Page 2 of Unexpected Prejudice

“Whatever we do, we do together?” I asked and watched as a smile spread on his lips.

“Whatever we do, we do together.”

He shut the door behind him and shoved the pistol into his jacket pocket before heading toward the shop. It was a run-down gas station with little traffic, making it an easy target. While anxiety twisted my stomach, my eyes followed Jessie as he walked through the sliding doors. I felt like I couldn’t breathe for a moment, and then I remembered what he’d told me to do, so I started counting.

One… two… three…

I was down to two hundred and thirty-three seconds when a police car stopped in front of the shop. I was out of the car at two hundred and thirty-four.

Whatever we do, we do together.

Jordan

Present Day

“Make sure you unpack the new boxes before you check out,” my manager ordered right before she clocked out and left me alone in the shop. It was a run-of-the-mill convenience store at a gas station right off the highway. The place was a wreck, to be honest, but I couldn’t complain. It had its perks.

The first one was them hiring a high schooler with no work experience. I’d just turned eighteen, but still. Most places refused to hire me because I was about to start my senior year and had never held a job in my life. The other perks? It was far enough away from the Hills, so I didn’t run into anyone I knew, but close enough to the motel room my mom and I’d used as a home for the past three months.

It was crazy how much your life could change in such a short amount of time. Last year, around this time, I was enjoying the last days of my summer vacation, lazing by our pool in our Beverly Hills mansion without a worry on my mind. Now, I took every shift I could get, desperate for money to help my mom with the rent and to cover the debt my asshole of a father left us with right before he fled the country. He was probably somewhere in Europe, but he could’ve been on his way to Mars, for all I knew or cared.

Embezzlement, false accounting, and expense claims. That was what he was accused of. He had been about to start his trial when he just… vanished.

He sorted out his priorities all right—his freedom over his family.

We went from being rich to flat broke overnight. The authorities confiscated everything we had to help pay off my father’s loans, but it wasn’t enough, leaving us with nothing but a big-ass debt. Not having any relatives to rely on, we were pretty much left alone. But my mom was a strong woman, so she didn’t let it break her. In fact, it was the other way around. With her head held high, she took three jobs and worked around the clock so we wouldn’t end up on the streets.

Everything had happened so fast. We didn’t even have time to adjust or process our new situation. Like a cat always landing on its feet, we acted on instinct and dove into survival mode without a moment to think.

Mom and I were close before all this happened, but we were even closer now, crammed in our shared motel room. I slept on the couch while she had the bed. She tried to talk to me on the rare evenings we saw each other, but I was never much of a talker. Not a lot, anyway. It wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to say. I just never felt the need to speak, preferring to stay quiet and not draw attention to myself. It was probably why I hung out with guys who enjoyed being the center of attention. In a way, it kept the eyes on them and off me.

I was stocking soda bottles on the shelves when the doorbell rang, announcing a new customer. I got up from the floor and went to the counter, checking the clock on the way there. It was half past midnight. Great. Probably another drunk coming to buy more booze. I would need to call Jim from the break room if that was the case since I was too young to sell alcohol. I disliked Jim. He was a slacker who always slept instead of working, and when he wasn’t sleeping, he would boss me around because he was three years older.

“Will you look at that?” a familiar voice said. My throat grew dry as I looked up to find Shay-Lee Rogers standing there carrying two bottles of water and a bag of chips.

“Rogers,” I said quietly, trying to sound unfazed, despite how fast my heart beat at the sight of his casual smile, gorgeous blue eyes, and his shoulder-length blond hair.

Shay-Lee Rogers was the last person I wanted to run into while working here. Not only was he the quarterback of my football team and the most popular guy in school, but he was also the guy I had obsessed over since junior year.

I started questioning my sexuality before high school, considering my lack of interest in girls. Then, one look at Shay-Lee’s body during our first football practice told me I was definitely into dudes. No one knew about me being gay, mainly because of my plans to go pro football, but also because I preferred to avoid the attention that came with coming out.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked, his bright blue eyes sizing me up with curiosity while his lips curved into half a smirk.

Fuck, he’s beautiful.

“Working.” I kept my voice flat to hide my interest in how he licked his bottom lip.

“No shit, Sherlock.” He chuckled then put his items on the counter, and I started to scan them. “I mean, why the fuck are you working here?” He looked around the shop, not trying to hide his disapproval.

We weren’t best friends, but we still hung out, mostly because I was a teammate, and my best friends, London and Berlin Kingston, were his guys.

“I needed some money before school started,” I said and looked up from the screen. “That will be four ninety-nine.”

Pretending not to hear my lame answer, he handed me a ten-dollar bill. “Ready to go back to that shithole?”

“Sure,” I lied. I wasn’t ready at all to go back to Beverly Bay High. Mostly because I had no idea how I’d manage school and work, but I’d have to find a way, considering how football had become my sole ticket to college.

“On second thought, I need this as well.” He threw a box of condoms on the counter, and I looked down so he wouldn’t notice the flush that crept to my cheeks. What would he do with them? What a stupid-ass question, Jordy. And now my mind was filled with images of Shay-Lee putting on a condom on his hard—