Her arms crossed over her books. “I kind of actually thought we were friends.”
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“We are friends.”
She put her hand up. “Well, if that’s a friend, I’ll just take family.” She closed her locker. “Which Dorian and all the other guys are to me.” She leaned in. “I told you. Our families are close as hell, and I may not agree with a lot of the things the guys do around here, but that doesn’t stop the fact that they’re my family. Always have been. Always will be.”
Her family.
“And you hurt them.” Her face grew red in color. “You hurt Dorian, and what’s worse is, you did it through me.”
“Little rabbit—”
“It’s Bow,” she countered. “Not little rabbit. Just Bow, and tutor yourself from now on.”
“Bow.”
Her hair swayed when she charged in the opposite direction away from me, and I couldn’t even be mad at her or blame her. I had used her, and if she really was as close as she was with the Legacy guys, she should hate me.
I’d hate her too if someone did that to my family.
Chapter Nineteen
Sloane
The impending feeling of doom I got every time I walked the halls of Windsor Prep made me feel like maybe my brother had something to his claims of me being like our father. Besides people staring at me and still not acknowledging me by anything other than Vapor or Legacy bitch, I had a sense of dread following me. Like the shoe was about to drop, and I was simply waiting for the crushing blow. It had started the day Bow had called me out about taking advantage of her.
It never left after that.
Legacy hadn’t been shy about making their presence known in the hallways. Whenever I did see them, they made sure to pass me a look, to sit closer to my brother at lunch, or to sneer when they tucked Bow in tighter between them at their table. The one with the most heat in his eyes had been Thatcher. He always had his arm draped around his sister, a hate in his eyes whenever I saw them all eating at lunch. The worst had been Dorian actually. Because unlike Wells’s and Ares’s “looks” and Thatcher’s protective hold, Dorian didn’t acknowledge me at all. I got none of his attention when I probably should have gotten his the most. He made sure to keep it on his girls he always had around him. Never once looking at me.
It just made my paranoia worse.
I’d felt like I had a target on my head before, but now, I was simply waiting for the act of revenge. I’d made my statement with that pregnancy test pretty vocal. I’d drawn the line in the sand. I’d hit back when I had a feeling most didn’t bother.
No one else had been dumb enough to try.
That sinking feeling of dread followed into the first games of the Windsor Prep football season my brother actually got to play in. He didn’t at first. I figured that was because he was new out there, but once they had him on the field, he played quite a bit. He was out there with Dorian, Wells, Thatcher, and Ares, and shit did I get Ares’s nickname after watching that barbarian play. He bowled down players like a madman, howling into the air after every successful play. The amount of fear he struck into the opposing team’s eyes had been crazy. People merely got out of his way and didn’t bother to do anything else.
He protected my brother out there. He did as his teammate, and the other boys did the same. They were the supporting force for Dorian being quarterback, but all these boys had each other’s backs. They came at the other team like an unstoppable force of power and speed, and at the center was the dark prince himself.
I tried not to watch Dorian as he sped down the field during the games, think about him and what he’d done to me on the very bleachers I sat. He frequented my thoughts like a matinee quite often, all power out there on the field like he’d been above me that day. He caught passes with ease, a strong leader to his team. They all loved and respected him out there, and the fans went wild for him.
He led the team into yet another victory at today’s game, and I’d seen a few.
I came to them all.
I did to support my brother, even though he never saw me in the crazy crowds. After today’s game, though, I decided to stay and give him a shout-out. The coaches had let him play nearly the entire game, and he’d done a good job.
My brother didn’t come out of the locker room by himself.
He was tucked between Thatcher and Wells, the guys hitting his chest, and Ares sprinted backward in front of them. I heard the words “Good job” from Ares, and Dorian came up behind my brother.
“You killed it out there today, bro,” Dorian said, strong-arming him like an actual bro. Wells broke away so Dorian could sling his meaty arm around my brother. Dorian grinned. “Didn’t I tell you you’d rock that shit out there?”
“Yeah, man. You did,” Bru said, being modest. I knew because a bunch of red crept up his neck. He never liked being acknowledged. Not even when it came to academics, which he’d always rocked at in the past. Bru shrugged. “I did okay.”
“More than.” Dorian tapped his chest. “Coach will have you playing in every game now.”