A gazelle. Who knew?
When she finally caught up to him, holed up in a break room near the kitchens, she bent over, hands on knees, panting to catch her breath.
She’d long since kicked off her heels and was pretty sure the cute little air hostess cap her mom had pinned onto her head was about to fall off.
But she’d found him. Not that she had the slightest clue what to do with him.
“Hey,” he said, shooting her a wary glance.
She held up a finger. She’d be a minute.
He shrugged. He didn’t care what she said. Wasn’t going to stop whatever plan he was putting into motion.
He pulled a bottle out of his pocket and poured a bunch of gelcaps onto the table.
He didn’t look up when she examined the bottle. He was too busy shoving them into a piece of cake.
“Laxatives? Where did you even get these?”
“We’re in a room full of old people.”
He pressed another pill into the slice of cake.
She sunk into a chair across from him. Cam was right. As ever. She’d thought finishing the Iron Crucible had secured the respect of the team. But respect, it turned out, only took you so far.
“Quaid,” she started. “You know doing this is going to get you expelled.”
He dropped his head, put on his hangdog expression. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I won’t do it again.”
She laughed. They locked eyes, each as surprised as the other at her reaction. She pointed at the cake. “What are you doing?”
“Spiking it with laxatives.”
“Yeah, I got that part. I meant, why are you doing it?”
He looked at her, surprised she didn’t already know. “You have to stop them. Before it’s too late.”
“Them?” She thought it was Ethan he was gunning for.
He sat back in his chair, thought a minute, then started talking. “The first prep school I went to was Laurelwood. It was nice. Then a dick like Ethan showed up. A shove here. Some stolen lunch money there. A kid stuffed in a locker overnight.”
His expression told her who the victim of the last prank was.
“No one did anything because it was just one jerk. But when someone else sees that idiot getting away with being a bully, they think they might try it, too. Next thing you know? Everyone’s a bully.”
“So Ethan’s a bully.”
“Yup. He’s been shaking down one of the freshmen on the junior rowing team. Making him buy him loaded fries every day. Supersized.”
Which was why they’d poured loaded fries ingredients into Ethan’s car.
Now that she had the final piece of the puzzle, Teagan understood why the guys had all helped him, knowing if they got caught, they’d all end up in detention, or worse.
Quaid was looking out for the little guy. Kids who weren’t strong enough or connected enough to take on whoever was making their life miserable. “I respect that.” She did. “But… you know you’re on your last strike. Cabrera’s going to kick you off the team. Out of school. Is that what you want?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Quaid,” she said, resolved to keep him out of trouble. “You cannot afford to do this.”
He looked down at the cake, then back at her. “I know.”
“But I can.”
The rest of the team found her and Quaid at the top of a flight of portable stairs attached to one of the planes.
They didn’t hide their surprise at seeing the pair of them giggling together as they watched Ethan Cabrera eating his cake as he flirted with a girl around the same age.
“Shhh,” Quaid instructed, nodding in Ethan’s direction. “Wait for it… wait for it…”
Teagan didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until, at long last, Ethan went ramrod straight, started looking around in a panic, then bolted for the restrooms. Quaid whooped and gave her a high five. “Nice one, Coxie. You got him good.”
They explained what they’d done on the way to the restrooms. They weren’t done just yet.
Quaid opened the main door to the men’s room. Groans were coming from the closest stall.
“That was for the freshman, Cabrera,” Quaid declared triumphantly.
“Quaid!” Ethan squawked. “When my grandmother finds out what you did, it’s over!”
“He didn’t do it,” Teagan announced, possibly a bit too gleefully. Bullying was wrong. No matter who you were related to.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan sniped. “I’ll have you both suspended.”
Quaid threw her a panicked look. She grinned at him. She had this base covered, too. She pulled the roll of toilet paper she’d taken from the stall out from behind her back. Behind her, the rest of the team hooted with laughter. “That’s a pretty big threat for someone who doesn’t have any TP.”
Ethan’s desperate scrabble at an empty toilet paper roll echoed against the tile walls.
“If you want to get out of here with your dignity, you need to promise not to tell your grandmother. And you’re going to swear you’ll leave the freshmen alone. Deal?”
There was silence for a minute, as if he was actually considering saying no. Then his stomach made some noises Teagan had never heard come out of a human before.
