That night, I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling. My stomach was still clenched. My parents hadn’t asked how the dinner had gone—perhaps my expression said it all—but they’d talked about how good this merger would be for the whole werewolf community. About what a great thing I’d be doing.
I didn’t feel great. I felt sick.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, then paused.
And what exactly could you tell Kip?
Nothing. I couldn’t share one goddamn bit of it.
The only light on the horizon was that Jerome had agreed nothing would happen until I’d finished school. So that meant three or four years more of freedom.
Years of waiting for the axe to fall.
I prayed for time to slow down, for the next years to crawl by, but deep down I knew the truth.
Time was going to slip through my fingers.
Chapter Three
Kip
I slammedthe cover of my book closed. My eyes were burning, and the words had begun to blur together. I reached up and rubbed my thumb and forefinger over the bridge of my nose.
“I amsodone,” I muttered.
“You did better than me,” Mason joked. “I gave up an hour ago. I’ve been sitting here scrolling through my phone. By the way, you’ve got about thirty videos waiting for you.”
“Thirty? And how many are cute, fluffy animals?”
“Twenty-eight, including one where a cat is fishing. It’s so adorable and funny. The other two were taken by someone at a frat party. It shows a guy and girl slip-sliding around in a foam bath, grabbing on to each other. The girl ended up losing her top, and the guy’s shorts were yanked down. Lemme tell you, considering what he was showing off, I don’t think it did him any favors with the ladies. Anyway, it was pretty funny. I’m surprised you didn’t go.”
Oh, I’d wanted to. One of my buddies on the team said Ihadto go. That everyone was going to be there, includingsome sports bunnies who liked to have some horizontal fun time with the swimmers.
God, I miss horizontal fun time.
“I had too much going on.” It disgusted me just how weak I sounded.
Mason didn’t reply, which was enough to unnerve me. I turned and found him staring, open-mouthed. “You missed a party?You?”
I rolled out a deep sigh. This was the conversation I’d managed to avoid during our first year of school: we’d both been too busy trying to get into the groove.
Now seemed like a good time for us to discuss things.
I took a deep breath. “Do you wanna know why I was such a dog in high school?”
Mason’s eyes gleamed. “Hormones?”
I smirked. “Okay, that was part of it. It was mostly because my parents wanted me to experience life while I could, because once I hit college I was expected to buckle down, and get great grades. In high school I could do enough to get into an accredited college, and still party because when it was over, the whole ‘adult responsibility’ thing would kick in. But they made it clear: once I was in school,goodwas never gonna be enough.”
I wanted to protest, to say how unfair it was, but couldn’t. My parents had been concerned about my future. About the life I would create once I moved on. My brother and sister had been made to buckle down because as the oldest, I would have a lot more responsibility. At least they’d be able to slack off a little in college. Not that I was jealous. No, of course not.
Well, maybe a little.
Before Mason could get a word out, I whined, “You know, I thought I was smart.”
“Youaresmart.”
“Then why do I feel so dumb on these questions? LikeIdentify the x-intercept and y-intercept of the line 4x – y = 12.”
