“I thought you were throttling it down?” I gritted.
“What can I say?” She shrugged. “I like pissing off the whore.”
Lauren waved to Dani who was sitting at a table with Gemma andFinley. Dani and Gemma scowled at me.
Fuck.
Hopefully Lauren’s plan worked. It would get Dad off my ass. It would–maybe–get Dani, Gemma, and the guys off my ass.
I just had to make it believable.
Chapter 21
Dani
“Unbelievable!”Gemmagrowledasshe tossed her hands in the air. “I can’t believe he’s doing this shit. All to make our dad happy? It’s so weird. I wonder if he’s told Bobby yet. Oh wait, he would have to actuallytalkto Bobby in order to do that.”
Gemma was on a tangent about her brother at lunch. We watched as Lauren stalked Kane out the door and sat next to him. She looked furious for all of five seconds, and then her demeanor changed.
Kane’s did too.
It was subtle, but I noticed the shift. His shoulders relaxed slightly. The furrow in his brows disappeared. Whatever she said made him relax, which made my jealousy spike in ways that it definitely shouldn’t.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I said all the right things:we can’t do this again,big mistake. But I didn’t feel that way inside. Inside I wanted to consume that motherfucker. I wanted him to give me everything he had. I wanted to explore myself with him.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was because I felt…safe.
“And she’s such a bitch about it too. She’s purposely taunting us. Ugh!” Gemma stabbed a strawberry and violently ripped it off her fork with her mouth.
“Don’t let her get to you, Gem. It’s not worth it. We all know it’s fake,” I said, doing my best to make myself believe it. I told Kane that I wouldn’t fuck him again if he touched Lauren. And I wouldn’t. I was no one’s second choice.
“Wait, it’s fake?” Finn asked, suddenly paying attention to our conversation.
Fuck, that was supposed to be a secret…
“Notfake,but you know how Lauren is. She’s so dramatic. And it’s not like Kane is a loving person. I can’t imagine there’s much going on there,” I said. Was it enough to quell his curiosity? Probably not. He liked to ask questions but deflecting came second-nature to me.
“True,” Finn smiled, going back to his lunch.
Crisis averted.
Finn was a bit of a question mark. I did some digging when he made it clear he wanted to befriend me or some shit–because around here, that didnothappen. Ever. People steered clear of me. I’d heard all the rumors before: I’m crazy. I’m trashy. I never corrected them, because if I was being honest with myself, I was definitely crazy and sometimes a bit trashy.
Everyone at CG Prep thought they were better than me because they knew I lived in the Moretti’s guest house. When Finn started talking to me out of the blue, I had to make sure there wasn’t anything nefarious behind the request.
He told me he lived in a trailer park in town with his mom, and he was at CG Prep on a scholarship–however, there were only four scholarship recipients at a time, and Finn wasn’t one of them. I didn’t call him on it though. Maybe he was embarrassed by how he paid for tuition. I didn’t know. I didn’t go around advertising that Gio Moretti paid my way through CG Prep. But still, there was something about him…
Gemma huffed. “Exactly. And you know what, she acted the same way with Bobby. It makes my skin crawl that she can jump from brother to brother like that. She’s the fakest person I know.”
Made-up relationship or not, it was gross that Lauren was enamored with Bobby for so long and then easily moved onto Kane. All because Bobby was in a wheelchair.
“Wait…” Finn dropped his sandwich. “Lauren was with your other brother and now she’s with Kane?”
“Yup. When Bobby had his accident and got paralyzed, she quit coming over. Quit trying to see him. Then she latched on to Kane.”
“That’s fucked up.”
Gemma nodded her head furiously. “It gets better. Lauren and her parents are coming over to my house for dinner Wednesday night and Ihaveto go. Her mom is even more snotty than she is if you can believe that. My mom can’t stand her and she likes everyone.”