“He’s going to try to buy you back,” Ryke tells me. “That’s what he fucking does, and you’re going to have to say no. He’s your fucking trigger, Lo. You shouldn’t be around him while you’re recovering.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, lugging my bag over my shoulder. Most days, I regret asking Ryke to be my sponsor. Even if he’s pretty good at it. Trigger or not, Jonathan Hale is my father. Ryke doesn’t understand him the way I do.
He’s not all bad.
{ 7 }
LILY CALLOWAY
My second test score came back last week, and it was a big fat F. I knew transferring from an Ivy League to another Ivy League wasn’t the cure for my poor grades, but I hoped that Princeton would kick my lazy butt into gear. With Rose running around the same campus as me, I should be more motivated. Plus, my hours are no longer wasted away on porn and self-love. But I didn’t predict that my time would be consumed by therapy in New York and trying to rebuild my relationships with my sisters. Getting healthy and making amends is almost as big a time bandit as wallowing in my addiction.
I have so many issues to deal with that school is that last thing on my mind, when it should probably be the first. Lo may be back but time doesn’t stop for us, and I can’t fail my classes in Princeton too. I’m already behind as it is.
Which is why a tutor sits beside me, though he’s not doing much “tutoring.”
For the past thirty minutes, I watched him browse Rich Kids of Instagram, a site that I boycott and find generally revolting. I nudge him to help me twice, and he points to my book. “Do another problem,” he says without peeling his eyes from his phone.
I miss the days where Connor Cobalt gave me a hundred-and-ten percent of his tutoring attention, even going as far as making me flashcards.
Sebastian Ross may just be the worst tutor alive.
He invades my personal space for a second, and I think he may actually be showing me how to do a Statistics problem.
He sticks his phone beneath my nose. “Whose watch do you like better?” He extends his wrist and holds it by the screen, the band gold and the gadgetry so complex that my eyes hurt. The one in the picture is no simpler. A teenager stands outside his gray-bricked mansion, wrists displayed like he’s preparing to box.
“Neither.”
“Amuse me.”
Amuse him? How about amuse me! I’m the one who should be entertained by numbers and words. Connor would know how to make studying fun.
I try not to glare. “I like my watch.”
Sebastian’s one eyebrow arches, so smarmy and elitist that I have to give him props for mastering the technique. He snatches my wrist to inspect the device. He huffs. “You’re wearing a toy.” He flicks the plastic cap, nearly causing the hands of the clock to stop.
“Hey,” I say, retracting my arm and clutching my wrist to my chest. “That’s Wolverine, you know.” The yellow and blue band buckles on my bony wrist, and the X-Men hero is printed inside the watch-face.
He looks mildly interested now. “Is it a collectible?”
“…maybe.”
He restrains the urge to roll his eyes. “Where’d you get it?” he asks. “The kid’s section in Target?”
My cheeks redden even though they shouldn’t. “No,” I retort. “Lo won it from a vending machine. You know, the ones where you put a quarter in and it drops out the little egg thing.” We had a seventy-five percent chance to get either Superman or Batman, so when Wolverine popped out, it seemed like fate. We were easily entertained.
Sebastian grimaces. He has a pretty good stink-face too. “You touched those things?” He returns to his phone, scrolling. “Sometimes I wonder how you’re related to your sister.”
Sometimes I wonder why she’s friends with you.
I would exchange Sebastian for a better model, but not when Rose asked him, her best friend, to tutor me. Before Connor came into the picture, Sebastian escorted Rose to every social function, her go-to arm candy.
He leans back on the couch, wearing khaki slacks, a blazer and glasses with wide frames and thin rims. I have a suspicion that he’s someone who only wears glasses for show, not function. And his honey blond hair is slicked neatly and parted on the side, groomed and styled.
Even if he didn’t take the time to look good, Sebastian is the kind of person that was born to be pretty.
Normally I’d be tempted. But I have Loren Hale.
And Sebastian is gay. So there’s that.
When he snorts out loud, I catch a glimpse of his cell. There’s a picture of a guy sitting in a hot tub on a million-dollar yacht, surrounded by expensive bottles of champagne.