As I stood there, a truck careened toward the front door, stopping right in front. Doors quickly opened and two guys exited and walked inside, dressed in full bounty hunting gear. Bulletproof vests. Handcuffs in their back pocket. Radio on the side. Gun holsters. Stun guns on the hip. Their badges hung over their chests on a chain that went around their necks.

I sighed. I had the right place.

Channing said he was going to hook me up for a job since my first one didn’t take. To say I’d been floundering the last two months would be an understatement. I was up a creek with no paddle. But if anyone asked how I was doing, totally fine, all good, all set, all smiles (said with a straight face) and yeah, totally lying through my gritted teeth.

I wasn’t fine.

I was so far from fine, but I didn’t know what to do about anything right now.

This was foreign territory for me.

I used to think I’d never leave Roussou. It’s where I grew up. I laughed, loved, cried, bled, suffered, and persevered through so much there. A future outside of Roussou was not something in my wheelhouse of possibilities, but then everything shifted, and somehow here I was. I was living in a house with Cross, Zellman, and Jordan. All of them were attending Cain University and seemingly loving it.

Which I hated. Don’t call me bitter. Just call me the friend that feared was getting left behind. It was a lonely club, a table of one.

But it was what it was.

Zellman was the one who took to college like a fish in water. I think that surprised everyone because Zellman was never known as the academic one, but he loved classes. He loved the parties. He loved the football games. He really loved the college girls since he was officially not dating anyone. Now, don’t ask me how he was doing in those classes because I had a feeling that was a whole different story.

Jordan and Cross seemed fine, but there were other issues going on with both of them. The most dramatic was Jordan’s breakup with Tabatha.

She’d come to Cain for him. He ended things a week after classes started and the shit hath hitteth the faneth.

Tab went back to Bitch Tab and that meant she became friends real quick with a sorority at Cain U, and guess whom they all hated? My crew. Our house. Jordan was banned from attending any sorority and fraternity party on campus. At first, she tried to ban all of us, and I have to include Cross and myself because we went to a few parties, but they weren’t really our thing, but it was really only Zellman who had an issue with her ban.

We had a sit-down with Tab, reminded her of our crew roots.