Forever Golden: Dark High School Bully Romance (Kings of Cypress Prep Book 3) by Rachel Jonas (books like beach read txt) 📗

been trying to warn me about my dad’s NDA spree, and I blew her off. With the possibility of her calling to give some sort of heads up, I go against my gut and answer.

“What the fuck do you want?”

She scoffs into the phone and I don’t care that I’ve already pissed her off within the first millisecond of this call.

“I’m sorry. Am I interrupting while you’re getting ready for the Snow Ball?” she asks snidely. “Looked like you had fun playing dress up with your hood rat the other night. You always did have a soft spot for strays.”

Apparently, she didn’t miss Pandora’s montage dedicated to me and Southside’s shopping trip a couple days ago. She deserved a new dress for tonight and we thought that by going to a mall a few cities over, we’d avoid having our every move clocked. Obviously, we were wrong about that.

“It’s funny,” Parker says. “I always thought you hated these things.”

She sounds salty as hell, but I don’t call it out. Instead, I hit the button to unlock my car as my steps echo in the parking structure.

“What is it about her?” she asks. “I mean, yeah, she’s pretty or whatever, but so are all the other randoms you fuck. Did you choose someone so far beneath you because you needed an ego boost? Does being with her make you feel… superior?”

I don’t have time for this shit.

“Get a fucking life, Parker. I’m hanging up.”

“Do you even care?” she rushes to ask, halting me from ending the call.

“The fuck are you talking about?”

She scoffs and I start my engine, letting the call pick up on the car speaker.

“I lost everything, West—my scholarship, my friends. Yeah, I may have fucked up, but do you really think you didn’t have any part in that? You don’t think there are consequences for how you emotionally abuse women? For how you sweet-talk your way into their heads, fuck them, then fuck them over?”

I let out a breath when I pull out into traffic, resisting the urge to hang up.

“There a point to this call? Or are you just wasting both our time with this bullshit?”

“You’re such an asshole!” she shouts.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

She’s fuming. Even without seeing her, I know this to be a fact. She’s one of those people who hates it when her anger shoots up to a ten, only for the person she’s directing it at to stay cool.

“My parents put the house up for sale, West,” she reveals next. “They’re getting me out of this city because—thanks to you and that bitch you’re sponsoring—they’ve realized how toxic this place is.”

I laugh. Can’t help it. “And I’m guessing you want me to believe this move has nothing to do with your dad’s dealership going under, right?”

I’ve got her so pissed now I can hear her heavy, angry breaths on the other end.

“Go fuck yourself, West.”

“As soon as you get some fucking help, Parker.”

The line goes dead then, and I’m left wondering what her point even was. Was hearing that she’s leaving Cypress Pointe supposed to make me feel guilty? Far from it. As far as I’m concerned, that bitch can move to the fucking moon and I wouldn’t give a shit. She made her own damn bed, now she can lie in it.

BLUE

“Red’s definitely your color,” Jules beams, looking me over in the mirror.

“I tried on about a hundred dresses and it came down to this one and two others. West hasn’t seen me in it, though.”

Jules laughs a little. “Wasn’t he there when you bought it?”

I nod. “Yeah, but when I realized this was the one, I stayed in the dressing room so he wouldn’t see me in it.”

Looking myself over, I let out a nervous sigh.

“Well, in this dress, you’re sure to put the ‘ho’ back in ‘ho-ho-ho’ tonight,” she teases.

My best friend, the class act.

“It’s super cute that he took you shopping.”

Listening to Jules swoon, I smooth both hands down the satin clinging to my hips, just above one incredibly high-cut split on the right side.

“I just wish he didn’t have to spend money on me,” I add, still looking myself over.

“Dude, your boyfriend’s a fucking millionaire. He can afford to buy you a damn dress without it taking food off the table,” she teases. “Besides, I’m sure you’ll make it worth his while tonight.”

She peers up from her phone to wink at me.

“Yeah, but it’s not just the dress. It was Scar’s party, and the alarm system, and the trip to Louisiana.”

“To visit his family,” she points out. “And like I said, he’s loaded and probably would do a shit-ton more if you’d let him.”

She isn’t wrong about that. With his generous heart, he’d probably pay all my household bills if given the chance.

“I just don’t want him to ever think I see him as a paycheck on legs,” I add. “As it is, people see him and they see dollar signs. Yeah, because of his family being loaded, but also because they’re already saying he’s gonna go pro. I just—”

“Stop,” Jules cuts in, grabbing me by the shoulders after setting down her phone. “You do this all the time. Something totally unrelated will have you stressed out, then you start picking at the low-hanging fruit. What’s really bothering you?”

Her question has my gaze shifting to the closet where, inside, a thick white envelope I haven’t had the heart to open rests on the top shelf. Inside it, is the enrollment information for Scar. It came yesterday after I reached out to administrators in my grandmother’s town. It only adds insult to injury that I have it sitting right on top of the envelope Pandora delivered, holding within it this city’s worst nightmare—proof that Vin intends to announce a mayoral campaign in the coming weeks.

“B.J., talk to me,” Jules says, bringing me out of my thoughts.

For so many reasons, I can’t do that, so I do something I hate. I lie.

“Everything’s fine. I guess I’m