Home > Bad, Bad Bluebloods (Rich Boys of Burberry Prep #2)(2)

Bad, Bad Bluebloods (Rich Boys of Burberry Prep #2)(2)
Author: C.M. Stunich

I look away, and my heart stutters a little. That’s a lie. I do want to talk to him; I’m just not going to.

“Too bad. I want to talk to you. I have a right to explain without … them stirring up drama.” He takes a step toward me, but I keep my face turned away. I’m not going to look at him, not right now. The last few months have been okay, filled with sunshine, day trips to the beach, and my tenth and eleventh rereads of the Harry Potter books. This is the last thing I need, a bump in the road to destroy my last peaceful week of summer. “Don’t think I didn’t hear about what happened on the last day of—”

“Please don’t,” I choke out. That’s the last thing I want to think about right now, about the paint dripping down the sides of my face, my split lip, and the look on Zayd’s face … “The only prize … was that trophy. We did it for fun.” Tristan’s words slice through me, and I push away from the counter, heading down the hall toward my room.

Zack follows me, and I end up trapped on my bed with his huge body filling my doorway.

My hands curl into fists. I added his name to my revenge list. Why shouldn’t I? He tried to break me in middle school, and for what? A bet. A bet to get into that stupid fucking Club.

The Infinity Club is going down, I think, and I drop my hand to my right hip. There’s a tattoo artist that some of my classmates bribed during my time at Lower Banks in order to get illegal ink. I’m taking a thousand dollars out of the money I won and heading down there tomorrow to get a tattoo of my own.

What I don’t need is Zack Brooks, standing in my room and staring at me with those umber depths.

“You have to at least hear me out,” he says as I sit down on the edge of my bed.

I’ve spent all summer writing horrible things about him in my notebook, but it was all venting. I don’t know how to make him hurt the way he made me hurt. Looking up, all I see is apology and sorrow in his eyes. Not like Creed. Or Zayd. Or Tristan. They definitely were not sorry.

My fingers dig into the bedspread; it’s the only way to keep them from reaching for the necklace that hangs over my chest. I tried to sell it—twice—but I couldn’t do it. Selling it felt like I was letting him win. I don’t need or want Tristan Vanderbilt’s money. I’m giving it back the first day of school.

“Haven’t you done enough damage?” I whisper, and we both freeze at the sound of the front door opening.

“Honey, it’s just me.” Dad’s voice echoes in the small space just before I hear his footsteps. He pauses in the hall that connects the second passenger car, which holds our bedrooms, to the first train car which has the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. “Zack, long time no see. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Can’t. Plans with my mom.” Zack leans his shoulder against the wall, his relentless gaze pinning me to the bed. I feel like I couldn’t stand up if I tried.

“Well, if you have time on Friday, it’s Marnye’s birthday,” Dad starts, and I cringe. “Since it’s just me and her, it might be nice to have a friend to tag along?” He sounds earnest enough, but I wonder if Dad knows his words cut me to the core. I had friends. For a while, I had a lot. I had Miranda and Andrew, Zack and Lizzie, and … the Idols.

For a while there, I really and truly believed I had them.

Of course, those friendships slipped through my fingers like sand, and Dad had to see … well, more than a dad should ever see. He saw me kissing Creed in a towel, making out with Zayd on my bed, and letting Tristan grope me in the library. And my panties …

Humiliation washes over me in wave, but I’ve had an entire summer to learn how to channel it into anger. My eyes flick over to my leather bookbag, resting on the edge of my desk. I’ve taped my revenge list into a notebook and filled it with ideas. Ideas, and rules. Because if you can’t trust yourself, then you’re doomed to fail.

“Friday …” Zack starts, and then sighs as he tucks his hands into his pockets. “I’ll be here.”

“Great! We leave at eight sharp, no later. It’s tradition to have pancakes at the Railroad Station on Marnye’s birthday.” Dad slips back outside, letting the door slam behind him. I can hear him wheeling the grill into place.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I wanted to at least come and tell you that I’d planned on having a conversation with you that night.”

“Sure you did,” I say, debating the chances of me getting up and down the hall before Zack cuts me off. “Look, you’re a little bit off my radar right now, so why don’t you just leave and we can pretend we’ve never met each other?”

