Chapter 3 Neil #3
He was allowed to get his own back, yes, but within reason.
“You were the one who told me I could do it,” he said defensively. I advanced on him furiously and stared him down with a threatening look on my face.
“Yes, but you weren’t supposed to blow up his car. Jesus Christ! You were supposed to do something that would piss him off…not something that would draw media attention,” I hissed through gritted teeth, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.
What was he expecting? A round of applause? Or maybe I was supposed to bullshit him and compliment him on his great job?
“Neil has a point about that. I did warn you.” We both ignored Luke’s contribution to the conversation.
“Come on. Don’t be melodramatic. What’s the big deal? That prick got what he deserved,” Xavier insisted, apparently not realizing that he had also exposed himself to serious risk and that was my fault too.
“That is not the point. Everyone in New York knows my father; he’s the CEO of a major corporation.
Do you understand what I’m telling you?” I rubbed my face, hoping William wouldn’t send one of his goons to figure out what had happened.
If he really wanted to, he could have gotten to Xavier and had him behind bars in a matter of hours.
Scratches in the paint job, a few flat tires, or a broken window—those could have been dismissed as simple vandalism from some local gang of kids, but setting the entire car on fire?
That was a threat, and it was going to put him on high alert.
“Relax. He’s got no evidence. I made sure there weren’t any cameras around.
It’s not like I did it right outside his building, so unclench.
” Xavier continued to dismiss the situation, and I shook my head in frustration.
Trying to reason with him or even get through to him really was pointless.
Of the entire Krew, he was the one most likely to do irreparable damage.
I was just as crazy as he was, but the difference between us was that Xavier enjoyed tempting fate; he always wanted to go over the edge.
I gave up trying to explain it to him more clearly and decided that if my father came to me with questions, I’d just deny everything.
He was a shrewd man, though, and he surely recalled that he’d just gotten into it with Xavier and me and that we were the two people most likely to have beef with him.
I stalked furiously toward the school’s entrance. I was already late for my meeting with Professor Robinson.
He wasn’t in his office when I arrived, but the door was open, so I walked in and took a seat in front of his large, messy desk.
“Welcome to the neighborhood, Miller.”
I turned to see Megan slouched sensually in the chair next to me. Could I really not have noticed her there? Apparently so, because, in addition to being on edge, I was eternally lost in my own thoughts.
“Fuck,” I said in a frustrated whisper. I hadn’t realized this was anything other than a one-on-one meeting with Robinson, and I definitely wouldn’t have shown up if I’d known otherwise. I had an unmistakable trapped feeling as I leaned back against my seat.
“Relax, unlike the rest of the girls on campus, I have no interest in your genitals,” she replied, sounding amused. I rolled my eyes skyward and turned my attention to Professor Robinson’s still-vacant desk.
“Just as well. He’s out of your league,” I muttered with a hint of masculine self-satisfaction.
I usually tried not to get vulgar with women I wasn’t interested in, and Megan certainly fell into that category.
She was perhaps the last woman in the world I would have fucked, and I wanted to make it clear that she’d never get the opportunity to assess my skills in the sack.
“Oh, for sure. I am well aware of your tremendous physical gifts. Rumors run wild amongst the female student body. But you know me; I’m a skeptical woman. I have to see it to believe it,” she whispered into my ear, giving me a whiff of that orange blossom smell that I remembered so vividly.
I wrinkled my nose slightly. It was a nice scent, but I couldn’t stand it because it belonged to her.
“Didn’t you just say you had no interest in my genitals?” I repeated her own words mockingly as I fidgeted in my seat, already wishing I could light up in here.
“Maybe I lied,” she shrugged.
I gave her a flat look. “Head Case, today is not the day. Knock it off,” I said as my knee bounced up and down with nervous energy.
“Or what? Are you going to put me over your knee and give me a spanking?” she asked challengingly, and I turned and gave her a good, long look, lingering on her large tits concealed by a basic black sweater.
