“Shall we try that new thrift shop?” Emilia suggests.
“Sounds good.”
We make our way to the shop, and for the next hour, we try on a multitude of dresses, before picking ones each of us like. It might not be the fancy, designer dresses we had last time, but we have just as much fun laughing at each other and mucking around in the changing rooms, before going to the checkout with our purchases.
Thankfully, I’m able to pay for the dress out of my scholarship stipend, instead of having to use the card. I know Hawk told me to treat myself, but it feels weird, especially considering my relationship with Barton is strained. However, I do use the card to treat us to lunch afterward—somehow it feels more acceptable if I spend the money on both Emilia and I, as opposed to buying myself something frivolous that I don’t really need. I know it doesn’t really make any sense, but that’s how I feel.
We go to a sea-front cafe and order more food than the two of us could eat in a week, filling the table with various dishes, and laugh and enjoy ourselves as we gorge on the food until my stomach feels like it’s about to tear apart at the seams.
“So the guys and I have decided we’re going to go to college,” I tell her, once I’m so full I can hardly breathe.
“That’s great. Do you know where?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. Obviously we’re too late to apply for anything this year, so we’ll take some time once school is finished, and we’ve sorted out this crap with Maria and the company, to think over our options.”
“I’m so happy for you.” The smile drops off her face and she sighs. “It’s going to be so weird being away from you next year.”
“I’ll come visit you, and you can come to wherever we are anytime you want. Plus there’s the phone and video chat. West showed me how to set that up, so we can do that every week.”
She grins and holds her hand out across the table. “I’m holding you to that, Davenport.”
I laugh and shake her hand, ignoring the prickle of tears in my eyes. Damn, I am going to miss this girl.
***
It’s late afternoon by the time I let myself back into the guys’ dorm, finding all five of them huddled together in the living room, talking in low voices.
“What’s wrong now?” I sigh, the good mood from my day out quickly evaporating.
Dropping my shopping bags, I plunk myself on the sofa between Beck and West, snuggling in against Beck when he drapes his arm over me.
“I found this on the cameras today,” West says, pressing play on his tablet and holding it up for me to see.
Maria is sitting at her desk, when her cell starts ringing. Lifting it, she looks at the screen before answering.
“Everything in place?”
There’s a moment of silence while whoever is on the other end responds.
“Good. I need everything to go smoothly. No hiccups.”
Whoever she is speaking to says something and then Maria hangs up.
West pauses the video and I glance from him to everyone else. “What does this mean? Does it mean anything?”
“That’s the problem—we don’t know. It could be something, or it might be nothing,” Beck answers.
“Well, have you talked to your dad?” I ask, looking at West.
“Yeah, I phoned him earlier. He claimed he didn’t know anything, but we can’t trust him. Just because he transferred the shares and money, doesn’t mean he’s not in Maria’s pocket.”
He’s right. I know he’s been keeping eyes on him, just like he is with Maria, but we can’t trust him.
“Maybe we should pay him another visit?” I suggest.
“Yeah, except we all have exams this week, and I’m not even sure it would do any good.” I can hear the frustration in West’s tone.
I chew on my bottom lip, thinking. “Can you track the call or something?”
“I tried that too, but it mustn’t be her normal cell. There were no calls at that time registered to her number.”
“So it’s a burner phone. That’s suspicious.”
“Exactly.”
There’s a moment of silence as we all think. “Well, let's see if she does anything else suspicious this week. We don’t know enough to make a decision yet.”
We all mumble our agreements, but I can tell none of us are happy with this development, and I’m unsettled for the rest of the evening, unable to focus on studying for my first exam on Monday morning.
Chapter 21
The next week goes by in a blur of exams and studying, to the point that words lose all meaning, and just looking at math equations gives me a headache. More than once, I contemplate breaking my arm, just to get out of doing these exams, but as Emilia smartly reasons, if I don’t do them now, I’ll have to do them when everyone else is enjoying their summer break. Girl makes a lot of sense sometimes.
So, instead, I knuckle down and do my best to not fail every subject.
“How do you think you did?” she asks as we step out of our last exam on Friday.
“Eh, I don’t think it was a complete failure.” I’m hoping it’s at least a C. I’m not expecting top grades in any of my classes. I’ve barely scraped through the year, what with my lack of a formal education before now. Honestly, if I was still a scholarship student, I’m pretty sure I’d have been kicked out long ago. Anyone looking at my grades can see my transcript is obviously fake. All A’s to barely getting by? Yeah, that, or it’s a cry for help, and the headmaster is doing a shit job of ensuring his students are thriving here at Pacific Prep.
“You?”
“Yeah, I think it went okay.”
I have to suppress my eye roll. She’s said that about every exam so far, but I know for a fact, in all her practice tests, she was scoring in the nineties every time. So it definitely went better than ‘okay’.
“You’ve got that board meeting tomorrow?”
“Yup,” I answer on a sigh. To celebrate the end of exams, we have our first—and hopefully last—ever shareholders’ meeting at Nocturnal Enterprises tomorrow. On the plus side, I get to see the look on Maria’s face when we tell her we own the remaining shares, and give her a big, old, fuck you, as we watch all of her future plans for the company go up in flames.
“Whatever you and the guys are planning, you’re going to be safe, right?” she asks nervously, looking worried for me.
I haven’t told her exactly what’s going on—it’s better if she doesn’t know—but she knows shit’s going to hit the fan tomorrow.
“We’ll be fine,” I reassure her. When she still doesn’t look satisfied, I tack on, “I promise. We’ve taken all the precautions we can.” I sigh heavily. “I’ll just be glad when this is all over and we don’t have to worry about insane parents trying to come after us.”
She chuckles. “You won’t know what to do with all that spare time. Although, I can think of a few things you could get up to.” She waggles her eyebrows in a suggestive motion that makes me burst out a laugh.