Sicily turned around, and both Deon and the girl at his side looked up at me. Deon watched me for a minute before turning and whispering something to the girl next to him. She nodded her head and chuckled, and then he stole another kiss from her. If he was trying to make me jealous, it was certainly working, but I did my best to ignore it and waved Sicily over. He got up from the table and came over to me with a smile on his face.
“Your highness,” he greeted.
“Um.” I nodded toward Deon and the woman. “Who’s that? With Deon?”
“Oh, that’s my sister, Annika. They met when he came for a sleepover, and they hit it off like crazy. Been inseparable ever since,” he said.
“Have they, um…” My throat burned as I thought about Deon with someone else, so I pushed my brain away from the subject. “Nevermind. I need a favor. I can pay.”
“Well, money is the language I speak,” Sicily replied. “What do ya need?”
No matter how hard I tried not to, I kept glancing back toward Deon and Annika, but I begged my brain to focus. “Uh. Can you bug a classroom? Audio would be good, but video would be even better.”
He let out a hollow whistle. “Bug a teacher? I’m sorry, your highness, but that’s gonna cost, even for you. That’s risky business.”
“Money’s no object,” I said. “Just bill me when it’s over. Can you do both audio and video?”
“Of course. Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asked with a smile. “Who’s the teacher?”
“Miss Abrams.”
Sicily crossed his arms. “Trying to get video proof about the ol’ king eh?”
“Something like that,” I replied.
“I’m on it, your highness. Consider it done. I’ll reach out when I’ve got what you need.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
After that, Sicily turned around and returned to his table. I couldn’t stop staring at Deon and Annika until Deon finally turned and locked eyes with me. I probably looked like an idiot, but I immediately turned and bolted out of the cafeteria just as tears started to stream down my face.
21
Deon
Annika started to chuckle in my ear as Cherri went rushing out of the cafeteria. “Uh-oh. I think we went too far.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
I didn’t consider myself a petty or childish person, but what Cherri did to me still kept me up most nights. I really only intended to tell Annika who Cherri was, but when she kissed me, I didn’t stop it. If anything, now Cherri knew that I wasn’t going to be used. If I had to move on, I could. Sicily came walking back over to the table and returned to his seat.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“She wants me to bug a teacher’s classroom,” he said. “She didn’t give me specifics, but I imagine it has something to do with Nathan.”
“Why would she need to bug a teacher’s classroom about Nathan?” I asked.
“Oh,” Annika hummed next to me, “is he the kid that got caught with that teacher last year?”
Sicily nodded. “Yep.” He looked at me. “There was this whole thing last year. One of the history teachers, Miss Abrams, got caught having sex with a student in her classroom. That student was Nathan.”
I scrunched my nose up in disgust. “She still works here, doesn’t she? How could she not lose her job after something like that?”
“No clue,” Sicily replied. “Whatever the cover-up, someone paid big bucks to do it. The working rumor around the school is that she slept with Principal Hix to keep her job, but I don’t know. Principal Hix is a really suave, debonair type of guy. I can’t imagine he’s hurting for women, and as far as my interactions with him, he’s a straight and narrow man. If he was involved with Miss Abrams, he wouldn’t be trying to hide it, and he certainly isn’t taking some teenage brat’s sloppy seconds.”
Annika shook her head. “I don’t know. Miss Abrams is really gorgeous.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a banana split with all the toppings. I got two eyes, don’t I?” Sicily scoffed. “I don’t know that she’s that hot that Principal Hix would risk his job just so she could keep hers. Trust me. I kept my nose to the ground for months after that, trying to get the expose, and no one knows nothin’. Not teachers. Not students. No one’s got the real scoop about it.”
After spending a year with Nathan, it honestly didn’t seem like the kind of thing he had the stomach for. It was shocking enough, finding out that Nathan had managed to bag Cherri, let alone finding out he was sleeping with a teacher. I’d honestly gotten the sense from my time in the Loche household that Connor wanted his son to be more fearless. He must have shit his pants when he found out his kid got caught fucking a teacher.
“There’s something weird going on there, for sure,” I finally said. “Those twos don’t make four at all.”
Sicily shrugged. “Whatever. Money’s money for me, and I’ll be able to charge that rich bitch a pret—” I was across the table with Sicily’s shirt twisted up in a knot in my fist before I could stop myself. Everyone around us stopped what they were doing and looked over as our corner of the cafeteria fell dead silent. “My bad,” Sicily huffed, his hands gripped around my arm. “My bad.”
It took everything in me not to deck Sicily in the face. In fact, if Annika hadn’t reached out and grabbed my arm, I might have. “Deon,” she huffed. “Let him go. We’re friends.”
With a few deep breaths, I let the anger simmer out of me, and I finally dropped Sicily. He crumpled against the table. I slammed back into my seat and glared at him, halfway shocked at my own reaction. “Watch your fucking mouth,” I growled.
Sicily held up a hand and pointed down at himself. “That’s on me. I was trying to do the
