His face fell. “You don’t think he’d understand?”
“Your guy didn’t.”
“No,” Aiden said softly, “I guess not, but they can’t all be assholes, right?”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but I’ve got to get back to Riverton for a meeting, anyway. I have other priorities right now. Who has time to date when they’re on parole, right?”
He winced. “Guess we’ll be single together.”
“Guess so.”
For now, anyway. I had no doubts that Dr. Donovan would meet someone better, someone worthy of his love. It was different for me. I was the one who wasn’t worthy.
There were some sins you couldn’t leave in the past. Some sins you carried with you.
And Bailey was too young, too sweet, too innocent to be dirtied by me.
CHAPTER 5
Bailey
I bentover the pool table in the student rec center and lined up the perfect shot. Then I adjusted my hold, making it a little loose and sloppy. Tilted the cue tip up just the tiniest bit so that it wouldn’t make good contact and jerked my arm forward.
The ball lurched drunkenly over the felt and missed the corner pocket by a wide margin.
I grinned, satisfied, as the two fratholes seated behind me talked shit.
“Do you try to fuck your mother with that shaky pole?” one asked with a raspy laugh.
“Sad when a dude can’t get it in the hole,” his friend agreed.
I smirked to myself. This was going to be easy. Half turning, I said, “Put your money where your mouth is if you think I’m so bad.”
Frathole 1 snorted. “That’d be like taking candy from a baby.”
I circled the table and lined up another terrible shot. The two fratholes went back to their conversation. That was okay. Patience was part of the game.
“Goddamn, it pisses me off that Christian won again last week,” Frathole 1 said. “I swear I had him, but he’s always got this last boost of speed.”
“He’s not a better driver,” Frathole 2 said. “He’s just rich. You know he’s got unlimited funds to soup up his car.”
“I just need to get my hands on more of those cheap parts Jace told me about. If I could add a cold air intake and a nitrous oxide injection system…”
I lined up my next shot while he rambled on about mods to improve his car’s power and handling. Dude probably wouldn’t know where to start with installing half those parts, andcheap parts? That was a red flag too.
But not my problem.
In fact, it all worked to my advantage tonight.
I missed another shot. The frat bros jeered, eager to aim their frustration somewhere else.
I half turned, ready to make my move, when Seb came over. Damn. He was supposed to be at one of those terrible frat parties.
“Dude, that shot was awful,” he said loudly as he arrived. “I thought you were better at this.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “It’s taken a lot of effort to play this badly.”
I wasn’t even lying. Ensuring I missed every shot—but made it look believable—when my muscle memory and experience wanted to do the opposite? Not easy.
