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Chapter Eight

I let my hair fall wild around my shoulders and face for school today. It looks like soft cotton candy on my head, a cloud of it framing my face. My eye makeup is darker today and I leave a few buttons of my shirt undone.

I feel alive for the first time in so long. I’m still reeling after the events last night. My body is still vibrating with excitement. I was so fucking horny last night I can’t even begin to explain it.

I make my way to first period, a skip in my step, my bag hanging from my arm. I even smile and wave at my peers. So much has happened and it’s not even the end of my first school week yet. This is good though; this is fast paced. I need fast paced. I need to get this done.

The sooner I get Nok where I want him the better.

Speaking of Nok, the second the bell rings I exit the classroom and almost bump into him in the hall. He’s waiting for me, leaning against the wall, a smirk on his lips. People stop, likely waiting for an altercation like the last time we met at the lockers.

His dark eyes scan my face and his thick diamond-heart lips smirk when I mirror his stance and hold his eyes. We stand, staring at each other, just breathing for the longest time.

“You coming, Lilith?” Loki asks and I’m surprised that he’s trying to rescue me.

“Track tonight?” Nok asks.

“No can do, bike’s clutch is fucked. I need to fix it.”

He stares at me again, still smirking but now he’s thinking too. He has such a naturally devious look about him. It would deter most but I find it intriguing. It’s as though he’s trying to figure me out, find my weaknesses and then use them against me.

“All right.”

His eyes drag down my body one last time, so slow I can feel them caressing my curves like hands. My womb shivers.

Pushing from the wall, he walks away, his hair a long tail down his back. I want to feel how soft it is. I bet it’s like satin threads.

“What was that all about?” Loki asks as we both watch Nok catch up with his friends.

“I made friendly with his brother.”

Loki forms an O with his mouth before asking, “You mean Nashoba?”

I nod. “He’s cool.”

“Oh yeah, from what I’ve seen of him he’s great. He does a lot of volunteering in Westoria, Astoria, and Knappa.”

This doesn’t surprise me. “What do you need, Loki?”

“I just wanted to check that you’re okay?”

Why’d he have to go and be nice to me? “I’m fucking peachy.” I shove off the locker with less grace and more aggression than Nok did, and check my watch as students sluggishly move to their next class. Loki follows, and I wonder if he has many friends. I’ve never really seen him with anyone but then I’ve never really paid attention.

He’s a good-looking guy and seems nice enough.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having just one person I can relate to here.

I look at him while chewing on my lip just as he reaches out to tap me on the arm but thinks better of it.

“Do you want to get high?” he asks quietly, and my eyebrows hit my hairline.

My lips stretch into a wide smile. “Fuck yeah.”

He shares my excitement and we skip school to sit in my dad’s shit car down an old dirt road, a joint filling the car with delicious smoke. Then we nap until three and I drive him back to his house.

I almost feel bad for snapping his pencil.

Kidding.


As I’m working on my bike in my driveway, wearing waist-high shorts and a black lace bralette, hair in braids and sunglasses perched on my nose, a familiar truck pulls up on my side of the street.

“Hey, snowflake,” Joseph calls, dropping from the passenger side of the truck.

I look at him over my sunglasses and watch Nok round the front of the truck, showing off by sliding across the hood.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“How’d you know where I live?” I ask, frowning as Nok gets up close to my naked bike and starts prodding around.

“Small town, new kid, not hard.”

“Do you always talk in unfinished sentences?” I ask him but he doesn’t respond. “I’ll take that as a yes then.” Clearing my throat, I drop the bolt into the tray with the others and wipe my forehead on my arm. My hands are covered in brown grease. If you turn out the lights it looks like drying blood. It’s mesmerizing in a really twisted way.

I flex my fingers and sit back on my butt when Nok takes over tweaking my bike.

“You know how to fix bikes?”

“He doesn’t,” Joseph states and then laughs when Nok glares at him. “But I do. My pa runs the garage where you bought your part this morning.”

Fucking small towns.

Nok rolls his shoulders, stands, and flexes his neck. “I know a bit.”

“Have at it,” I say, waving my oil-slick hand at my machine. “I’m too fucking high for this shit right now anyway.”

“You been on the ganja?” Joseph asks, looking surprised as I start scrubbing the grease from my hands with a damp towel.

“Needed something to bring me down after last night,” I reply and look at Nok who is now sitting on my bike as Joseph works on it. His eyes look at my house.

“Your parents home?” Joseph asks, noticing Nok’s eyes. “’Cause we can’t be here and not introduce ourselves.”

