Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (27 page)

I’m not following her.

Well, I am following her, but it’s not like that.

A group of four girls whizzes by in a silver Mercedes E550 convertible. They’ve got the top down and none of them are wearing their seat belts.

I laugh while thinking about what Cassie would have to say about that. She’s right, of course, even if she is a know-it-all.

The car screeches to a halt, and then kicks into reverse. I hear it wind up until it’s by my side, and the girls all simultaneously bat their eyes at me.

I stop, look at each one of them in the eyes in turn, and then smirk. “What do you want?”

“Why are you walking, Chance?” one of them asks me. She’s got her tits pushed up to cruising altitude. “Do you need a lift?”

“No,” I tell her. “Where are you girls off to?”

“Club Ninety-Nine,” the driver says. She’s got black hair in a sleek side part, and of the bunch she’s definitely the most eye-catching, but I’m not interested.

“Chance,” another says, one I don’t recognize from school
at all
. “When’s your next fight? I was at the last one, it was so cool. You were great.”

“Monday,” I tell her. “Next week.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Sure.”

I flick my eyes back down the road, but now see that Cassie has turned the corner and I can’t see her anymore.

I start walking after her, but hear my name called from the convertible.

“What?” I ask.

“Want to come out with us?”

“No.”

I keep walking, and it takes a moment for the four girls to drive off.

I speed up, and eventually see Cassie again. She’s walking quickly as she passes by a house party where people have spilled out onto the street.

People look at her as she passes, but she doesn’t meet their eyes. She walks right by them, never once turning around.

Cassie doesn’t know I’m following her, and she’d probably be real indignant about it, too. But all it takes is one drunk, overreaching and overbearing asshole to ruin a girl’s night.

And on this night, there will be plenty of them.

Another car screams by, and I catch the green glint of a beer bottle in the passenger seat.

Fucking idiots.

I walk by the house party, and some guy smoking in the driveway recognizes me.

“Shit, Chance fucking Hudson!” he says, walking up to me, fist held out, waiting for a dap.

“Yeah, man,” I say, giving him a perfunctory look.

“Woah, hold up, man, join us!” He’s walking by my side. “We got everything, bro. Coke, shrooms, booze… whatever you want, it’s on me.”

I look at the dude-bro, regard him. “No thanks.”

“Why not, man?”

But I don’t reply, I just keep walking.

Can’t get anywhere in this town without being harassed.

Cassie turns, cuts through a dark path without streetlamps. She’s brave.

It’s not like I’m playing hero, but I did just manage to piss her off into walking home.

I puff on my cigarette, walking the same route she does, and eventually I see her reach her house. She unlocks the front door.

As she steps in, I swear she casts a glance in my direction. I’m just standing at the corner, smoking. Loud bass is thumping from a nearby party.

But her body language betrays nothing. I don’t know if she recognized me or not. She closes the door, and the living room light switches on.

I start walking back to my car.