Power Play: Upper East Side (Greisbach Academy #2)

by Trinity Towers

  The suspense was excruciating.

  “Pantha’ baby, come get your trophy! You’re tonight’s reigning queen!”

  My heart sank as I watched my best friend gracefully accept his fate. He was the runner up.

  When he looked back out into the audience, I blew him a kiss, forcing a smile to my lips, mouthing, next time.

  ~*~ TT ~*~

  “Party honey!” Damien blew the purple party horn between his lips as he draped an arm over my shoulders. He’d changed his outfit again and this time he was wearing a black bandage dress and sporting a platinum blonde wig that fell down the length of his back nearly touching his ass.

  Laughing, I turned just enough to wrap my arms around him and give him a big hug. “Congratulation on the second place, I’m so proud of you, Damien.”

  “I was so nervous, but it worked out. And I’m moving on to the next level of the competition.”

  “Amazing.” Stepping out of his embrace, I took his hands in mine and gave my head a shake. “You look fabulous. I know I couldn’t work that dress as well as you can.” My gaze shifted to his heels. “Or those shoes.” With the four-inch heels on he was nearly as tall as Jaxson was—almost.

  The catwalk had been dismantled with lightning speed after the competition to make more room for a dance floor. Over half of the people in the club were dancing, in pairs or groups. But no one was alone. I was learning the LGBT scene was very social. There were no real outsiders; no matter how crazy or off-the-wall you were you still belonged. There was so much love that it was beautiful to behold, an exact opposite of the people at Greisbach Academy.

  “Why do you two not have drinks?” one of the queens that I’d seen strut the runway in the show said, grinning from ear to ear. From my amateur assessment she was already three sheets to the wind. She looked at me, her pale blue eyes gleaming and thrust a shot into my hand. “Here. You’re too sober.”

  Accepting the bright blue liquid, I looked over at Damien, who just grinned and shrugged.

  “You too.” She passed one to Damien. “Hold on! Don’t drink those.”

  I watched her go back to the bar that was only a few feet away and order a couple more shots before returning to us. She was almost as tall as Damien and dressed in a bodysuit and tutu. Her fake boobs were easily a DD-cup and bounced with each step.

  “What are we drinking to?” I asked.

  “I’m Tilly, by the way darling.” She puckered her red-painted lips. “Let’s drink to new friends.” Her gaze turned to Damien and she gave him a very blatant up-and-down look of appraisal and then shrugged. “And maybe other things.”

  Other things? I laughed as we clanged our shot glasses together and took our shots. The liquid slid down my throat, burning as it went down. I had no idea what it was that she gave me, but before I knew it, I’d downed several more.

  “Come on girl, show Tilly your moves.” Tilly grabbed both my hand and Damien’s, pulling us onto the dance floor with her.

  Chapter 13

  Monday morning. I moaned as I rolled out of bed. It had been a crazy weekend and now I had a crazy week to deal with. I had one more week to convince the student body that I was going to be able to do a better job than Trina of representing them. Shit, who was I kidding; it was all just a popularity contest, plain and simple.

  Forcing my ass out of bed, I quickly showered and got dressed into my uniform. It was so hard to stand out when everyone looked alike. The school had numerous reasons for making us wear a uniform and for the most part I agreed with the policy. The school was about tradition and everyone wearing the same thing made the focus on our studies and not who was the most fashionable. At least it made picking out clothing in the morning easy.

  Once downstairs, I poured myself a bowl of cereal and ate quickly. Damien and Olivia were prompt when picking me up and I was running out of time. I hadn’t seen my mother all weekend. I wasn’t overly sure where she was holing herself up, but I suspected it had something to do with Tony.

  Fucking Tony. I was disliking him more and more each day. He seemed be monopolizing her time and giving her ideas that weren’t in line with what we’d discussed for the restaurant.

