“If we can make this work, I need two things from you.”
She still looks skeptical. “Like?”
“First, you can’t tell on me, Emory, or anyone else involved.” She opens her mouth to speak, but I hold up two fingers. “And two, you can’t turn in whatever you write to the school or paper until after he and I have graduated.”
Her jaw sets as she thinks it over. I’m asking a lot from her. I haven’t even told her what it’s about. She’s going to have to trust me—me. The guy who fucked up her life, and—although she isn’t aware of it yet—is responsible for Emory needing to do this in the first place.
“Okay,” she finally says, “but if you can’t get me access to whatever this is
, then I’m going straight to Dean Dewey, my parents, and your dad, and telling them you guys are up to something.”
I know this is going to be a hard sell, on my end. I might not even be able to do anything at all. But if she agrees to this, then that’s flexibility. I can work with this.
“Deal?” I hold out my hand. She looks down at it and hesitates for a second before sliding hers into mine, gripping it in a firm handshake.
She holds my gaze, her blue eyes full of something steely and resolved. “Deal.”
“Let’s talk about chicks,” Carlton says, reaching for another piece of pizza.
“What about them?” Ben asks. “The fact you haven’t seen one naked in over a year?”
Carlton shoves his hand out, slamming into Ben’s shoulder. The baseball catcher falls off his chair, landing hard on his ass. Emory barks a laugh and I lean back in my seat, chomping on my own slice of pizza. It’s steadily become ninety percent of my diet.
Personally, I’m still trying to figure out if Ben is actually as dumb as he looks.
“Shut the hell up,” Carlton says, cheeks red. “I admit I’m in a bit of a slump, but that’s because I’m picky. I’m not putting my dick just anywhere, unlike you indiscriminate fucks.”
“Your loss,” Ben says, righting his chair and flopping back into it.
We’re seated in a small circle inside the bunker beneath the Devil’s Tower. So far, it’s only the four of us making up the Devils, which is kind of sad, if I’m being honest. Four dudes sitting in a dank dungeon eating room temperature pizza does not an elite secret society make.
Since we need a couple more guys, we’ve made a list of who we plan on inviting. Some new kid named Tyson from the swim team was tossed around and given approval. For the last guy, we needed a legacy—someone whose family is Devil-made—and that’s how we settled on Sebastian Wilcox, Heston’s younger brother. I don’t know a lot about Sebastian, but I know just enough about Heston to feel like it’s a bad idea.
Narrowing down the girls is a bit harder.
“I think the best thing to do,” Emory says, propping his feet up on the small table in the middle of the room, “is to have each of us invite a girl to tryout to be a Devil’s Plaything.”
“Try out?” Ben asks, eyes flashing in excitement. “Like, we each get to fuck her?”
“Jesus Christ,” Emory mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “No, fuckweed. They’re not whores. They’ll be our…” He rubs pensively at his chin, eventually landing on, “Our contemporaries. Every good fraternity has a sorority counterpart; girls to party with, both beautiful and smart. Think about Campbell. She ran those girls with an iron fist. The rest of the school revered them. Guys wanted to bang them. Girls wanted to be them. The Devils are nothing without a solid group of hot chicks by our side.” He taps his pen on the pad of paper, mouth turning into a frown. “Unfortunately, most of them graduated last year, and frankly, Campbell may have done too good a job of isolating the rest of the girls at the school. We’ll need to start fresh.”
“I vote Afton Cross,” Carlton says, using his pizza crust to point at Emory.
“Seconded,” Ben instantly says. “Damn, she’s hot.”
Emory doesn’t argue. “Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. Because she’s not just hot. She has influence and a good bloodline. See where I’m going with this?” After a few nods, Emory offers, “Aubrey Wills, too.”
Everyone agrees, while Ben mumbles, “God, those tits,” and makes a squeezing motion in front of his chest. Emory throws the pen at him and it bounces off his forehead. “Ow.”
“Stop being a pervert,” Emory admonishes, looking frustrated. “Aubrey is hot, but she’s also smart and her family is loaded. Are you not getting the point of this?”
Ben stretches out his legs and rubs his forehead. “Fine, what about Sydney Tisdale?”
“Fuck no,” Emory replies quickly.
“Why not? She’s hot. Fun…”
“She’s toxic,” Emory explains, “and cannot keep her goddamn mouth shut. The whole school will know about this two minutes after she’s invited, and there will be a video to prove it.”