Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Sev,” I hear from behind me in the lot. I hear the flick of a lighter behind me, and get one more nut finished before turning to look behind me.
“Kieran.”
I reach for another sip of whiskey as Kieran heads over. He’s taking a drag from a cigarette as he walks toward me, wearing a forest green beanie over his curly brown hair.
“Car giving you issues?”
“No. She’s fine.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem fine.”
I lift an eyebrow and he holds a grim stare. “I fixed the heater box, and now I’m almost done. What’s with the thousand-yard look, Kier?”
His hands fly up into the air. “Jesus, Sev, maybe it’s because you’re looking at me like you’re about to knock me out cold. The fuck’s wrong, bro?”
Great.
He’s flying off the handle quickly, just like he’s been doing all the time about simple shit recently. Kieran’s been a Double Daggers member for as long as I have, and I’ve watched him slowly go from taking some stimulants when he needs to cram for a paper to… this type of behavior.
Popping any kind of stimulant he can get, multiple times a day. Smoking too much when he does it, too.
I pull in a long, slow breath. “This repair was bad. And the rest of my day wasn’t much better.”
“Your legs bothering you?”
I use the drill to tighten another nut, then pull back out from under the hood. “No. Surprisingly, the legs are fine, today.”
“Then talk to me,” Kieran says, stepping toward me. “Ever since your injury I swear you don’t even feel like a Daggers member, anymore. You still loyal, Sevan? Or do you give a fuck at all?”
I give him a hard look. “Do me a favor and don’t talk about my injury, or other things you don’t understand. Get it, Kieran?”
He puts out his cigarette and flips me off. “What’s your fucking problem?”
Problems, plural?
Lots of things.
And you’re one of them right now.
I don’t respond right away.
I don’t hate Kieran, even if I do wish I could fight him right now. I don’t want to make a small problem worse.
I reach back under the hood and finally finish the installation, then slam the hood back down and drop my drill back into its case.
As I clean up, I decide to throw Kieran a bone.
Acting like an animal, so here’s what you’ll get.
Scraps.
And only the scraps I’m comfortable giving.
“My mom called me earlier,” I explain to him. “After class. You’d think she would be used to divorces after doing them so much, but this one is somehow still bad for her, apparently.”
Kieran frowns, his whole expression changing as he gives me a sympathetic nod.
I don’t talk much about my personal life to other Daggers guys or really anyone other than my cousin, but I’ve briefly mentioned things about Mom. People know that she raised me as a single parent, and that she’s had awful luck with men.
They don’t know that one of her ex-husbands drained her of tens of thousands of dollars, and she was too nice to demand it back.
Or that another ex cheated on her with two other women.
And they certainly don’t know that my mom used to have a dependence on painkillers, and that every single time her dating life is bad, I worry that she’ll turn to pills again. There’s a reason Kieran’s pill-popping concerns me, even if his vice is uppers, not downers.
“That blows, man,” Kieran offers. He bends to pick up the drill case, helping me bring it back into the garage.
I wave him off. “My mom’s a trooper. She’s probably already back on the dating sites looking for Prince Charming 5.0.”
“She was chill when she came down last Parents’ Weekend. Maybe you should get one of us to start dating her. Think you’re ready for a stepdad—”
“Kieran. Fuck. Off. Do you want to be killed tonight?”
I give him a shove and he suppresses a laugh. “Sorry. Look, Sev, go take a shower and I’ll meet you in the backyard? We need to talk about the alumni dinner. We need to put Onyx into the ground.”
I tip back my glass and finish my whiskey. “Meet you out there in twenty.”
Kieran’s out in the hot tub already when I head down into the backyard after scrubbing myself clean in the shower.
“So. The alumni dinner event. Let’s talk,” I tell him, submerged under the water in front of a strong jet.
“We cannot have a repeat of last year.”
“It was a massacre.”
The societies hold a very fancy dinner event every year, for Crimson College secret society alumni and current students. People rub shoulders, network, and schmooze, and after the dinner, many society members get offers for summer internships at prestigious companies around the globe.
Last year’s alumni dinner was a shitshow.
Only Onyx Society students got offers.
Every.
Single.
Position.
In the days after the dinner last year, not a single Luros Sorority girl got an offer for a job or internship for the summer, and none of us in Double Daggers got one, either.