Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Correct.
You’ll find me eventually. Promise.
I stride fast back to my own table.
I need to grab my jacket and leave, and I don’t know Tate well enough yet to know where the hell he might go right now.
But when I get back, I know I’ve been played.
My chest tightens and I slow down as I approach.
Tate is sitting at my table now. He has a black snapback baseball hat on, covering up his blond hair, and he must have purposely worn it when walking around to hide his most noticeable feature from me.
He looks up at me with a satisfied gaze as he cocks his head to one side.
“Not that good of a watchdog, are you?”
I stand over the booth for a moment. Tate picks up my fork, spearing a chunk of my pineapple and putting it in his mouth.
I once saw my father slice a man’s throat for taking a third serving of flank steak at a dinner.
You could not survive an hour in my life.
I slide into the booth across from Tate, nodding.
“You know this is a buffet?” I tell him. “Go get your own food.”
He ignores me, taking another piece.
He leans back, draping one arm over the back of the booth, still pinning his gaze on me. He’s in a loose grey tank top with the arm holes cut super low, yet again, to reveal the sides of his abs.
“But yours is good,” he says.
“Why are you at my table now?”
“I want to make you an offer.”
I lift an eyebrow.
Tate’s eyes dance across my face. “I’ll pay you double whatever my brother is paying if you agree to quit following me around campus and leave me alone.”
So you have noticed me tailing you.
You just haven’t let me know that you know.
“You don’t want protection?”
“I don’t need it.”
“Your brother said that you are under threat.”
I don’t mention that his brother also told me, in our short phone conversation, that he simply wanted someone watching over Tate to make sure he didn’t do anything to put himself in danger, either. I got the impression that Tate loved life, but could be self-destructive, too.
Tate shrugs. “You’ve seen me this week. Nothing is happening, Roman. I don’t need a bodyguard to watch me going to classes.”
“I’ve watched you playing nice, and I don’t believe that’s what you always do.”
“I wasn’t putting on a show for you. I was just living my life. Do I need to remind you that you don’t even know me?”
I’m silent for a few beats.
Tate is trying to seem confident, negotiating with me.
But his leg is bouncing, and one of his hands is on top of the table, fiddling with a straw wrapper until he turns it into a tiny little ball.
His wounded, bandaged hand moves more stiffly than the other, his fingers struggling to bend.
He’s nervous.
And that means he knows he doesn’t hold any power between us.
“I agreed to a job,” I tell him softly, “and I am going to do it.”
“I’ll pay you triple what Luke’s paying.”
I frown. “You want me gone that badly? What do you plan on doing, if you’re no longer being watched? Holding a piece of glass on someone else’s throat?”
He exhales, looking up at the wooden beams along the tall ceiling of the dining hall.
When he looks back at me, he leans forward on the table with both arms, getting closer to my face.
Jesus.
Seeing him this close up is disorienting after days of following him from far away.
I can see each individual brown freckle on the tops of his cheeks. A small dusky birthmark on his lower neck, too, just above his collarbone.
“Maybe I’m just tired of it,” he says, and something changes in his eyes. “I’ve been watched for my whole life, and I finally thought I was getting a shred of independence coming to this campus.”
Nineteen isn’t all that far off from twenty-one, but considering his life compared to mine… there’s nothing similar about us at all.
He looks so young.
“You didn’t have independence in the city?” I ask him.
“Not really. I had fun, but everywhere I go, I’ve always been watched.”
“And did you have friends?”
He nods. “Always. I make friends fast, but they’re all busy with their own shit in the city. Most of them were football friends, and now it feels like they’re a million miles away.”
I pause for a while, and he doesn’t say more.
“You were not safe in the city, Tate,” I tell him. “I’m not convinced you’re safe here, either. You can’t shrug off death threats when you’re worth millions.”
He frowns, reaching to mess with the straw wrapper again.
Suddenly, I see myself through his eyes, as he stares down at my forearms.
It’s the first time Tate’s seen my skin fully exposed.
I’m in a black short-sleeved shirt, and his eyes are trained on the dark lines of ink that loop around my arms. He glances at the black beaded bracelet I wear that used to be my mother’s.