Kings of Linwood Academy - The Complete Box Set: A Dark High School Romance Series Callie Rose (i read a book TXT) 📖

“I don’t like lying to Linc.”

“It wouldn’t be lying,” I plead, although I know I’m skirting a gray area here. “Just hold off on telling him for a little while. Just give me a little more time.”

River blinks slowly.

I’ve played poker with him, and he can keep his face completely impassive when he wants to, but right now, I feel like I can read every thought in his head. I can see him judging the pros and cons of each course of action, weighing them against each other.

I’m glad I told him. I’m glad he and the others are on my side. I’m glad I don’t have to make these fucking choices alone.

My fingers are still locked with his, and I rest our joined hands on my knees as I watch him, giving him time to think.

Finally, he dips his chin once. “Okay. Just for a little while though. Just for a few days. Then, whether we know more or not, we tell him.”

“Okay.” I nod vigorously.

That buys me a little time. Hopefully it’ll be enough time to dig deeper and see if this insane hunch actually means anything, or if I’m just grasping at straws, desperate for some kind of resolution.

What I know, you’ll know.

Those words filter through my head, and a twinge of guilt burns through my stomach. I was so fucking pissed at Lincoln when I thought he and the other kings had betrayed me, had hung me out to dry, alone and desperate.

But he had a reason. A good one.

And I do too.

Hopefully, he’ll forgive me like I did him.

No more secrets.

Except one.

12

River and I stay in the stairwell talking for a while longer after he agrees not to tell Linc or the other two boys about my suspicions regarding Mr. Black.

He doesn’t have a car on campus, so we use a ride share app to get a lift back to the Black family mansion. Lincoln is waiting for us, on edge and a little suspicious after I turned down my usual ride home with him. But I’m sure he has no idea what River and I talked about, the true reason I’d asked River to stay.

The three of us end up downstairs in one of the rec rooms, and Linc pulls me onto his lap on the big, plush couch set against one wall. His hands settle possessively on my waist, and I see his gaze dart between me and River a couple times.

Does he think something happened between us?

If he does, he doesn’t seem mad about it. He isn’t glaring at his friend or looking at me with anger or suspicion. His touch is definitely proprietary though, as if he wants to remind both me and River that, no matter what might’ve gone on between us, Lincoln hasn’t relinquished his claim on me.

That he might share, but he’ll never let go entirely.

Nothing did happen between me and River—well, nothing more intimate than sitting close together, heads bent and fingers interlaced—but I find myself almost regretting that fact. He kissed me once, the night I was attacked outside the poker game at the warehouse, and it was a good fucking kiss.

He looked at Lincoln right before he did it, some silent communication passing between them, and it occurs to me that maybe he was staking a claim on me too in that moment.

God, why am I thinking about this so much?

It’s crazy. My life is complicated enough as it is right now without trying to juggle more than one domineering alpha male.

Then again, these boys are in my life for good now, whether I ever wanted them to be or not. The bond between us, the secret that ties us all together, is strong enough to override everything else.

Now it’s just a question of how they’ll be in my life, what we’ll all be to each other.

And that question has a much more complicated answer.

“So, what the fuck is going on, Low?”

Lincoln’s voice is a gruff murmur near my ear, and River’s gaze lands on me too as I turn to face the boy beneath me.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, I guess—I have a piece of news big enough to justify my freakout without bringing my theories about Linc’s father into it.

“Savannah fucked with one of my tests again. In the same class as last time, Business and Economics.”

“What?” Linc’s amber eyes narrow.

“Yeah. But she used an old answer key. So not only was it completely obvious the answers were rigged, but I only got a fucking C minus on the exam.”

I’m still not sure whether I’ll have to keep that grade or not, since both the principal and Mr. Arndt know the results were doctored. But I’m a little scared to push about it. I barely walked out of that office as a Linwood Academy student, and I’m a little worried that if I bitch too much about my grade, Mr. Osterhaut will retract his offer of a final chance and just expel me right now.

“What the hell?” Linc mutters, his hands at my waist stiffening as a murderous expression crosses his face. “I told her to stop fucking with you.”

I can feel the tension building in his body, and I shoot a glance at River, suddenly glad beyond words that we haven’t told the dark-haired boy about his dad’s possible involvement yet. If this is how he reacts when Savannah is a shit to me, I can’t even imagine what he’d do if he thought his dad killed Iris and framed my mom. Maybe even tried to come after me too.

“She mostly has,” I say, wriggling on his lap to get more comfortable… and yeah, maybe to distract him a little.

It works though, because something under my left ass cheek begins to harden, and he lets out a low growling noise, his breath stirring my hair.

“I think this is one of the last things she thinks she can get away with,” I add, shaking my head. “Overt bullying will get her caught and