by Eden O'Neill
Maybe she did.
She shot a hand out. “Are you Noa Sloane? If so, I’m your guide. Hi. My name’s Bow. Well, Rainbow, but most people call me Bow. My whole name’s Rainbow Reed, but you can call me Bow like everyone else.”
She said that in one breath if one could imagine.
I took her hand, and she shook mine so hard I questioned her sized.
She grinned. “Wow, you are tall. How tall?”
“Five ten,” I said, eyeing her. She wasn’t tall. Maybe five foot. Maybe. I studied her sparkling broach where normally an academy tie sat. The thing looked real, like an actual ruby.
Well, she has money.
I supposed like the rest of them. I took in the heeled Mary Janes on her feet. She wore knee-highs like me, but along with her height, the shoe choice made her seriously look like a little kid. I frowned. “You sure you’re a senior?”
“Oh, no.” She giggled so spritely she gained the attention of the others who’d filtered in. She tucked hair behind her ear. “I’m a sophomore, but I’m advanced for my age. I rock at math, hence why I’m in a senior algebra class with you.”
I looked behind the girl, wondering if the enchanted forest animals would catch up behind her. She was literally adorable, rosy cheeks and everything. They went along quite well with the ruby studs in her ears.
They matched the expensive-ass-looking broach.
As it appeared, she’d come by herself to this class, no animals in tow. She proceeded to wave to the teacher ahead, informing him of my presence in this class, and that I was the new kid.
The man seemed unconcerned but did make me introduce myself to the class. Our teacher was Mr. Green, and he informed me to take a seat at the front with Bow.
Once seated, the little one continued to assist me by taking my bag. She even tried to hang it on the back of my chair like my mother.
“I got it,” I said, the girl moving a mile a minute. She spoke just as quick, a full smile on her face. I watched in fascination as she told me she’d be with me for the next two weeks and was here for anything I needed.
She’d again, said it all in one breath.
“Of course, let me know if you ever need anything,” she ended with. “I’ll be outside of all your classes. I have many in the same building already.”
This girl was obviously smart like Bru if she was taking senior-level classes. She kept talking, seriously happy. I mean, there was nothing wrong with that, but she was going so fast I wasn’t quite sure I could keep up.
She giggled after the last thing she said. Like all that happy just had to seep out somewhere. She pointed at me. “So Noa, that’s a really cool name.”
“Sloane,” I said. “No one calls me Noa.”
“Sloane because that’s your last name,” she said, obviously putting that together. “That’s so cool. Mine’s Reed, I could never go by that.”
She laughed again, loud enough where someone actually jumped in their seat. By the way Mr. Green lifted his eyes, something told me this might be a normal occurrence with this girl.
She grinned at me. “Can’t wait to show you around campus. This place is awesome. You’re going to love it. Like I said, I’ll be escorting you to all your classes, so you won’t have to worry about getting lost or anything.”
She said this right before Mr. Green started senior algebra. A girl named Rainbow Reed would be my personal stalker for the upcoming days. A girl who spoke a mile a minute, and with her speed, seriously made me question if she had rabbit DNA.
Life at Windsor Prep was most certainly going to be interesting.
Chapter Five
Dorian
“You sure that’s her?”
Wells dropped a calf, working his shoulders after what I said. He stepped forward, resting an arm on my shoulder.
“Positive,” he said, eyeing the girl across the football field. He frowned. “Definitely her. I’m her brother Bru’s guide around school. He mentioned she was his sister.” He tipped a chin in the girl’s direction. “Saw her leaving on a cart on my way over to meet her bro. I assumed, going to her next class.” His eyes narrowed. “She was with Mayberry.”
I’d seen her in the hallway with the headmaster before.
That made two strikes against this chick, then.
I dropped my own calf, studying the girl who apparently liked to get in the way. I’d admit. That shit with her and Wolf this morning had been funny.
I certainly wasn’t laughing about shit now.
