Page 90 of Dark Tangled Truths
I sigh. “Are you staying again tonight?”
Cam runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah, Hawk’s parents are being very needy, and mine have decided I must be doing something right. The world is upside down.”
We get ready for school and head down the back way. When we climb on his bike, Cam rolls it out and down the drive. He kicks the engine on and we pull out. Hawk comes alongside us.
“Morning, baby girl.” Hawk’s voice echoes in my helmet.
“Morning.”
“Still not feeling it?” he asks.
I blow out a breath but don’t answer. When we arrive at school, I stick with Cam until calculus. I miss Damon, but he texts me. Mostly in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep. Almost every second of his day at Crowne Mawr is scheduled, which makes sense.
History is weird with just Mia and Hawk. For lunch, Hawk leads me toward the parking lot instead of the cafeteria.
And I don’t protest. Too many looks from girls and guys today like they know all my business. I’ve kept my head up, but it’s wearing on me.
“Tell me what you want to eat, Annie.” He leads me out to their bikes, and Cam is waiting for us.
We go to a little hole in the wall sushi place. For an hour, I don’t have to think about someone trying to capture a picture of me and posting it to a social media account that shouldn’t exist.
Instead of stalkers, we discuss how the horror genre has changed over the years. Cam wants to download some current movies that reflect the movies we’ve been watching from my dad’s list.
“There are some slasher films that would give Freddie a run for his money.” Cam leans back in his chair and puts his napkin on the table. “LikeIt Follows.”
“I’d love to compare the haunting genre.The Conjuringuniverse versusPoltergeist.” Hawk brushes my hair behind my ear. “We could do a marathon.”
I smile. “That would be awesome. Do you have time for a marathon? Because I don’t. I have a production and homework and college admissions coming out of my ears.”
Hawk leans in and kisses me. “Don’t worry, we’ve got you, Annie. It can wait until the show is over.”
“Isn’t that when hockey season starts?” I steal the last California roll and pop it in my mouth.
“Close.” Cam smirks. “We’ll have some time before it really gears up.”
There’s always going to be more work to do until we graduate. It’s weird to think about being with them in college when we’ve barely even begun to date. But I also can’t imagine not being with them. We don’t have to make any concrete decisions until spring, but that doesn’t take the stress off.
When we return to school, I ignore the looks and whispers. The link has made its rounds, so most of the school has seen it. If I didn’t know better, this would have been a great way to destroy my good girl reputation without showing Chase videos of them fucking me. Because those pics show how easy it was for the Devil’s trio to insert themselves into my life and take it over.
It doesn’t show me resisting them at all. At the beginning, I did.
Mia meets us where Anteros and Deimos split. “Boys.”
Hawk pulls me in for a hug. “See you in rehearsal this afternoon.”
When he releases me, Cam draws me into him and tips my chin up. His dark eyes search mine. “Something else will come out soon, and this will fade to the background.”
“I can only hope.” I lean in as Cam kisses me.
They leave me with Mia, who links her arm with mine. “Where’d you go for lunch?”
I slip into an easy conversation about lunch and classes with Mia. She avoids any talk about the social media stuff. But she does tell me way too much about her lunch with Liam and Fletcher. When we sit down in our acting studio class, I get a notification.
Dread floods me. I can’t leave my phone off, but some of the anonymous texts have been almost as awful as that page.
When I check, there’s a new post to the page. My heartbeat is loud in my ears, but it’s better to know. The picture is Camkissing me from a few minutes ago. Fuck. How did I not notice that?
I show the pic to Mia. “Who was around us?”
