Chas glances back at me, a suspicious cast to his gaze.
“You’re still too nice. Do I agree that going down to the maze today was a good choice? Sure, we learned a lot. But it was risky. And Lumen is guilty as fuck. That’s all I’m saying.” He looks back up toward the ceiling and then closes his eyes. He’s exhausted and so am I. Between rescuing Parrish, losing Maxine, studying like crazy, and getting our asses kicked, we’re spent. “And when Lumen says she wants to keep Danyella ‘innocent’ in all of this?” Chas lets out a low, disbelieving chuckle. “There’s no such thing. Whatever is going on with this blackmail situation, she knows.”
“Agreed.” Maxx sits down on the side of the bed, reaching out with a single finger and running it along the sole of my bare foot. I shiver, my mind straying back to that night when he gave me the foot massage. “Also, she kissed you, so … fuck her. If she were a guy, I would’ve decked her.”
We all pause as the bedroom door opens and Parrish slips in, looking completely picked over.
“God, I love Tess, and I understand her pain, but she’s suffocating me,” he whispers, putting his back to the door and closing his eyes. “You’d think we were an hour late for pickup.”
After leaving the hedge maze, Maxx guided us back the way we came to avoid the cameras, and then peeled off from Parrish and me to head for the visitor’s parking lot. We dropped Chasm at the garage, and then the two of us proceeded outside to where Kimber was already waiting with Tess.
She got tears in her eyes—no joke—and hugged him for a good three minutes straight while Kimber and I sat awkwardly inside her Mercedes, waiting.
“Just give her some time,” I say, sitting up as Parrish opens his eyes and turns to look at me. He’s probably wondering what alternate universe we’re trapped in, seeing as I’m actually sitting here and defending Tess. That pretty much never happens. “She’s got a lot of trauma to work through.”
“I’m more worried about you,” Parrish remarks, pushing away from the door and moving around the bed to stand next to Maxx. “How are you feeling?” He looks up and over at Chasm. “Both of you.”
“I’m all good,” Chasm says first, gesturing absently in my direction. “It’s Little Sister that I’m worried about.”
“I’m fine. A little sore, but that’s about it.” I decide to leave it at that for now. Justin’s sent me several texts praising my handling of today’s situation and promising to get rid of the images of me online. For anyone else, scrubbing the internet of a particular photo or video is a near impossible task; once it gets around, it’s out there forever. For him, it appears to be a relatively easy one. Even though I hate relying on that man for anything, I want this too badly to say no. He hasn’t asked me for anything in return—yet—but he sent another short video of Maxine that felt like a warning. She was sitting by an indoor pool, eyes closed, legs dangling over the edge. Take it one day at a time, Dakota. “Don’t stress about it.”
“I am going to stress about it,” Parrish asserts, looking beyond gorgeous in his uniform; all of that black and green and gray complements the gold flecks in his eyes. “Veronica and her friends; Antonio and his friends. They’ll get what’s coming to them.”
He pauses for a minute, like he’s just thought of something.
“Do you mind if I grab my phone real quick?” he asks, and Maxx gives him a harsh stare in response.
“You’re not making a TikTok,” he warns, and Parrish gives him a sharp look. “Don’t invite more conflict in. We have Justin and Maxine to worry about then we can clap back at Veronica and the others. We have all summer to do that.”
“They can’t walk away after what they did,” Parrish argues, but Maxx is already shaking his head.
“No. But don’t go on social media and start playing those games with them.”
The two boys stare at each other as I adjust my position and cross my legs, drawing their attention back to me.
“Don’t forget that Lumen kissed her,” Chasm reminds them, and Parrish’s eyes narrow to slits. I give Chas a look.
“Stop harping on that; I turned her down. I told her no. You don’t have to trust her, but for now, we should at least act as if we do. The more information we can get out of her the better. Now, at least, we know for sure that Justin really is the one blackmailing her.”
“I’ve never liked that,” Parrish says, staring down at me and making me fidget. “Her touching and kissing you; it’s bothered me from the start.” He looks over at me, and I shiver underneath his gaze. I won’t soon forget the way his blazer wrapped around me like a pair of dark wings, how he carried me into the bathroom, how attentive he was. “Seeing my rival put her hands on the girl that was supposed to be mine from the get-go.”
