Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“You do remember when you tried to help me with chemistry in high school?” he said.
He’d had the attention span of a heroin-addicted chihuahua, so I’d had to come up with weird acronyms for the entire periodic table.
“But if you’re up for it…fine.” He picked up his drink, his bicep bulging as he lifted it to his face. “And thanks.” His gaze held mine for a moment before the waitress broke it by leaning over the plastic divider.
She placed our plates on the table, and I swear, she had loosened an extra button on her blouse since she’d dropped off our drinks. “Anything else I can get you, sugar?” She was looking at Wolf again. Obviously.
“Some mayonnaise. Please.”
He didn’t eat mayonnaise. He’d always said it looked like jizz. But I loved it…
I glanced down at the enormous pile of food in front of me. Money had been tight in all areas. I’d pretty much been living on toast and ramen for the last six months. I wasn’t sure how I didn’t have rickets. Or wasn’t yet the perfect size four my mother aspired for me to be.
In the grand scheme of gestures, buying me a Waffle Hut breakfast would probably be considered small to most people. To me, it might as well have been a seven-course Michelin Star meal. I had to wonder why he was suddenly being so nice to me when, only a week ago, he’d literally blackmailed me into being his maid. Maybe he felt sorry for me. Or maybe it was just that Wolf was nice, and in my pitiful state last night, I’d pulled on his heartstrings and crossed back over the line from enemy to friend.
But a tiny voice in the back of my mind said I had hurt him, and this could just be an elaborate plot to lure me closer and break me.
“So,” he said, drowning his plate in ketchup. “As far as criminal activity, where do you think your stronghold is?”
“You mean my strong suit?” I glanced around the restaurant, making sure no one was close enough to hear him casually chatting about committing felonies.
“Yeah, whatever it is. We know it’s not robbing houses.” He shoveled hash browns into his mouth on a smirk. “Or stealing drugs.”
“I’ve gotten okay at…” I leaned across my plate to whisper, “Pick-pocketing.”
One of his dark brows lifted. “Really?” He picked up his fork and scooped a pile of eggs onto it.
“I mean, Cassie helps. And I freak out every time. But we got a hundred bucks the other night at The Platinum Club.” I speared some eggs and took a bite. God, how did they make them taste so good?
“That’s what you were doing there?” Wolf chuckled before shoveling more food into his mouth. “Jesus… If pick-pocketing horny, drunk men freaks you out, I think it will be easier for you to teach me nuclear physics than me teaching you how to be a criminal.”
I didn’t want to say it, but getting his grades up was going to take a lot of work. Getting me up to criminal speed wasn’t exactly going to be easy, but I wasn’t totally useless… I stabbed a piece of bacon. “Well, I’m sure Harold and his missing wallet don’t think I’m a terrible criminal.”
“Harold?”
“The guy I pick-pocketed…” I put the greasy bacon into my mouth, savoring the salty, slightly charred flavor.
“Right…” He couldn’t look less impressed if he tried.
“Fine. Maybe I should have paid more attention when you and the guys were doing this stuff.” Most of the time, I’d looked the other way, literally, so I had plausible deniability to my mother. And Jesus, when she had inevitably found out what Wolf really was, she marched me to church for hanging out with “bad boys.”
“To think, this whole time I was studying algebra, when I really needed to learn life skills like hot wiring.”
Wolf grinned again before digging into his eggs. He needed to stop smiling like that, and I needed to get a grip. Really? Who got butterflies over a damn smile? “Tell me it’s not a bad skill to have?” The way he did it, absolutely not. Skilled fingers…
My face heated, and I dropped my gaze to my plate like the mess of cheese and mayonnaise-covered potato was the most fascinating thing in the world.
I didn’t know if I could be friends with him. He couldn’t even smile without setting off some kind of chain reaction between my brain and heart.
Sooner or later, I was bound to get hurt.
Sixteen
Wolf
I wasn’t sure what I was doing.
Sleeping in the bed with her. Taking her to breakfast, then driving her to class. I’d lain awake last night, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, trying to unjumble my head.
She hadn’t blocked me.
She had reached out about my dad.
The two things that had eaten a hole in me were bullshit. But she’d still broken it off with me suddenly, for reasons she’d never really explained. She’d still run off with Brent for the summer, leaving me shattered and without answers.