Page 95 of Off Limits
Shawny leans forward. ‘Carried awayhow?’
Harmony blushes. ‘He may have… Oh my lord, I am not getting into this. Next person!’
Angel and Shawny move around the circle. After Leona, Ashlyn and Imara take their turns, then it’s Jewel’s time to choose.
‘Truth,’ she grins.
Angel picks up a piece of paper. ‘Same question,’ she says. ‘Which current, serving Mutineer would you have your wicked way with?’
‘Jake Walsh,’ Shawny coughs out, muffling the sound with her fist, and everybody laughs. Everybody except me, because on the inside, I’m in a panic.
‘Not gonna lie,’ Jewel hums and I can’t look her in the eye. ‘Jake Walsh is some serious hot property. I’d ride him like a regular rodeo.’
There are literal squeals. ‘Yee-haw!’ Angel hoots and Harmony holds her face in her hands, like this wasn’t quite the team bonding she’d hoped for.
‘He is my official NFL crush, and I am crushinghardon that boy,’ Jewel admits, and her words are pin pricks against my skin. I picture the last time Jake saw me in the Surly’s parking lot. His look of blank indifference. Like in that moment, seeing me up on stage, he’d made up his mind that he no longer wanted anything more to do with me.
He’d be better off with a kind-hearted girl like Jewel.
‘Ren, you’re up,’ Angel says, and I snap back to the game. There’s no way I want to be asked that same question.
‘Um. Everybody else said truth,’ I say, ‘so I guess I’ll go dare.’
‘Finally!’ Shawny exclaims, dipping into her hat and selecting a slip of paper.
‘We dare you to…’ Her eyes skim the words. ‘Read out in front of the group the last message on your phone from a guy.’
I raise my brows in my best poker face. ‘Oh,’ I say.
‘Girlie, go get your phone!’ Angel hollers at me.
I get to my feet. I can feel the muscles in my legs tremble, because I know exactly who the last message in my phone was from and what it said.
‘She can’t do it, somebody else has to read it!’ Leona argues.
‘I’ll go!’ Jewel volunteers.
I walk out into the corridor. I glance back at Jewel and panic. All our phones are lined up beside the front door. I swiftly locate mine, wondering if I have time to delete Brody’s message to me last night. Except Jewel bounds up behind me and grabs my cell.
‘Unlock it, unlock it!’ she commands.
‘Come on, this is dumb…’ I murmur.
Jewel holds out her hand. ‘Unlock it and hand it over.’
My mind goes into a spin. What if she reads Brody’s message out loud in front of everybody? And how in hell do I explain it? I think about pleading with Jewel then and there.
Limply, I unlock it, and hand it over.
Back in the living area, Solana is saying, ‘Ren seems like too sweet a girl to have any skeletons in her closet, you know.’
I look at Jewel, who is navigating to my messages. My heart goes into overdrive, yet I manage to maintain my fixed smile. All of my squad mates’ attention goes to my fellow rookie.
I look at her face. It’s hard to decipher what she’s reading. I’m too scared to say a word.
‘Come on, Jewel,’ Shawny chastises her. ‘Read it out loud.’
Jewel laughs, but it comes off as awkward. ‘It’s from her dad, I think, it sayshey honey, can you pick up some of that microwave popcorn I like on your way home?’