“Deal,” he groaned, clearly desperate now.
Teagan presented Quaid with the roll of toilet paper. “You can do the honors.”
Quaid rolled it across the floor as Ethan’s hand shot out of the bottom of the stall, desperately clawing at the toilet paper.
Once they’d gotten a safe distance from the restrooms, there were high fives all round.
“I’m telling you,” Quaid said to the boys, “Teagan went full beast mode.”
Half the crew started making primitive noises. The other half dissolved into laughter.
Cam nudged Teagan with his elbow and gave her a private, congratulatory smile. “Look who went and did what none of us could do.”
“What?”
“Become the Quaid whisperer.”
“I had some good advice from a friend,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, pretending not to know she was talking about him.
“Apparently my only-child syndrome wasn’t helping me play well with others.”
“Well.” Cam gave one of those slow, sexy, broad-shouldered shrugs of his. “It’s one thing to receive good advice, and another to act on it.”
She wasn’t used to him looking at her like this.
All warm and soft, like she was a girl he just might have taken a shine to versus the bossy know-it-all who shouted instructions at him from the front of the boat.
It would’ve felt embarrassing if it hadn’t felt so nice.
She would’ve stared into his eyes a lot longer if her phone hadn’t pinged.
Probably her mom. She read the text. “Hey!” She beamed up at him.
“I’ve been added to the crew’s group chat. ”
He scraped his tooth along his lower lip and tipped his head a bit, as if adjusting his angle on her. “Congratulations, Coxie. You’re a fully fledged team member now.”
She wished they weren’t surrounded by so many people.
It’d be nice to hang out just the two of them.
Maybe pick up on their beer pong Q maybe the universe would give her a second one?
“I should probably get out of this uniform,” she said, looking down at it, then back up at him. “What are you doing after the party?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think the guys are doing anything, so I’ll probably head home.”
Ah. She might have become the Quaid whisperer, but she definitely didn’t know how to read Cam Dillinger. “Cool.” She looked around for Juliet, who she had totally abandoned. “Me too. Right. Like I said, I better get out of this uniform.”
When she chanced a glance back at the guys, she could see Baloo slapping Cam’s forehead. Probably for picking the wrong photo to send his cyber crush.
She gave her own forehead a slap. She needed to stop worrying about whether Cam liked her and focus on the real win: becoming part of the team.
Uniform off, Teagan skirted the outside of the air hangar, successfully dodging the team, past her mom, who, weirdly, was clinking margarita glasses with Coach Hayden, past Juliet, who was chatting up the girl Ethan had abandoned, until finally she made her escape out a side door.
What was it with this place? Every time she thought she’d figured it out, she got it wrong.
Spectacularly, humiliatingly wrong. Back home, there was a tub of ice cream in the freezer with her name on it and nothing could get in her— She froze.
Why was Josh Regis standing in front of a super car downing prescription pills like they were candy?
“Are those medicinal or recreational?”
He stared at her, horrified, like she’d caught him trying to steal one of the airplanes lined up alongside the runway.
For a nanosecond she thought he might actually be vulnerable.
But the innate Regis family arrogance won out.
He stuffed the pills into his pocket and gave her a haughty look.
“It’s my party. I’ll get high if I want to. ”
“Love the self-sabotage.” Her voice had come out too sharp. Why did she take it out on other people when she’d been the one making an idiot of herself? Then again, this was Josh Regis. His skin wasn’t thick. It was Teflon.
“You’re such a buzzkill,” he snarled.
“And you’re a brat,” she snapped.
“Where’s your uniform?” he sneered. “If you leave early, you won’t get paid. And having seen your house, you need every penny you can get.”
Oh, wow. You pressed the wrong button, Josh Regis.
She didn’t care how rich or powerful he thought he was.
How many strings he could pull. No one, and she meant no one, talked to her like she was less than.
Especially when their entire life was handed to them on a silver platter like his was.
“Screw you, Josh. You might have your big fancy party and your shiny new car, but the one thing you don’t have? Class. Not an ounce of it.”
Josh barked with laughter, like she was a pathetic kid throwing a pointless tantrum. “If you like the car so much, you can valet it.” He threw the keys to her.
She caught them, didn’t bother looking back before climbing into the driver’s seat, firing up the engine, and hitting the gas pedal. Hard.