  I was exiting the house just as the twins’ car pulled up to the curb. But it wasn’t Damien and Olivia’s car that caught my attention. As if they’d planned it, Jaxson’s driver pulled up across the street in front of Jaxson’s house.

  I found myself frozen in the spot that I stood as I watched the front door across the street open and Jaxson appear from the open doorway. “Jaxson,” I whispered into the crisp morning air. As if hearing my whisper, he looked up and our gazes caught. He looked tired and as he descended the front steps, and I could see him wince slightly with each step.

  Chewing at my lower lip, I debated running across the street to talk to him. He was dressed in his uniform for school, so he was definitely going. Maybe if I smoothed things over now, we could be good again and go back to being school royalty. No one seemed to know we had broken up so we could continue on before anyone knew anything different. I spent so much time frozen in indecision that Jaxson had already gotten into his car and driven off before I could make up my mind on what to do.

  “Come on, space cadet. Shit or get off the pot,” Damien called to me.

  Giving my head a shake, I reluctantly took the steps down to the sidewalk and got into the back of the SUV. “Sorry…. I—”

  “Yeah, I know what. You were eye-fucking your ex. Either talk to him or forget him. Those are your options, honey,” Damien said, voicing the obvious.

  Clicking my safety belt around me, I sighed, closing my eyes and slumping back into the leather seat. “Yeah, thanks for the heads-up on that, it’s much appreciated.”

  “Not a problem, sometimes you need to hit people with the obvious in order to get them to pull their head out of their ass.”

  I wanted to deny that my head was up my ass, but to a great extend he was right. Jaxson had made a move and I had fought with him. The chances of him making another move were slim to none. The ball was in my court at this point.

  “Maybe I can pull him aside this morning before assembly if we get there early enough.” I opened one eye and looked at him, too lazy to give him the courtesy of looking at him fully.

  “That might be a good idea. The sooner you two get this craziness worked out the better for everyone as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Wait a second.” Sitting upright in the seat, I frowned. “Where’s Olivia?”

  “She went in early. The drama teacher wanted her to go over some lines. I guess they’ve been struggling to get her into the right frame of mind.” He rolled his blue eyes and grinned.

  “Don’t mock!” I gave him a playful swat on the shoulder. “You of all people should know the importance of being in character. You put on quite the performance Saturday night.”

  I could see a slight blush color his dark complexion as he grinned. “So you really think I did pretty well?”

  “Of course! You got second place, so I wasn’t the only one. You’re going to continue with drag, aren’t you?”

  “Course! Think I’m going to stop without getting a first-place trophy?”

  “I think you need to let people know about this. You’re fantastic.”

  A rip of laugher erupted from him. “You’re hilarious. Like I’m not enough of an outsider as it is.”

  Placing a hand on his arm, I gave it a gentle squeeze. “Yes, but at least tell Olivia. You’re twins for God’s sakes! I thought twins shared everything?”

  “Most things. And I’ll invite her to the next one. I didn’t want the pressure of too many people I know seeing me, it being my first time and all.”

  “I get that.” I nodded. The more people the more nervous he’d be. The car pulled up to the school and a few minutes later we were strolling arm in arm through the courtyard and into the school. I hadn’t thought that Jaxson’s car had been that far ahead of us, but he was nowhere to be seen.


  Once we had our morning books in our bags, we entered the theater for the morning assembly. Lo and behold, there he was sitting in his normal spot—Preston, Gabriel and Selena were already seated. My seat next to Jaxson was vacant.

  “Just go,” Damien hissed from behind me, giving me a little push forward and down the row until I was sitting down next to Jaxson, with Damien sitting on the other side of me.

  “Morning, Keira.” Jaxson’s voice was cold, and he didn’t look at me, instead opting to look at something at the front of the room. I hated the icy tone in his voice; it cut through me better than any knife ever could.

