He looked like he wanted to say something, and my heart stood on tiptoes. Then his eyes lifted over my shoulder, and he turned from me, walking away without another word.
I looked to where he had and saw my mother. She had black sunglasses on, but her arms were folded, and she was looking in my direction. Theo left because he was protecting me, but there was only one person who could provide such thick armor he’d leave my side. I stared at my mother, a realization curling in my gut.
I hadn’t been back at Crowne Hall for even an hour before I went to my sister’s room, kicking open her door.
“What did he give you?” I asked, not waiting for her to let me in. The question wouldn’t stop plaguing me. It felt like it was the secret key that would unlock everything.
“What could Theo Hound possibly have given you to make you trade your dress and kiss him publicly—”
I stopped short. Grim was in my sister’s room. Grim, the scary head of four guys who used to sit atop lunch tables, smoking and glaring, scaring teachers as much as they had the student body. Now he led them as the Horsemen gang, controlling any and all crime in Crowne Point.
Seeing me, Gemma startled. “Abby!”
Grim, on the other hand, barely reacted to my presence. His dark eyes glanced in my direction, then he moved to leave, brushing past me without a word.
“I…” I trailed off, noting the item in his hand.
Theo’s mom’s diary.
I snatched it without thinking. Keyword: without thought.
Grim was scary in high school; he was scarier now.
He was tall, tattoos decorated tan skin spiraling up his neck. Wild, inky black hair fell over his eyes. He reminded me a little of the grim reaper, which was fitting.
But this was the last piece of Theo’s mom. An item Theo rarely let me see, let alone touch, was in a stranger’s hands.
“Abigail, stop!” Gemma ripped it out of my hands, shoving it into Grim’s. “Theo gave this to me.”
Grim turned it over in his hand, then gave me another one of those barely interested looks from down his nose.
I had to watch helplessly as he disappeared with Theo’s mom’s diary.
“See you soon, rich girl.” Grim’s smooth, amused voice trickled back. It lingered like smoke.
Gemma stared after him, lips parted, as if caught in a spell.
“What the fuck? Was that who I think it was?”
She looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Why does he have Theo’s mom’s diary? Why did you?”
“I told you, it’s what he gave me, and I was trying to pay off my massive, Abigail’s muffin-top-sized debt.”
Her insult had my Gemma Defenses rising so quick, I nearly didn’t catch the most important part of what she’d said.
Why would Theo trade the one thing left of his mother so he could lie to me and ruin us?
“Did he really?”
Neither Gemma nor I had moved since Grim left, feet planted in her plush rug near the door. I stared in her blue eyes, willing her to be honest with me, trying to trust her despite the rusty beams propping up our sisterhood.
She slowly nodded.
Fuck.
I officially welcomed myself to her room for the second time in as many years, going to her bed.