Of course, like this morning, neither was Wolf. Currently, my buddy helped Thatcher stretch on the track surrounding the field. We’d all managed to get the same gym class despite Wells and Thatch being juniors.
Then again, we did get whatever the fuck we wanted around here.
We did because we were legacy, owned this place, and Little Miss Getting-in-the-Way over there was about to figure that out. Wolf helped Thatch up after helping him stretch, a feat in itself since his ass was so big. A lineman for the academy’s football team, the dude had definitely earned his spot.
“Didn’t recognize her at first,” Wells continued. He was platinum blond and actually got ladies (and dudes) with that shit. I guess that’d been the reason he’d done it his freshman year. It got him the attention he wanted. The guy was a manwhore, just like the rest of us. Wells tilted his head. “She had a hood up that night, but I’m sure it’s her. She drove right past me on that cart. Got a good look.”
Pretty much all the fucking guys around here were, and she’d gotten more than one look stepping out onto the field in her booty shorts. Long, basically black hair pulled up into a high ponytail, her complexion like an Egyptian fucking princess. Add that to the full ass cheeks pretty much hanging out of her shorts, and she had all dudes of the straight orientation looking at her. Even Wells, who was more into dudes than chicks.
Wells eyed her appreciatively, doing one better and even whistling. The girl was a walking Kardashian without all the plastic surgery, and the fact she’d stood toe to toe with Wolf told me something about her. People didn’t fuck with Wolf.
People didn’t fuck with any of us.
Thatcher chuckled after what Wells said. Patting his chest, Thatcher eased between us. Thatch grinned at Wells. “I bet you didn’t recognize her,” he said, passing his own appreciative gaze in that direction. Anyone with eyes could see the girl was a smoke show. The fact she stood out like a goddamn giraffe with her height only helped. Thatcher laughed. “Too busy checking out that ass.”
“Like you fucking weren’t.” Wells shoved him. “Anyway, it should have been your big ass out there that night doing the heavy labor. You chose to stay in the fucking van.”
Thatcher frowned. “Last I checked, I won the toss-up, which meant I was driver and you were supposed to be the bitch wrangler.” He muffled Wells’s white-blond hair. “Not my fault whittle guy couldn’t handle his job.”
The two proceeded to punch on each other like a pack of kids, which made Wolf growl and me roll my goddamn eyes.
“This is what happens when you let kids handle shit,” Wolf surmised, and Thatch blazed at him.
“Fuck you and your ancient ass,” Thatcher shot back. He shoved Wolf. “You’re all of nine months older than me.”
Which was enough to make Wolf and myself superior to him, as far as we were concerned. Wells too since he was a junior. We all may be best friends, but we could and did use whatever we could against each other. I think that came with the territory of us being buddies. We’d known each other since birth. Our parents were all friends before that.
“I’m just saying. Y’all’s asses had one thing to do that fucking night.” Wolf growled, sounding like an actual wolf. He’d gained the term on the football field, but it stayed long off. Not only did the fucker look like a wolf, he acted like one too. “You fucked shit up, and now, we all have to deal with it.”
Thatcher rolled his eyes. “It was Wells who ran like a little bitch ass that night.” Chuckling, he
tossed an arm over Wells’s shoulder. “What did she have again?”
Wells shoved him off. “A bat, and hell yeah, I ran. Bitch had a fucking air horn.”
“She apparently still likes to make noise,” I said, recalling this morning in clear detail, and with the words, my buddies silenced. They weren’t looking at the big picture here.
They knew that.
I assumed they saw that all over my face, and even Wolf went silent.
He didn’t do that for many.
“What did you find out about her?” I asked him, telling Wolf to look into the new girl. Wells had texted me about her the moment he’d realized she was the girl he’d allowed to escape that night. The one who’d gotten in the way.
The one who fucked everything up.