“At least unblock Lizzie and talk to her,” he says, but there’s no way. Even if I were inclined to speak to Lizzie again, she’s too tangled up with Tristan. “Give her a chance to apologize. She’s been sick over the whole thing, and not just about our bet. She’s furious with the Burberry Bluebloods. Hell, she basically pit Coventry Prep Elite against them this summer. The Hamptons … turned into a social bloodbath.”

My interest is piqued at that, but to get more information, I’ll have to either talk to Lizzie or Zack. Neither of whom is someone I want in my life right now. The majority of my anger is focused on the Idol boys. I have to go back to that school, with those people, and I need to do more than just stay on the defensive. If I want to have a successful career at Burberry Prep, I need to show the others that I won’t be pushed around, not anymore.

“I don’t care,” I whisper, and Zack grunts, pushing up from the wall and taking a step toward me. The space is so small, it basically puts us toe-to-toe.

“You do care. Because Tristan Vanderbilt is in love with Lizzie Walton, and she put him through the wringer this summer. All I’m saying is that you’ve got an ally there, if you want her.”

“What good does that do me when she’s in a completely different school?” I snap, feeling that anger overtake me again. That’s going to be the hardest part, holding it back and channeling it appropriately. “It’s just me against the world at Burberry Prep; I’ve already accepted that.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Zack tells me, his eyes like hot coals as they rake over my body. After a moment, he turns and heads back down the hall, pausing just before he slips out the front door. “See you on Friday.”

“Don’t count on it,” I whisper, and then I stand up and grab my notebook from my bag. The cover is just one, giant red infinity symbol with a slash through it. The Infinity Club. Their parents might have unlimited resources, as Lizzie said they might control the world, but this is the junior version.

It’s never too early to learn humility.

The next day, I slip out of the house after dad leaves for work, and walk six blocks to a tattoo parlor called Shade’s Dungeon. The guy who runs it is a creep, but he’s also the only person in town that I know of who’ll tattoo an almost-sixteen year old girl, actually do a good job, use a clean needle, and avoid infection.

“You actually showed up,” he says when I walk inside, wiping down the chair with a strong antiseptic. “You got the money?” I take out the wad of cash I got from the ATM and hand it over. He counts it—twice—and then tucks it in his back pocket. “Take a seat, and let’s get this over with.”

I pause, my hand still resting on the door. It’s not too late for me to turn around and walk away. Part of me wonders if I should, if I should give up this stupid revenge plot and just leave Burberry Prep. Grenadine Heights is a good school, and I’d still get into a great university after graduation …

But no. No.

The Idols … they need to know that their money doesn’t make them gods. They have no right to play with peoples’ lives the way they played with mine. My eyes close suddenly and tears come, but I’ve fought them off a number of times throughout the summer. What’s one more?

“Look, kid, if you’re not gonna get the ink—”

My eyes flick open.

“I’m getting it.” I move over to the leather seat and sit down as the tattoo artist rolls his eyes at me and curses inappropriately under his breath, something about fucking idiot kids or whatnot. I ignore him. This is important to me, a physical manifestation of all the pain I suffered on that day, that year.

Tristan, Zayd, and Creed played on my vulnerabilities and offered me the one thing I wanted most: friendship.

My throat closes again, and my hands tremble, but I roll up my tank top to expose my stomach and then push down the waistband on my leggings. The tattoo artist—I think his name is something old-fashioned like Sybil—holds up a design.

“How does this look?”

There’s an infinity symbol on the piece of paper, one with a horizontal slash through it, just like I saw on Derrick Barr when he was booted from the Club.

“That’s perfect,” I say, waiting as Sybil transfers the design to my skin and then picks up the tattoo machine.

“You ready?” he asks me, sounding bored. I suck in a breath and nod. The needle touches my skin, pain rockets through me, and I grit my teeth. This is nothing compared to how I felt that last day, with paint running down my shirt and between my breasts, my ribs and face aching, my heart shattered.

I had a chipped tooth, and a broken rib. The day after I got home, I went to the doctor and found out about the latter. I’d told Dad that I’d fallen down the stairs; he hadn’t believed me. But then, we hadn’t talked much about what happened, not about the video of me with the boys, the panties, any of it. Instead of being upset about it, I feel like Charlie’s been in an exceptional mood for weeks. He hasn’t had a single drink that I know of either.

“Done.” Sybil steps back and then grabs a mirror, handing it over to me. “Take a look.”

I do, and it’s perfect, a solid black mark on my skin, a permanent reminder.

‘Marnye, you forgive too easily,’ Dad says, smiling down at me.

   
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