Good Girl Complex(Avalon Bay #1)(8)

“Dude.” Evan kicks my foot. “Snap out of it, man.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” he says sarcastically, “I can tell.” He grabs the empty bottle of beer I’ve been absently holding and tosses me a new one from the cooler. “You’ve been a moody little bitch for two days. I get you’re pissed off, but it ain’t cute anymore. Get drunk, smoke some weed. Heidi’s here somewhere. Maybe she’ll hook up with you again if you ask nicely.”

I stifle a groan. There are no secrets in this group. When Heidi and I first slept together, we’d barely dug the crust out of our eyes the next morning before everyone else knew about it. Which is just more proof that it was a bad idea to go there. Hooking up with friends is only inviting trouble.

“Eat me, asshole.” Heidi throws a handful of sand at him from across the fire pit. She flashes him the bird.

“Oops,” he says, knowing full well she was sitting there. “My bad.”

“You know, it’s remarkable,” Heidi says in that flat tone that is a glaring warning she’s about to snip your balls off. “You two are identical twins, and yet I wouldn’t touch your dick, Evan, even with Cooper’s face.”

“Burn,” Alana shouts, laughing beside Heidi and Steph. The three of them have been the absolute torment of every boy in the Bay since we were in third grade. An unholy trinity of hotness and terror.

Evan makes a lewd gesture in response because comebacks are not really in his wheelhouse. Then he turns back to me. “I still say we wait till that clone leaves his house and we jump his ass. Word gets around, Coop. People start hearing you let that shit stand, and suddenly they’re thinking anyone can mess with us.”

“Cooper’s lucky that prick didn’t press charges,” Steph points out. “But if you turn this into a war, he could change his mind.”

She’s right. There’s no good reason why I haven’t spent the last two days in a jail cell, other than that Preston guy was satisfied in humiliating me. While I’d never admit defeat, I’m still hot about getting fired. Evan’s right—Hartleys can’t let that shit stand. We have a reputation in this town. People smell weakness, they start getting ideas. Even when you have nothing, someone’s always trying to take it.

“Who was he, anyway?” Heidi asks.

“Preston Kincaid,” Steph supplies. “His family owns that massive estate down the coast where they ripped out those two-hundred-year-old oaks last month to put in a third tennis court.”

“Ugh, I know that guy,” Alana says, her bright red hair glowing in the firelight. “Maddy was running her dad’s parasailing boat a few weeks ago, and she took him out on it with some chick. He was trying to talk some game to Maddy right in front of his date. Dude actually asked her out. When she made some excuse, right, because she’s still trying to get a tip, he tries to persuade her into a threesome right there on the boat. Maddy said she damn near tossed him overboard.”

Steph makes a face. “He’s such a creep.”

“There you go.” Evan pops the cap on a fresh beer and takes a swig. “He’s got it coming. We’d be doing a community service to bust him down a peg.”

I eye my brother, curious.

“Revenge, dude. He took a pound of flesh from you. We take two from him.”

Have to admit, I’m aching for payback. For two days, this chunk of seething anger has sat in my gut, burning. Bartending wasn’t my sole source of income, but I needed that money. Everything I’ve been working toward got a lot farther away when that jackass got me fired.

I think it over. “Can’t beat his face in or I’ll wind up in jail. Can’t take his job because, come on, who are we kidding, dude doesn’t have one. He was born with a silver spoon up his ass. So what else is there?”

“Oh, this poor, dumb girl,” Alana suddenly says, coming around to our side of the fire to show us her phone. “Just peeped his social media. He’s got a girlfriend.”

I narrow my eyes at the screen. Interesting. Kincaid posted a story earlier today about moving his girlfriend into her dorm at Garnet. The post includes heart emojis and all the performative, saccharine bullshit that are the telltale signs of a cheater overcompensating.

“Damn,” Evan remarks, taking the phone. He flicks through photos of them on Kincaid’s obnoxious yacht. “Chick’s actually hot.”

He’s right. The picture Evan zooms in on shows a tall, dark-haired girl with green eyes and tanned skin. She’s wearing a white cropped T-shirt that’s falling off one shoulder, revealing the strap of a blue bathing suit beneath, and for some reason, that thin strip of fabric is hotter than any pornographic image I’ve ever seen. It’s a tease. An invitation.

A terrible idea forms in the worst part of my mind.

“Take her,” Evan says, because for all the ways we’re completely different, we’re exactly the same.

Alana’s eyes light with mischief. “Do it.”

“What, steal his girlfriend?” Heidi demands, incredulous. “She’s not a toy. That’s—”

“A great idea,” Evan interjects. “Snipe that clone’s girl, rub it in his face, then dump her rich ass.”

“Gross, Evan.” Heidi gets up and snatches Alana’s phone from him as they continue to bicker. “She’s a person, you know.”