She was the one who made noise, so naturally I needed everything that could possibly be found out about her. Normally, Thatcher would do such a job. His father, my god dad Knight, put the Windsor Prep’s online security system in. Because of this, Thatcher knew the firewalls like the back of his hand. He was good like that, a tech genius like his dad.
The new girl was still too new, though. Her files wouldn’t be uploaded into the system yet.
That left Wolf.
His mom used to be headmaster of the school back in the day. This was before the guys and I came to school here, but we’d known one day the headmaster’s keys might one day be put to good use. Wolf had made dupes of everything before his mom returned the keys, and that came in handy during times like today.
When information was needed.
I’d sent Wolf along to records today to get the girl’s hard file, study it a bit, then bring the information back. He’d texted he got the info before gym.
He eyed the new girl across the field, the girl ambling around like she didn’t know what to fucking do. Her gym class played volleyball, but despite her height, she was just standing around like she had no idea what was going on.
Wolf sneered, as if at the audacity.
“She’s trash,” he said, that familiar bite in his voice returned from before. She’d danced with the devil getting in his face this morning. I’d give her that. He grunted. “She and her brother have been in about a million different schools in the last few years. Came here from Chicago. Inner city. She’s nothing and nobody.”
“What’s she doing here?”
He eyed me. “Her father died,” he said, surprising me. “A factory fire at his job according to her file. Didn’t find much more about that and don’t know anything about her mom. It just lists her as deceased in the record.”
So she and her brother were orphans. Interesting.
I questioned if her dad had been someone for them both to be here amongst us, the elite, but Wolf just said the girl was trash and had nothing.
“It seems to be just her and her brother,” Wolf continued. “Some guy named Callum Montgomery footed their tuition bill. I assume that’s their guardian.”
I stiffened a beat at the name. I knew a Callum, but the name Montgomery didn’t ring a bell.
“Don’t know too much about him either,” Wolf informed. “Doesn’t even fucking live here.”
“Where does he live?”
“All the fuck over.” Wolf picked up a football off the field, gripping it. “I did a little search on my phone between classes. He’s a billionaire, but I couldn’t find much besides his company name: Montgomery Holdings. Couldn’t even find a picture of him. Seems he’s got other people being the face of his company for him. Might be a hermit or something. Probably enrolled the new girl and her bro here for the academy’s rep.” Wolf eyed Thatcher. “Bow’s also been assigned the new girl’s guide. Says so in her file.”
“The fuck?” Thatch questioned, then lifted his eyes. “Leave it to my sister. She’s such a kiss-ass.”
She just liked to be involved and was smart, like Wolf in that light if he let people know. There were times it was exposed like his Student of the Month shit. He couldn’t always hide his smarts behind a bad attitude and a growl.
Opening my hands, I had him toss me the football. “What’s her name?”
“Noa Sloane,” Wolf stated, aggressive about it. She’d obviously already made a new best friend with him.
I squeezed the ball.
Noa Sloane, huh?
“I need to know more,” I said to my friends, and the girl better hope I liked what I found.
Sloane
Blondie and his friends sure garnered a lot of attention.
It helped they liked to dick around shirtless.
Four golden bodies tossed a football back and forth, both long and short passes. When they actually collided (muscled bodies slamming against each other in a sweat-ridden array), the girls out here basically lost their shits.
Some of the boys did too.
The guys weren’t being casual about literally playing football when the other gym classes were forced to do other things. My class had to play volleyball (which I sucked at) and the others were either jogging the track or doing something else in a group.
The four Adonises seemed to be exempt, though, fooling around and occasionally laughing. The group appeared to be quite acquainted with each other.
Not like I noticed.
At least, I tried not to notice, brushing myself off after face-planting to hit back a serve. Despite my height, I epically sucked at sports, something Bru liked to remind me of since he was actually good at them. Never played them, but when he did, he was good. He might have actually tried out for something had my father not been against it.
He’d been against a lot of things.