  “Morning Jaxson.” I gave him a smile that I hoped was warm enough that it would melt his icy exterior. He shifted his eyes to look from whatever had his attention to me. For a moment I saw a flicker of softness before the hard wall came back up. Screw it; I’d just say what I had to say. Keeping my voice low so no one would hear what I had to say, I continued, “Look, I think the other day things got out of hand and we both said stuff that neither one of us really meant.”

  He cocked a brow at me as he looked back down to meet my gaze. “You think?”

  “I know. And I really think that we need to have a talk and work through this.”

  The tension in his body seemed to drain—just slightly. Hopefully all we needed was to have a nice talk. “Okay. I’ve got to spend the day with the counsellor and private tutors to get me up to speed, but after school.”

  “After school I’ve got volleyball practice.” I grimaced; scared I was going to blow my chance to fix this and seriously considering giving up practice so we could talk. He was so important to me and he certainly beat out volleyball hands down. “I can skip it though.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You won’t. After supper we can take a walk in the park, how’s that sound?”

  It felt like a weight was being lifted off my shoulders as I nodded. “I’d love that.” We exchanged a smile and I immediately began to feel better. Maybe we just needed that little week’s break to get things into perspective. Maybe he missed me just as much as I’d missed him. To my disappointment he didn’t made any effort to take my hand or give me a hug once the assembly was dismissed and we went on our separate ways.

  “Don’t worry girl. It’s a start,” Damien assured me, slinging an arm over my shoulders as we left the theater.

  ~*~ TT ~*~

  I was feeling good. Better than I had felt in the past week to be honest. I was only seventeen; the last thing I needed was to be so wrapped up in a man that the status of our relationship would dictate my mood and performance in other parts of my life, but I couldn’t help it. He was the first man I’d ever loved. I’d even lain in bed daydreaming of us down the road, going to college together, graduating, getting married and having kids. Perhaps I was daydreaming, living in a fairy tale, but it was a damned satisfying daydream.

  Putting my backpack into my locker after getting changed into my gym clothes, I could hear Trina and her horde of bitches before seeing them. All last week I’d hustled to get to practice early so that I’d be changed and already on the court practicing before she made it into the changing room. Today I’d been too slow, apparently. Closing my eyes, I gave myself a mental pep talk. There was no way I was going to let her get to me today.

  “Keira. Just the woman I’ve been wanting to talk to.”

  Making sure there was a smile on my lips, I turned to face my opponent. Trina was accompanied by Camila and Alyssa. Heaven’s forbid she confront me on her own without backup in the locker room. “Trina, what pleasant surprise to see you here on time for a change.”

  Our other teammates, with the exception of Camila and Alyssa, practically ran from the dressing room, each one giving us a look over their shoulder before exiting; it was as though they were terrified Trina would see them and lay her wrath on one of them instead of me. “Cute.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, my smile faded as I looked Trina up and down with distaste in my expression. “Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want? I’ve got a practice to get to.”

  She pouted. “Oh, but I just thought that with us having so much in common that maybe we should try being friends again. I’ve offered an olive branch to you before and you can’t seem to recognize that we could be great friends.”

  I stared at her, not sure what her angle was. With Trina there was always an angle. I didn’t have to wait long for my curiosity to be satisfied. “We have very little in common from how I see it.”

  “Well, we’re both on the volleyball team. We’re both running for president. We’ve both got top-notch grades. We’ve got so much in common.”

  My eyes narrowed at her. “Just get to the reason you want to talk to me before you make all four of us late.” When she didn’t answer straight away, I huffed and started to walk past her, my shoulder slamming into hers as I walked past.

  A hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, keeping me from escaping while her two minions blocked my path in case I was able to break away from her grasp. I spun around, my mind set on telling her to fuck off when she grinned again. My head tilted to the side and I glared at her. “Make it quick,” I growled.

  “Well, I just wanted to say that if you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

  Rage swirled within me. I was so fucking over this. “What are you going on about, you fucking nutjob?”

