Prologue
Zack Smith
Fifteen Months Before, Pre-Black Reapers
“Professor Smartass! Come take a shot!”
Garrett couldn’t even see me yet. I had just pulled up to the Bernard Boys house after spending some of Saturday afternoon studying, and yes, I was ready for some shots, partying, and good times. But I couldn’t imagine any of us were ever ready for Garrett’s level of raging.
I took off my helmet, laughed to myself, and said, “Time to have some fun.” I hopped up the rickety steps to the house, swung open the door, and extended my arms out as the rest of the Bernard Boys cheered my arrival.
Well, most of them.
Garrett and Mason had their arms around each other, a shot glass in one hand. Connor had a beer in his hand, which he raised in a salute to me. Steele was in the corner; he half-heartedly raised a beer to me, but he hadn’t really been himself in the months since Tara dumped him. Parties didn’t solve the issue.
And there was Brock, a little bit buzzed, something of a weary smirk on his face.
And under his arm was, holy shit, one of the most beautiful women that I had ever seen in my life.
Make no mistake about it—as a Bernard Boy and an older-than-average college student, I did not lack for women in my life. The women in “the real world” loved how I was tough yet handsome, a scrapper who looked more “handsome stud” than “tough-ass bouncer.” The gals at the University of New Mexico found it so sexy that a college student was of drinking age, drove a motorcycle, and didn’t dress like a boy in his basement. Although the Bernard Boys all believed they got the most ass, I quietly had the most success of anyone—I just didn’t have most of it at the house.
All of which was to say, if I thought I was looking at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, I knew it to be true.
She had curly brown hair, light brown skin, freckles, a long dress, a slim body, and a great fucking rack. She looked at me with curiosity, almost like she recognized me from somewhere. I had never seen her before, so I just had to assume that I looked like someone she knew.
“Zack,” Brock said, sounding exhausted. “Where the fuck you been, man?”
“Studying,” I said. “Unlike you all, I have to prepare for a future.”
“Shut up, nerd,” Garrett said, all but literally shoving a shot glass in my hand. “When you’re here, you’re a Bernard Boy. Don’t bring that smart kid bullshit in here.”
“I—”
The girl under Brock’s arm was still staring at me. I wanted to say something, introduce myself, but…well, while we didn’t exactly have a hierarchy here in the house, we all respected Brock the most for his tempered manner. We dealt with enough shit in this house; Brock acting like a stabilizing force helped take care of things.
Also, it was just a dick move to steal someone’s girl.
“I’ll need more shots than this,” I said. “Otherwise, I’ll start talking about the process of making liquor, and—”
“Oh my God, shut the fuck up!” Garrett said.
I loved antagonizing Garrett. Of all the people who seemed most different but was actually very similar to me, he most exemplified it. I wasn’t even sure he realized how similar we were—though I projected a quiet exterior and he a very loud one—but it made it that much more fun to push his buttons.
“Cheers,” I said, raising my shot glass and downing the shot.
The boys mockingly applauded me.
“Pussy only waited until nine o’clock to take his first drink,” Mason said. “About damn time you joined the rest of us, asswipe.”
“You can suck my fat bank account,” I said with a laugh.
But that was sort of an interesting problem, wasn’t it? I was very much like these guys but also very much headed to a future that probably did not involve them. I was no genius; I was not going to move to San Francisco to be a programmer and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
But I did well in school, and back when Tara was dating Steele, she’d mentioned that she could help me get a job at her father’s company upon my graduation. It wasn’t a six-figure job, but fifty grand compared to what the rest of these guys made as gas station attendants, construction workers, and security guards might as well have made me the richest man in all of Santa Maria.
Right now, that didn’t matter. We were all broke, we were all in the shithole that was Santa Maria, and we were all running life at the same pace and under the same circumstances.
Give me three more semesters, though, and I’d have to come to a crossroads. Did I stick around with these boys? Was my loyalty strong enough to them that I’d just make the most of it in Santa Maria?