He had kept a short leash on us, not wanting us to go out really. If he didn’t leave the house, he didn’t want us to either, and I had resented him a lot because of that when it’d all been going down. I had pushed back a lot, something I wished I hadn’t done so much now.
Losing a parent definitely put things into perspective. I missed my dad, flaws and all. He loved us. He was just troubled.
A tall girl on the other side of the net drew back to serve, I squatted down to actually maybe hit the thing back. She hit it over, a player on my side hitting it back. The opposite side returned it, but when it was my turn, I missed and the volleyball few over my ponytail.
Did I mention I sucked at sports?
“I got it,” I called, jogging over to get the thing. I picked it up.
“Watch out!”
I jerked my head around when one of my teammates told me to, the football flying at my face. It would have hit me full on.
Had not a hand shot out.
Lengthy fingers gripped the football, tucking it into a set of firm abs. I followed them up to ebony-dark eyes.
Holy shit, this guy was beautiful.
Of course, I noticed it in the parking lot. Golden body, huge hands.
Thick thighs.
Solid muscle weaved all the way through him, even that jawline he had for days. It clenched as he made eye contact with me, and without missing a beat, he drew back one of those big biceps and tossed the football to his friends. They all went for it, but the asshole who’d bugged me this morning caught it.
The guy merely reached out a hand to, his long mane drawn up and out of his eyes aside from some obviously pesky tendrils. Dude had hair like mine, wispy and long. Though, obviously mine was longer. He even had dark hair like me, more tan than his friends.
“Good catch,” I breathed, but not to the asshole over there. Blondie still stood in front of me, maybe a foot away.
I could taste him.
Arctic gum breezed coolly over my face, a stark contrast to the sweat and boy smell that chased it. The guy was flush all over from his broad shoulders to his boyish features. Color crushed the harsh definition of his angular cheekbones, and his blond hair was slightly around his face like Brad Pitt in his Meet Joe Black days.
Blondie pulled his fingers through his hair, an action he’d clearly done a million times judging by the way it tamed
back. His hair didn’t return to his eyes, stayed in place. He jerked his chin at me. “Why the fuck are you at my school?”
The fuck?
I twitched, like seriously took a double take here. I told the guy he’d had a nice throw and he came at me like this?
I was honestly gobsmacked, and in my stupor, his friends jogged over.
One by one, the male parade surrounded him, and Jesus, these boys were big. Blondie himself took up a ton of surface area, but the guy with dark hair and piercings behind him even managed to have him on that. The guy had exactly two piercings, a dangling cross in one ear and a stud in the other. The shortest was the platinum blond, but he was by no means small. He could definitely handle his own with the thick, corded muscle lining biceps and forearms.
And then, there was Wolf.
Seeing him this close, he towered over these guys, the asshole smirking at me when he got there. Upon his buddies’ arrival, Blondie reached into his pocket, giving Wolf what was clearly a wad of cash. I saw easily a few hundred-dollar bills in that stack.
Rich kids.
I saw exchanges like that all the time when the upper elite managed to mosey over to my neck of the woods back home. Rich kids had to buy their blow from somewhere, but I saw none of those exchanges here.
“I guess you win, Wolf,” Blondie said to him and didn’t look happy about it.
I frowned. “What?”
Chuckling, Wolf tucked the cash in his pocket before dropping an arm on his blond buddy’s shoulder. Wolf jerked his chin at me. “I bet him you were as much of a bimbo as you looked.”
“And idiot me bet in your favor.” Blondie eyed me. “So, I’m going to try this again. Slower this time for you.” He leaned in. “Why in the fuck are you at my school?”
These guys weren’t serious, right? With this shit?
My lack of answer again had Wolf laughing, but this time, I wasn’t gobsmacked.
This time, I was pissed.
“Excuse me, bitch. Was someone talking to you?” I shot in Wolf’s direction, which effectively cut off his laughter. He shot forward off the bro line and put his finger so close to my face I debated breaking it off and feeding it to him.