Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
“You shouldn’t apologize for something I suggested,” Rhemann said.
“Yes, Coach. Sorry, Coach.”
Jeremy exchanged a pained look with Rhemann but only asked, “Shouldn’t we drive it over there, though? If you take it, what about your car?”
“Adi and I can pick it up this weekend.”
Jeremy nodded acceptance and passed him the keys. “Thanks, Coach. We’ll brainstorm our options and get it out of your hair as quick as we can.”
Rhemann pocketed the keys and checked his watch. “They’ve only got about thirty minutes left at Lyon. Rather than drag you back there, let’s have you do tens and twos until it’s time for break.”
Rhemann held the gate open, and Jeremy motioned for Jean to precede them to the door. The Monday after Grayson’s visit he’d made sure Jean knew what the code was, and since then he’d let Jean handle it even though they always traveled here together. He never again wanted Jean to be in a position where he couldn’t escape.
The three of them went to the locker room together. Rhemann went on ahead of them to his office, and Jean and Jeremy went to the inner court to alternate two laps around the court with ten flights of stairs. By the fourth set Jean had successfully locked away the entire problem, judging by the new calm on his face.
Cat could have undone all of that when the Trojans made it back to the Gold Court for lunch, but luckily for everyone she was smart enough to corner Jeremy alone.
“There’s a Raven car out front,” she said without preamble. At the bemused look Jeremy sent her, she shrugged. “Not my fault you don’t keep up with enough Raven conspiracy theories! One for every Raven on the team, but they never leave Evermore. And get this, they have to be identical. Every time there’s a major body style change that would cause a freshman’s car to stand out, Edgar Allan simply sells back and replaces all of them. Absolute freaks,” she said, almost admiring.
“It’s Jean’s,” Jeremy admitted, “but he’s pretty rattled about it, so let’s just be careful how we talk about it with him? We’ll have to get it insured and registered sooner than later, but for the time being it’s going to hide out at Coach’s place.”
“I’ll talk to Laila,” she promised. “We’ll figure something out.”
None of them brought up the car over lunch. Aside from a few curious questions from the Trojans about missing morning practice, no one else put it together enough to ask. Jeremy was half-afraid Lucas would recognize the car, at least, but he didn’t seem to notice it. Jeremy was relieved, but beneath that was a dull ache. Grayson would have had a car just like this, but the brothers were such strangers Lucas didn’t even know that.
Jeremy waited until after practice was over and Jean was busy with drills before messaging Kevin: “Edgar Allan sent Jean’s car to the Gold Court.”
“Mine arrived two days ago,” Kevin answered a few minutes later. “My textbooks and notes, too. I’d assumed the coaches sold them back to the school, but they’re all accounted for.”
“Oh, nice!” Jeremy returned, and meant it, but he couldn’t resist a, “They weren’t damaged?”
Kevin responded by sending a picture: a crammed shelf in the background, and one textbook open to about the third-way mark on a pale desk. Aside from the expected highlights and notes in the margins, the book looked otherwise unscathed. Jeremy teetered between responses, but it wouldn’t be fair to diminish Kevin’s delight over a cruelty he’d had no hand in. Rather than bring up Jean’s destroyed schoolwork he wrote, “That’s great!”
“They are scared of us,” Kevin noted.
Kevin agreed, then: the cars were an attempt to buy the perfect Court’s discretion. “Should they be?”
Kevin took his time responding, and then just sent, “Remains to be seen.”
“Then I will see you in a week,” Jeremy sent, and set his phone aside to watch Jean play.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jeremy
Jeremy sat perched on the trunk of his car at Los Angeles International, picking through his empty takeout cup for an ice chip to suck on. His phone dinged in scattered intervals as the floozies went back and forth, but he didn’t try to keep up. The only alert that needed to be addressed with any urgency was the funky little fox bark assigned to Kevin’s number. It’d been hours since the last message came in, but Jeremy gamely resisted the urge to check the time.
The air rumbled as a plane took off, and the persistent honking from the clogged traffic out front of the airport was temporarily drowned out. Jeremy found another piece of ice to crunch on, wiped his fingers on his shorts, and gave in to temptation. A quick poke at the buttons lit his screen up, and Jeremy sat up straight when he saw the clock. It was close enough to Kevin’s expected arrival time to risk heading in, so he dumped the rest of his ice onto the concrete to melt in the heat.