Terrell shrugs. "I don't know, man. Determined? Like he was about to do something drastic." He glances at me. "Why, does it matter?"
"No." I smooth my jacket one more time, straightening the pocket square that doesn't need straightening. "Doesn't matter at all."
It matters because Kit has no reason to be at a basketball auction. He doesn't follow the sport, doesn't attend games, and doesn't engage with anything related to my world unless I force the interaction. So why is he here?
I peek through the curtains, surveying the crowd as they fill the gym. And then I see him.
Kit is sitting near the back, arms crossed over his chest, wearing a black blazer over a cream sweater that makes him look softer than he has any right to. His dark hair is pushed back justenough to show the sharp line of his jaw. He's not smiling. Fuck, that's not the face of someone who came to watch.
KIT
Milowasn'tlyingaboutthe crab cakes. They're incredible, little golden puffs of seasoned crab and cream cheese that melt on my tongue, and I've already eaten six of them while pretending I came here for any other reason than the one currently making my palms sweat against the bidding paddle in my lap.
The gymnasium has been transformed, basketball hoops draped in gold and black fabric, the school colors strung across the ceiling in sweeping arcs, tables lining the edges of the court with food and drinks and auction programs.
Everything’s been upgraded over the past few months, the new bleachers able to fold back and allow room for rows of chairs facing a makeshift stage at center court, and the place is packed. Omegas, Betas, and a handful of Alphas, all buzzing with the kind of chaotic energy that comes from mixing hormones, competition, and an open bar.
That’sdefinitely new and most likely sponsored by the basketball team. There’s some rich kid on the roster and anything he wants, he usually gets.
I'm sitting between Milo and Avery in the seventh row, close enough to see the stage clearly but far enough back that I can pretend I'm not invested. Avery is tucked under Declan's arm a few seats over, looking disgustingly happy, his vanilla cupcake scent blending with Declan's pine until the air around them smells like a bakery in a forest. Quentin is on Milo's other side, his attention tracking Iris who’s working just beside center stage.
I make a little whipped sound, Quentin throwing me a finger before turning his attention right back to Iris. I’m only alittlejealous. Everyone around me is in love and I'm here to commit financial warfare. Feels about right.
"You don't have to do this," Milo whispers for the third time since we sat down, leaning close enough that only I can hear him. "There's still time to eat more crab cakes and go home with your dignity intact."
"My dignity died the first time Easton knocked my textbooks out of my hands in September. This is a resurrection."
"That's not what resurrection means."
"It does tonight."
The auction has been going for about forty minutes, basketball players cycling through the stage one by one. A point guard with a nice smile went for fifteen hundred. A center who could barely string a sentence together somehow pulled two thousand because he flexed mid-introduction and three Omegas in the front row lost their minds. A shooting guard with a sleeve tattoo and a visible knot bulge in his dress pants, because apparently tailoring is a lost art, went for twenty-two hundred after a bidding war between two Betas who both looked ready to commit murder.
I watch all of it with the same level of interest I'd give a parking meter. My paddle stays in my lap, my posture stays relaxed, and my heart rate stays normal. Then the announcer calls Easton's name, and every single one of those things becomes a lie.
He walks out from behind the curtain and the gymnasium responds before I do, a swell of noise that rolls through the crowd as people shift forward in their seats. He's wearing that navy suit, the one that fits his shoulders so perfectly it should be illegal, the white shirt unbuttoned past his collarbone to show the chain and the tattoo that creeps up the side of his neck.Fuck.
He looks so offensively, aggressively good that my body mounts a full rebellion against my brain.
My pulse hammers up into my throat as my scent sharpens before I can rein it in, the black cherry going syrupy in a way that I know Milo can smell because he glances at me sideways. Heat pools low in my stomach and my thighs press together under the pretense of crossing my legs, the first whisper of slick making me want to die right here in this folding chair.
This is just the thrill of the plan, the anticipation of revenge, the rush that comes from knowing I'm about to ruin someone's entire evening. It is not attraction. It is absolutely, categorically, without question not attraction, and if my body could stop leaking evidence to the contrary for five goddamn minutes, that would be great.
Easton scans the crowd from the stage and then smiles at someone in the front row and my stomach clenches. He rolls his sleeves up to his forearms, showing off his muscles and an Omega two rows ahead of me actually gasps. His hands are enormous. I knew that already because those hands have shoved past me in hallways and knocked things from my grip, but seeing them displayed under stage lighting while he works his cuffs is a different experience entirely and one that I'm going to need therapy to process.
The announcer rattles off his stats, his position, his GPA, because of course Easton has a 3.8 while also being the worst person alive. Paddles start going up before she's even finished.
"One thousand!"
"Twelve hundred!"
A Beta from the lacrosse team, grins at his friends before raising his paddle. "Fifteen hundred!"
My jaw tightens incrementally with every number, my fingers curling around my own paddle until the cardboard edge digs into my palm. I watch them bid on Easton like he's a prize, like spending time with him is something to be won, and the fury that rises in my throat doesn't feel like righteous anger anymore. It feels possessive, and that distinction horrifies me.
"Two thousand!" a blonde Omega calls, and something in my chest snaps.
My paddle goes up before I've made a conscious decision to raise it. "Twenty-five hundred."
