I snickered a laugh as he chased her into the lunchroom, eventually catching her around the waist and tickling her until she apologized. It was such a cutenormalmoment, I could almost see the two of them as a couple.
Almost.
I started to follow them when a red-haired girl stepped into my path. Her chin was tilted up with determination, but I was quick to notice the tremble in her hands, clenched at her sides.
“Can I help you?” I drawled, narrowing my eyes in a threatening sort of way. Sure, it wasn’t the friendliest thing to do given I didn’t know this chick from Barbie. But I was pretty confident she wasn’t about to invite me for a sleepover.
“You think you’re so much better than us,” she spat, but her voice quivered. With fear? I hoped so.
My brows shot up. “Do I?”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she waged on, like I hadn’t spoken. “You’re nothing but a loose-legged homewreckingmurderer. Beck will use you up and throw you aside and the rest of us will be there to laugh when it happens.”
This chick clearly had a screw loose. Didn’t she hear that I punched a girl in the face yesterday?
I took a step closer to her, feeling a thread of satisfaction when she flinched. “Listen ... whatever your name is. You all seem to be under some delusion that I’m one of you. I’m not. I’m one ofthem.” I indicated to the lunchroom where my guys were all at our usual table, and Beck was glaring menacingly over at us. “As for whose home I supposedly wrecked, you can’t seriously be talking about Brittley?” I scoffed a laugh. “She was never dating him, except inside her own head. Grow up, stop tearing other women down to make yourselves feel better.” I flicked a glance down the hall where her friends watched with rapt concentration. “It’s not classy, and it’s certainly not going to get you ahead in life. So, just back the fuck off. Got it?”
The redhead looked uncertain, then steeled herself. Her nostrils flared and her fists tightened at her sides. “What if I don’t? What are you going to do about it? Hit me, like you did Sarah-Jane? She’s probably going to need a nose job, thanks to you.”
Sick of the dramatics, I took another step closer to her, and she flinched back again as predicted. “Maybe I will.” She paled to almost gray, and I rolled my eyes. “Have a great day.” I brushed past her with a deliberate shoulder check and continued into the lunchroom to join my guys.
For all my independence and preaching about being bigger than petty high school games, I still went straight to Beck, sat in his lap, and kissed him forwaylonger than was acceptable in a public forum. So sue me, I was human. Those crazy bitches needed to learn that Beck and I were solid, and I wasn’t goinganywhere.
“Everything okay?” he asked me in a husky whisper when I released his lips. His eyes shot across the lunchroom, indicating to red-haired Barbie.
I gave him a smug smile. “Totally fine, I just needed to mark my territory.”
His brows shot up, and a small smile played across his lips. “Butterfly, did you just piss on me?”
“You’re damn right I did,” I replied with a wicked grin.
17
“Oh, bingo!” I announced, checking my phone. “He agreed to meet tonight, even invited us to dinner.” I grinned broadly at Beck across the dining table from me and waved my phone.
“Seriously?” he muttered, sounding a bit shocked. He reached for my phone, and I handed it to him to see for himself. “Huh. Technically, he invitedyouto dinner, but even so...” His brow furrowed, and I groaned.
“What? You’ve got that look. What’s wrong?”
He gave a small shrug, handing my phone back. “Just seems suspicious that he agreed to meet so easily. Everything we hear about Graeme Huntley is that he holds his privacy of utmost importance. Now he’s inviting a Delta heir into his home? Seems... odd.”
I huffed, disappointed that he wasn’t congratulating me. “Maybe he’s just curious about what I want to discuss? I mean, I’m still his niece.”
Beck nodded, but didn’t lose the tension in his jaw.
“What does it matter?” Dylan commented. “It’s not like Riley is going alone, and Huntley wouldn’t dare hurt her so close to the vote. They need Catherine to hold her seat and she can’t do that without a living heir.”
“True that,” Jasper agreed. “Hey, can I come to dinner too? I really want to see the inside of Huntley Manor.”
“No,” Beck replied, throwing a scrunched up ball of paper at his friend across the table. We’d all been working on school assignments while eagerly waiting on a response from Graeme Huntley. We needed to know why he hadn’t shown the cops his stalker files for Katelyn and decided the best way to find out... was to ask.
Beck was done now though, leaned back in his chair, gaze on me. “What?” I finally said, my lips tilting up before I could stop them.
“We never finished our conversation last night, Butterfly,” he said softly, and I realized that I hadn’t given him the folder yet. I’d packed up the papers and slipped it in the drawer before we went to bed, and then promptly forgot all the scary horrible shit.
“You said that you thought the gifts were from the stalker, the flowers, maybe.”
Beck had actually let it go longer than I expected, but he’d clearly had enough of waiting.
