The Help (Kings of Linwood Academy, #1)(31)

“Fine.” I’m shaking with anger, but I force the word out. “Let me get my uniform—”

“Nah.” His hand doesn’t release my arm. “You’re fine how you are. Nobody downstairs stands on ceremony like that.”

My gaze flicks down for a second. I’m wearing a pair of soft pink shorts and a tank top to match. I don’t have a bra on, and the tank isn’t see through, but it’s soft and stretchy enough to leave nothing to the imagination. And he wants me to go downstairs in this?

“Now, Pool Girl,” he whispers softly, as if he heard my internal thoughts. “Don’t make me get you fired. I know you want to keep this job; I do believe you on that.”

I want to hit him. I want to wind up with my free hand and slap him so hard his head bounces off the wall. But I don’t, for several reasons. One, it would definitely be loud enough for Dax and Chase to hear. And two, he’s not wrong. I want to keep this job. He has me by the fucking balls, and he knows it.

When he sees my almost imperceptible nod, he releases my arm, herding me downstairs to the main floor, where the party continues to rage.

It’s fucking humiliating. He follows me like a dog trainer showing off his prize bitch, making me go from room to room grabbing empty cups and cleaning up spills. Savannah and Iris are in a corner of the ballroom with a group of other cheerleaders, and they scream with laughter until Lincoln glares at them.

He’s not trying to protect me though; I’m sure of it. He just hates them.

Dax and Chase show back up downstairs while I’m still cleaning in my pajamas, and they shoot curious glances at me as I keep my head down and work.

Fuck them. It’s their fault I’m stuck doing this. Theirs and Lincoln’s.

I should’ve told him the truth.

No matter how much it hurt him.





13





When Mom comes back with Lincoln’s parents on Sunday evening and asks how the weekend was, I tell her it was fine.

What else am I going to say? If I tell her what happened, she’ll probably quit in protest, and that would be just as bad as her getting fired. Worse, actually, because she couldn’t even file for unemployment if she quit. So I keep my lips zipped and ask her how her weekend was.

“It was fine.” She lets out a yawn as she flops down on the couch in her apartment. “A little odd, but the work was easy.”

“Odd how?” I sink down next to her.

She waggles her head back and forth like she can’t quite decide on the answer. “It felt a little like I was a third wheel, traveling with a married couple. But it also sort of felt like I was a buffer somehow, if that makes sense.”

I shake my head, because it really doesn’t. Not that I expect much to make sense when it comes to this family.

“Yeah, no.” She shrugs. “Maybe it’s a married couple thing. They’ve been together—well, I don’t know how long, but at least seventeen or eighteen years, probably. Maybe that’s just how it is after a while.”

“Guess you dodged a bullet on that one,” I joke. From everything Mom’s told me about my dad, I’m glad as hell she didn’t marry him. He proposed after she got pregnant but then dragged his feet until after I was born and disappeared a year later. Good riddance, I say.

The one bright spot in the whole weekend was that I went to another poker game on Friday, and this time, I cleaned up. I managed to replace the money I lost to River, which makes me feel better—although I’ve still got that fucking favor hanging over my head.

I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in the spare bedroom on Thursday night… and for some reason, whenever I try to imagine what River might ask me for, it always turns into something sexual, and I hate, hate, hate how my body responds to those thoughts.

“Low? Where’d you go?”

My mom’s words penetrate my brain, yanking me out of my distracted musings.

“Nowhere. Sorry.” I shake my head. “I gotta get to bed. I’m glad your trip went okay. And I’m glad you’re back.”

I hop off the couch, then lean over the back of it to give her an upside-down hug.

“Love you, kiddo,” she murmurs.

“Love you more.”





Now that I’m not getting harassed in the hallways anymore, school is mostly just a blur of homework and long, boring lectures. I’m doing pretty well in most of my classes, although Business and Econ sucks. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that it’s a required course at a school like this, but I don’t have much interest or aptitude for it. I’m clinging to a B-though, and as long as I don’t let it slip any further, I’ll be okay.

We have a test in that class on Monday, and as I turn in my answers and walk out, a heavy feeling settles in my chest. That… could’ve gone better. I studied some over the weekend, but I was a little distracted by Lincoln’s fucking party and the poker game I went to, on top of managing my mom’s usual duties at the house. And I’ve been in such a weird place mentally ever since the party, it was hard to focus.

Not that Mr. Arndt would care about any of those excuses even if I told him.

The rest of the week scrapes by, and when we get our tests back on Thursday, my eyes widen as I look at the circled number written in the top right corner.