1
SAWYER
Bitter cold bites into my skin like thorns.
Since I’m in the midst of a low-key hazing by Granthorpe University’s Briar Club, the thorn-like chills are poetic justice.
The Briar Club is an exclusive organization of “powerful women of style and substance”—their branding, not mine—that believes beauty shouldn’t be a woman’s main currency. While I agree with the sentiment, it’s not the reason I applied for membership. My reasons are personal, private, andproblematic.
I shift from foot to foot inside the yard of a Colonial Revival house. The smell of cigarette smoke curls through the cold like vines. Burying my chin in my coat, I turn my head toward the front where the chain-smoking security guard is stationed in the shadows.
GU is so bougie sometimes. There’s a student poker game inside the house, and the organizers hired armed security. It’s not like this is Vegas and the pot is a million dollars, so the cloak and dagger is a bit much. Ditto for having me stand outside, battling frostbite, to greet the late arrival. It’s all a bid to reinforce the host’s sense of self importance, and I’m over it.
My fingers burrow deeper into my pocket where I’m clutching my phone.
Come the hell on, Silver Spoon guy. Get your ass here.
People might roll their eyes at my calling out my classmates for their wealth and privilege when my adopted family—the Allendales—have enough money to bankroll a war in Central America. The difference is I wasn’t born rich. I still have memories of my chaotic life in foster care when I had nothing more than a garbage bag of old clothes and mangy stuffed animals. A time when my bio mom was allowed to contact me, but didn’t.
Stale news.Gritting my teeth till my jaws ache, I try to resist the urge to dwell. It’s hard to move on, though. Because my difficult start in life didn’t end when I was adopted, it marks me like a scarlet letter. On the surface, I’m an Allendale. It’s the last name I’m allowed to use. But the most powerful members of my family don’t accept me. Which means that, because I’m eighteen, they could cut me out of their lives. Estranged.Exiled. The threat is so close I can smell it, like moth balls in the corner of an old attic.
That’s why I’m on driveway duty tonight. I need to secure my membership in the exclusive club as proof I’m worthy of being a full-fledged Allendale. Since the loss of my adopted mom, Celine, to cancer, the future of my life literally depends on this.
Instead of grieving in peace, I’m locked in an elitist’s game of survival worthy of a reality show. So fucked up. But I’ll manage. One thing I got from my bio mom is the ability to adapt and persevere. “Your people are human cockroaches,” my adopted brother Brad once said. It crushed eight-year-old me but barely stings now. Brad’s opinion no longer matters.
The sound of a muscle car’s motor fills the night.That’sdifferent. Moments later, a red vintage Camaro roars into the driveway, its headlights blindingly bright.
Wow. No Mercedes? No Lexus?
My internal thoughts have a bitter edge. I should probably work on that. There are a lot of foster kids who are never adopted, and they certainly don’t end up at a university with ivy climbing its walls. While I’d never call myself lucky, I’m luckier than a lot of my former peers.
I watch, intrigued as the passenger door opens and the interior light flicks on, revealing a glimpse of a beautiful blond girl as the driver. So unexpected is the driver’s gender, as well as her purple beanie with a yellow smile emoji on its front, that I only manage to notice two things about the passenger being dropped off—blond and male—before the car door closes and the interior lights go out.
The Camaro backs out of the drive as the security guy near the front door calls out, “Password?”
“Folklore,” the newcomer responds, his deep voice lazy and amused. As if he too finds this whole set-up ridiculous.
As he nears, I hurry to turn on my phone’s flashlight function, waving it back and forth as instructed by Clare Duffy, the Briar Club member who’s evaluating my club suitability. She’s super intense and definitely the type to ask whether I did my jobexactlyas specified. As a senior and the membership committee chair, her recommendation will make or break me.
Footfalls approach in the darkness. I turn, allowing my phone to illuminate the footpath to the back of the house. The guy’s several feet behind but doesn’t hurry to catch up. Reining in any outward signs of annoyance, I open the unlocked back door and wait for him, basking in the heat escaping from inside.
All thoughts of the temperature vanish when the guest steps onto the brightly lit landing. He’s utterly beautiful. Bewilderingly so. Looking at him warms me up far faster than the heat pumping from the vents. Sparkling blue eyes, high cheekbones, washboard abs. Yes, washboard abs, which I’m able to admire because he’s shirtless under the wool coat that hangs open even in this frigid weather.
And it isn’t just his beauty and bare chest that are unsettling. He seems to have been in a fight. The corner of his lower lip is swollen and scraped raw, implying he got on the wrong side of a fist. A glance at his knuckles reveals his hands were thrown, too.
Swallowing past attraction and curiosity, I remind myself this is none of my business.Heis none of my business.I’m just here to do a job.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I say, eyes focused on a burnished gold medallion pendant that hangs from an oxidized chain. I want to examine it more closely but don’t want to get caught staring at his chest.
“Who are you?” He scans the kitchen.“The hostess?”
As if his looks weren’t enough, he has an accent as pretty as he is. Irish, I think.
“Yes… Sort of.” It’s an accurate enough description for my job tonight, and I prefer hostess to minion. Shrugging off my coat, I set it on the back of a tall chair along the raised granite counter.
His eyes drop to my dark gray, v-neck sweater, lingering on my breasts. After a beat, he drags his gaze up to my face. “Are you playing cards?”
The brazen way he checks me out would be irritating if he were less attractive. Instead, my insides feel like marshmallows over an open flame. “No, not playing cards.”