I shake my head. “Mom’s at work, will be until tomorrow.”

“Dad?”

My cheeks puff out as I blow into them. People in this town ask so many fucking questions.

“Is he working too?”

“Joseph,” Nok warns and they share a look between them. Brown eyes clash as Nok silently tells him to shut up and Joseph silently replies that he’s not doing anything wrong.

I alter the conversation. Something I’m good at. “You want a beer?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

I lick my lips and look at my bike. “Is this your way of saying thanks for saving your asses last night?”

“I had it handled,” Nok retorts, as firm and as harsh as always. I respect that about him, he doesn’t feel the need to kiss ass with a changing tide. He stays true to himself.

Still, I laugh while shaking my head. “I know. I just gave it a new angle.”

Joseph snorts and looks at his friend. “I like her.”

“I don’t,” Nok states and looks down his nose at me. “What did you do with the gun?”

I tap my nose. “Why would I tell you? You don’t like me.”

“Guns in the wrong hands are dangerous.”

I quirk a brow. “I took it out of the wrong hands.”

“Let me have it. I’ll get rid of it.” He sounds and looks genuine. “Let it be my burden. You’ll get into serious shit with somebody else’s gun in your possession.”

With flat lips and an even flatter stare, I click my tongue against my palate and curb my temper.

I’m no damsel. I take care of business myself.

“Why are you here, Nok?”

“This is me paying you back for last night.”

“By fixing my bike?” I ask incredulously. “No, this is you inserting yourself into my life when I didn’t ask for your help.”

A muscle in his jaw flexes.

“I’m not sure that you’ve noticed, but Justin is doing all the leg work.” I grin a genuinely sadistic grin and stand so we’re almost at equal height, putting my weight onto the tips of my toes, brushing my chest against his.

“It’s Joseph,” Joseph replies but we both ignore him.

“From what I’ve heard, you natives like to owe favors when people do things for you. And I did some pretty big things for you last night.” I walk my fingers up his chest like I did last night and tap him on the tip of his perfect nose. “You owe me. Like it or not. And I will cash that in eventually. You do not get to say when.”

“What about me? Do I owe you?” Joseph asks, looking way too excited as Nokosi glares so intently at me I feel the heat burning my profile.

“Yep.”

“Awesome.”

I laugh but then stop, worried my sister might hear. I look up at her bedroom window, but the drapes are drawn shut.

“Who’s upstairs?” Nok asks, following my line of sight.

“None of your business, that’s who.”

He stares at the window for the longest time, until I feel like pushing his face away.

Joseph with his cute dimples and shining hazel eyes pulls a face behind Nok’s back. I snigger to myself and walk towards the truck. I open the passenger side and climb up without permission, surprised when Nok charges at me, grabs my hips, and yanks me back down so hard my entire body collides with his.

Unfortunately for him I really don’t like it when people sneak up on me, especially not after he got the drop on me in school. I react instinctively by bringing my elbow up and jabbing him in his throat. He moved in time for me to not accidentally collapse his esophagus, but he still chokes and cups his neck.

“Don’t sneak up on me,” I snap, pressing my back to his truck and holding myself.

He continues to act like he can breathe despite the fact he clearly can’t.

“Dude,” Joseph mutters, looking concerned. “You okay?”

With red eyes Nok nods and looks at his friend. “Fine,” he husks, his voice breathy and hardly there.

“You both need to go,” I snap, feeling edgy and irritated. My anxiety has been triggered.

They don’t move.

“Now,” I snarl. “Go. I can fix my own damn bike.”

“I’m almost done.”

“Go,” I yell, tucking my trembling hands into my pockets.

Nokosi grabs Joseph by the collar and yanks him to standing.

“Don’t come back here,” I shout after them, looking around me to double check that nobody is listening in. I’m not in the mood for any more invasions of privacy and personal space today.

“She’s a bit loco,” Joseph mutters as he climbs into the car and I resist throwing a wrench at his head.

I look at my phone in my stained hand when a text comes through. It helps to take my mind off everything that just happened.

But when I see it’s from my sister, I glare up at her bedroom window, directly at the part where the curtain is twitching.

Willow: Why do you put yourself through this?

Lilith: Go back to sleep. You need your rest.

Willow: Insert middle finger here

I laugh through my nose and look at the road where the truck no longer is.

Then I finish my bike myself.

I can breathe again now that they’re gone.

I can’t say the same for Nokosi, however. I bet he won’t sneak up on me again.

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