Digging half-moons into my palm, I glare at Kohen. Every day, I wrongly assume he’ll leave me alone if I have headphones in or a shiv ready to pull on him.
But no.
Whether he’s risking giving himself hepatitis B with a stick-and-poke tattoo, or lighting something on fire, every day those disgustingly pretty golden-moss eyes of his collide with mine, and every damn day, he opens his equally disgusting pretty mouth to turn my mood from bad to worse.
He falls into stride beside me, twirling the lighter between his fingers and then flicking the spark wheel. It’s brand new, with a dazzling gold surface and a skull he personally engraved.
It would look great on my shelf.
Give me another week, and I’ll probably pocket that one too. Lord knows how much of his shit I’ve stolen after thirteen years of enduring his insufferable presence.
I’m pretty sure he knows I’m the one who keeps stealing fromhim. One day he’s going to try burning me alive for all the shit I’ve done. I just know it.
The pyromaniac kills the flame and then lights it again, on and off, on and off, on and off. He pulls the lighter away before I have the chance to snatch it from him.
We both look out of place while walking through this part of town—him with his tattoos and fire fingers, me with myreputation. The caliber of most students who attend and live around St. Augustine is beyond the type of suburbia with white picket fences and homey-looking buildings with children playing on the front lawn. The top ten percent reigns around here.
Each house we pass ranges in the millions, surpassing the termhouseand sitting comfortably within the category ofmansion. Some are hidden behind tall trees or long, winding driveways. Others are open for all to gawk at.
A couple properties have the wordsmanororestateon big wooden signs by the entrance to their driveway. Maybe I’ll ask Grandpa to send me money to put a plaque out front of our house that saysCrack House. Hell, I’ll even let them put the sign in place of my window as long as I can stop worrying about snow in my room or worse, someone climbing through.
A car pulls up ahead in front of one of the homes, and a lady clad in Louboutins and a Burberry coat glides out of the back seat of a Maserati, pushing her Fendi glasses up her nose as the car drives away. She’s blissfully ignorant of the world around her as she adjusts her open bucket bag in the crook of her elbow.
And just like that, I’m not queasy anymore.
Kohen shakes his head and slows his walk, knowing what comes next. He folds his white shirt sleeves up to hiselbows, so I have an unobstructed—and unwanted—view of the muscles in his forearms bulging against the tattoos. Except it isn’t enough to distract me from the fact that we’re a few feet away from the grab bag in thousand-dollar shoes.
Stealing Nicholas’s laptop bag yesterday didn’t give me nearly the same thrill as this.A stranger. It’s an urge more profound than getting to the metal container behind my bed frame. An itch that needs to be scratched or else I’ll die. And why die when this woman makes it so damn easy for me?
Blood rushes through my ears as I near her, keeping my steps even and steady. She keeps buzzing the gate that won’t open, while my eyes are on the abyss of goodies hanging off her arm. Then I see the corner of a wallet, and the itch turns into a full-blown need.
Jackpot.
I love rich women; they can be so wonderfully oblivious.
My shoulder collides with hers as I pass, and I quickly pull away, making my stomach turn unhappily.
“Sorry,” I mumble, holding up a hand when the woman tears her attention away from the gate long enough to sneer.
She turns around without a word, too busy with the buzzer to notice the wallet-sized bulge in my pocket. I keep walking with a steady pace, innocently tucking a lock of copper hair behind my ear as Kohen mumbles something under his breath.
“Are you going to spend another night alone in your shitty house?” Kohen doesn’t spare me a glance, saying the words as if they taste like bile he’s been forced to swallow.
Great, it’s a talking kind of day.
“I was thinking of inviting your dad over, actually,” I snap, then chide myself to reign in my temper. My teeth chatter as I pull myblazer tighter around myself, even though it’s a record-hot day for winter. I need another hit so all this shit is more bearable. I can’t be hungover if I never stop.
The entire Osman clan is blessed with ungodly good looks that make the other mortals look pathetic—even their mom is bangin’. Their family shares warm, deep brown skin that practically dazzles in the sun because they probably eat gold for breakfast. Kohen is the only one who likes to keep his black hair cut short on the sides with soft curls on top, and just like Kiervan, he has staggeringly broad shoulders, thick legs, a thicker wallet, and the type of smile that makes everyone in the PTA give their life savings for a share in their pharmaceutical company.
They—not including Kohen—have the charisma that thaws even the coldest of hearts. I was ready to risk it all when I buddied up with Kiervan for a ridiculous charity project a few years back. And, I’ll be honest, I was suddenly a reverent humanitarian during those three hours he was charming my panties off.
Kiervan is everything Kohen is not; namely, he doesn’t piss me the fuck off. This particular Osman wakes up every day and makes my imagination run wild with all the ways I could kill him with a pen.
“I like them older,” I tack on, because mentioning his father dearest always pisses him off.
The dark cloud beside me darkens further, but I couldn’t give a shit. No one is making Kohen talk to me. He’s always been better seen from afar anyway.
Kohen scowls, then schools his features into an annoyingly nonchalant look. It does nothing to hide the fact that he wants to strangle me. “Funny, last night your mother said the opposite aboutme.”
