“Because I said so,” the guy replies with arrogance ringing in his tone. Then his gaze skates to me, and his lips curl into a smirk. “I can see why you don’t want to go, though.” His gaze drags up and down me as he openly checks me out. “And who is this lovely thing?”
I’m getting creep vibes from this guy so badly it makes me shiver.
“This lovely thing is Maddy,” I introduce myself. “And I’m guessing you’re here to do Finn’s taxes.”
His brows tug together. “What? No.”
“Oh, sorry. My bad.” I gesture at his outfit. “So, you just choose to dress this way, then? Weird.”
Finn presses me with a warning look, a move that seems out of character for him.
“You’ll have to ignore Mads,” Finn intervenes, tossing me another pressing look. “She’s new.”
Accountant Guy is blasting me with a withering look. With his narrow face and small nose, he looks very snake-like. “Well, she needs to learn her place.”
My lips part to tell this guy to screw off, but Finn beats me to the punch.
“I’ll make sure she learns.” He totally ignores me as I glower at him. “But aren’t I supposed to be going with you somewhere?”
“Yes, you are,” Accountant Guy mutters, his gaze never wavering from me. “Come on.” Tearing his gaze off me, he snaps his fingers at Finn as he strides toward the exit.
I gape at Finn as he begrudgingly follows him. “Are you seriously going to let him boss you around like that?”
“I have to,” he whispers under his breath. “Now go find Lily and forget about this.” He walks away without waiting for me to respond and leaves me standing in the middle of the cafeteria with my jaw hanging to my knees.
I remain that way for about ten seconds with the sounds of clanking plates and conversation flowing around me. I could find Lily—I should. I only came here so I could get ice cream with her. But I also want to find out where Finn is going with Accountant Guy. Sure, it might be none of my business, but the way Finn’s demeanor shifted was just plain odd. Where would they even be going? Why did he let that guy boss him around?
Why do I even care?
“Why did Finn just go with Eli?” Lily materializes by my side with a bowl of strawberry ice cream in her hand.
“I don’t know, but he was acting weird about it.”
“That’s because Eli is a real piece of shit. Like put every cliché douchebag behavior into one person, and you’d have Eli.” She stares at the door as she absentmindedly stirs her ice cream. “I don’t know why he’d go with him. Not after what Eli did to me.”
I glance at her. “What did he do to you?”
She stiffly shrugs. “It’s a long story that I don’t want to talk about in the open, but it has to do with basically ruining my life in high school.” She has a miserable frown on her face that’s crammed with hurt. “Why would Finn go with him?”
I’m wondering the same thing. I may not know Finn well, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would betray his sister like that.
“Hmm …” I’m getting an idea. One that I probably should be getting, but … “Screw it. Let’s go.” I motion for Lily to follow me as I jog out of the cafeteria.
“Wait … Where are you going?” she asks as she rushes after me.
When I walk out of the cafeteria, I look left and right, and spot Finn and Eli just as they’re rounding the corner. “Come on. Hurry.” I take off in that direction, disregarding the wide-eyed stares. It’s like people have never seen a girl running down the hallway like a lunatic. They’d be in for a real shock if they wentto Northside High, where it’s an anomaly not to see someone acting like a psycho.
“Maddy,” Lily calls out breathlessly. “What the heck are we doing?”
I skid to a stop as I reach the corner I saw Finn and Eli disappear around. “We’re finding out why your brother is doing with the prince of douchebaggery.” I slowly peer around the corner.
“We look like crazy people,” she whispers as she stands behind me.
“In northside, we’d look like normal people,” I whisper back as I scan the hallway.
I spot a halo of blond hair that belongs to Finn right before he veers into a room.
I hurry toward the room with Lily trailing at my heels. She doesn’t even bother asking me questions anymore, which is the first step of acceptance that we are officially spying on her brother.