  She didn’t seem perturbed by my outburst, if anything she seemed amused. “I’m just saying that since we’re both ex-girlfriends of Jaxson we have a unique bond now. I know how hard it can be to get over him.” Her grin was as wicked and as untrustworthy as that of the Cheshire cat.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you? Because that’s not what I’m told. You might think the Upper East Side is big, but it’s really not. And in case you want to know who told me”—she winked at me, releasing my arm and making a zipping motion across her lips—“I can’t say. But rest assured he made it clear to me that he was done with your bumpkin ass.”

  Eyeing her, I wasn’t sure what to say.

  She giggled. “Ooops. Guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh? But, let’s be honest with each other: If he can’t trust you with his secrets then did you really think it would last? You were a novelty—face it. And now it’s over.”

  Dismissing me, she and the others walked to their lockers and began to get changed, leaving me uncertain as to what to think. Jaxson wouldn’t have told her, surely? It was insane that I’d even think that. But how did she know?

  Go! Just get out of here! A voice in the back of my voice screamed at me. The longer I stood there staring at her, flabbergasted, the more she’d enjoy it. Could it be possible that she’d just guessed? It was no secret that Jaxson and I were normally all over one another, but we hadn’t been this morning. Had she picked up on that? I couldn’t allow myself to harbor thoughts that he’d voluntarily told her we were having issues. Leaving the changing room, I burst out into the gym. I’d discuss it with Jaxson that night and we’d get it all sorted out. At least I hoped we would.

  Chapter 14

  I was obsessing over my looks this evening, I knew it, but at the same time I couldn’t help myself. I needed to look perfect. For the first time ever I wore make-up to go out for a run. I needed Jaxson to remember how much he desired and missed me. Did men obsess and worry over women as much as women did men? I didn’t know. It would only be fair, though I suspected they didn’t.

  My hair caught the light perfectly, shining as I pulled it into a ponytail. With it getting colder by the day, I opted for a pair of navy-colored fleece running pants and matching form-fitting sweatshirt. Grabbing my earphones, I placed them around my neck and slid my phone into my sports armband made to secure my phone while running. He hadn’t said where in the park we were supposed to meet, but I suspected it was the water fountain where I’d originally run into him.

  Shoving my bank card into my left pants pocket I zipped it up, slipped my snea
kers on, and made my way downstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. Leaving the house, I veered left and crossed the street, then dashed into the park.

  He’d said in a text to meet him in the park at 8pm; it was five minutes to eight. At this time of year, it was already quite dark by then, but the park lights kept the running trails well illuminated. Not to mention it was still quite busy in the park. The beauty with Central Park was that there were always people around. In my opinion Manhattan was much safer than people gave it credit for.

  It took several minutes, but two minutes after 8pm I rounded the corner and sure enough there was Jaxson, lounging with one shoulder bracing himself up against a tree near the fountain, one ankle crossed casually over the other.

  My run slowed to a jog and then a brisk walk as I approached him. As I neared, my mind began to whirl. I was not sure how to proceed. I longed to step into his arms and have him hold me tight to him and tell me we can just forget the insanity of the past week and go back to being us.

  But he didn’t step forward to embrace me.

  “Hey.” I gave him a half-smile, hating the uncertainty I was feeling around him right now. I’d even forgotten that I was supposed to be angry with him over Trina knowing about us.

  “Hey.”

  Effing awkward…

  Running my fingers through my ponytail, I rocked back onto my heels, eyeing him. Might as well just get to it. “I might as well just put this out there. Trina knows we’ve broken up.”

  He frowned. “We haven’t broken up. This is where our problem is, Keira, things got seriously heated and next thing I know you’re storming off on me basically telling me to go fuck myself after I find you with another man. We hadn’t even broken up and you’d found another man.” His body began to tense.

  “Trina and her posse seem to think we are. I don’t even know what’s going on with us. I had no idea how to react or what to say. You haven’t tried to contact me. As for the guy, I was drunk and angry—it’s not the best excuse, but it’s what I have.”