She wasn’t dressed to impress, and I felt no attraction toward her, yet she still had a feral beauty that was unmistakable even in understated, unappealing clothing.
“Not a terrible idea,” I shot back and stared into her green eyes.
“I love having a woman’s ass in the air.
Any woman…” I paused. “Except you,” I finished with a cheeky smirk.
Megan’s eyes dropped to my lips, and, for a second, she looked pensive, but then she cleared her throat and took on her familiar confident posture.
“Is that the only position you know, Miller? I’d have thought you had more imagination,” she needled, and I narrowed my eyes in challenge.
Had she been just another girl, I would have dragged her straight into a bathroom or empty classroom and demonstrated exactly how wrong she was, but when it came to Head Case, I could not give in.
I knew what she was trying to do.
She enjoyed toying with me, knowing that I would never cross the line with her. A line that I had drawn myself ever since we were kids. I wouldn’t touch her when we were children and standing in front of that camera in the basement, and I wasn’t going to do it now that we were both grown up.
All at once, the memories hit me like a tsunami: the movie about Peter and Wendy, Kim’s voice, the freezing cold that got into my bones, the musty smell coming off the walls that enclosed us…
“That’s enough. Don’t fuck with me,” I warned her loudly, making it clear that I was no longer willing to joke around or have a conversation.
At the same time, I suddenly became aware of Professor Robinson, standing awkwardly in the doorway.
He cleared his throat, and I tried to pull myself together and make my face look indifferent.
The professor just sighed and circled around to sit behind his desk.
Megan, finally, had stopped needling me.
It was all her fault. She and Alyssa—all they did was give us grief. Me and Logan and even…
My mind careened over to Selene, to my Tinkerbell, who was in Detroit at that very moment doing God knew what with God knew who.
I still couldn’t accept what she’d said, and I was still angry about it, but it was obvious to me that Alyssa had fed her some bullshit to freak her out.
She probably told her I was the one who initiated the kiss or that I tried something else.
Whatever else she needed to say to paint me as the monster that I definitely hadn’t been—at least, not with her.
I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket then and thought about texting Selene, about asking her what the fuck was going on in her head and if she was still sure about what she’d told me.
It was my pride, my goddamned pride that I could never put aside, that won out and ensured that I didn’t go after her.
I never chased a woman.
She was just like all the others.
I repeated that to myself for the umpteenth time, slipping my phone back in my pocket.
“Okay,” Professor Robinson said when I looked back at him. “Let’s talk internship logistics.”
* * *
After nearly three exhausting hours, I walked out of Robinson’s office with an intense urge to have a smoke.
I needed one because not only had my agitation not eased in the slightest, but also because the thought of trying to prepare for the internship amidst all these distractions was stressing me out.
I sighed, wondering when it was all going to let up and when I might get back to some semblance of peace, when I’d finally be able to actually solve these problems.
What if that day never came? I hoped it would, but I feared it wouldn’t.
I took the sidewalk to the parking lot, my forehead wrinkling up when I spotted a cluster of students gathered in the area where I’d left my Maserati.
What the hell are they doing?
I drew closer, cigarette trapped between my lips. A few guys noticed my presence and blanched, immediately making a hole for me to pass through.
What I saw left me literally in shock, and I immediately understood why all those people were crowded around my car.
I stood motionless, and I felt my heartbeat slow.
I blew the smoke out through my nose, tossing the still-mostly-unsmoked cigarette to the ground before moving forward at a sedate pace.
I crunched across shards of glass on the pavement, and I thought for a moment that I might be dreaming or having another hallucination, but then I blinked several times and realized it was all real.
Someone had smashed in my window with a giant rock.
“Who did this?” I demanded, staring uninterrupted at the damaged glass.
I couldn’t even recognize my own voice, the harsh tone making it obvious that I could not be reasoned with.
“Who the fuck did this?” I asked again in a rasp.
I glared into the shocked faces of the other students, who backed away fearfully.
They didn’t say a word; they were all just silently shitting bricks.