Page 29 of Bitter’s Sweet

Bitter Adams is a man built out of hard lessons. That much is easy to see. He thinks if he says the ugly thing first, nobody can accuse him of hiding it. Maybe that works on some women. Maybe some women hear it and try to love him out of it.

I don’t have that kind of savior complex.

At least, not on my first damn day.

“I’ll see you around,” I say.

“Will you?”

“I go to school here now.”

“Not if Mercy scares you off.”

“She won’t.”

“Not if I do.”

I smile wider. “You won’t either.”

His gaze narrows again, and there is that little spark between us, the one that feels like a match struck too close to dry grass.

“You always this confident?” he asks.

“Only when I’m right.”

Something flashes in his face at those words, like he has heard them before or said them often. Maybe both.

Then Miss Mercy’s voice cuts through the hallway.

“Sweet, if you are done flirting with your first bad decision, I need you in sanitation before Raven’s transfer.”

I step back into the hall. “Coming.”

Bitter doesn’t move from the lounge doorway. He stands there with his cup in hand, watching me like he ain’t used to women walking away before he’s finished.

I turn once at the corridor corner.

He’s still watching.

I give him a little finger wave.

His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t wave back.

I follow Miss Mercy toward the school, past the colored light and the coffin displays and the sound of bikers mourning in the chapel. My pulse is still too quick. My cheeks are still warm. My mouth still tastes like apple, moonshine, and trouble.

Miss Mercy falls into step beside me.

“Well?” she asks.

“Well what?”

“You still want to study here?”

I look through the chapel doors at Raven sitting proud on his Harley, at the strange family gathered around him, at the women with steady hands and sharp mouths, at the coffins painted like final wishes, at the dark hallway where Bitter Adams waits like a warning I have no intention of pretending I can’t read.

“Yes,” I say.

Miss Mercy studies me. “Even after all that?”