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Chapter 3

Zander

I watched her from a distance. She didn’t know I was there though. It was good. I needed to keep an eye on her. The couple of years I couldn’t was almost unbearable. I wondered what my dear step-sister was up to while she was gone. What she was doing at her grandmother’s house. I did my best to keep an eye on her, but it was hard. After her little incident, she didn’t use social media anymore. At least not under her name. She might be in places where she could remain anonymous which I wouldn’t be able to find. I don’t even think if I got a nerd to help they could crack the code. Winter was always a private person. She didn’t like to tell many things even when she had social media. She wasn’t like the people who overshared. She posted a selfie, maybe a food picture here and there, but never much more. Never paragraphs about her love life like I have seen some people do. That’s what I liked about Winter. She had some mystery to her.

“Babe,” my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend whined from right next to me. We had been sitting at the table eating our breakfast together. Something she made me do every morning after we worked out together. It was nauseating. I would rather work out with the guys, but I couldn’t do that anymore. Not since my dad got the bright idea I should date Amber Stone. Her family was important in this town. They owned the factory in town. Important enough to where my father thinks it would look good for me to date her. I didn’t much care for her. She was rather boring. Just another rich girl who always got what she wanted. She just wanted me because of who I appeared to be. Not because of who I was. If we got married, it would be a loveless marriage. Much like how my mother described her marriage to my father. She wasn’t ever shy to talk about how much she hated my father or the marriage. The only good thing was me, of course.

“Did you hear a word I just said? What are you even looking at?” She asked. She didn’t follow my eye thankfully or she would have been pissed. I didn’t know if Amber remember Winter from high school. I doubted. It wasn’t something I felt like she would care enough about. She never liked Winter.

“Yeah, I heard everything you said.”

“Really?” She asked as she took a bit of her yogurt. “What did I say?” I opened my mouth to reply, but she already stopped me. “Oh my god,” she said looking down at her phone. “Give me a minute, I won’t forget this.” She said picking up her phone as she went to call. It was probably one of her friends calling her to talk about something stupid.

My eyes went back to Winter to only see she was gone. Damn it. Where did she go? She had to have gone into the admissions building. I got up from the table where I was sitting to go see if I could find her. I didn’t know why, it was like my legs had a mind of their own.

Someone had to stop me though. I felt a hand on my chest. I looked down to see Royal. “Man, what do you want?”

“So, it is true. She is back in town?” He asked raising an eyebrow. “Winter Story came back. I never thought she would after everything that happened.

I nodded. “Yeah, she got in last night. I think she’s staying with my dad. I don’t think she wanted to live in the dorms.” I was acting completely normal. Not like I had the itch to follow her right now. To find her and pick back things up where we left them. I never thought I would ever get hooked on a girl, but Winter was a different story. Ever since she walked into my life, it was like she had a piece of my soul wrapped around her finger.

“It is probably for the best. People might still remember who she is.”

I nodded remembering the incident that tore Winter away from me. I couldn’t blame her for leaving for her grandma’s after everything. High school kids are cruel after all. I was happy to have her back. To have her near.

“Anyway,” Royal said switching what we were talking about. “Hailey wants to know if you would like to do another double date.”

I couldn’t help but groan at the idea of going on another date. Hailey and Royal had been dating for years. Since middle school, I think. On and off a little bit, but she’s always been around and I can’t stand her. She is an annoying entitled princess. She thinks because her father is a senator we all have to listen to her. She is wrong. She thinks she and Royal belong together. I wasn’t sure exactly why Royal put up with her. Her pussy couldn’t be that good.

“Come on, it’s fun when you go,” he said. “They can just do their girl talk like last time and we can shoot pool.”

“Pass,” I said shaking my head. I needed to find Winter. Not sit around and plan a date that will make me want to blow my brains out.

“Please man, you owe me one.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Owe you one for what?” I couldn’t remember anything I would owe Royal’s ass for. If anything he owes me for saving his ass more than once.

“For making sure, Hailey didn’t see Winter. You know they had bad blood in high school.”

I rolled my eyes. If that’s what you wanted to call it. More so Hailey was jealous that Winter had captured Royal’s attention away from her. She captured all four of our attention. Inspired us to do something we never even thought about. Share a girl. All four of us were pretty competitive. When it came to her, nothing mattered. We all just wanted our piece of her. The only fight we ever had was about who got her first. That was quickly decided to be me. The leader of the group. The one who was the closest to her. I was the first and I would be her forever.

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