𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 - kiara carrera¹

𝒙𝒙𝒗𝒊. 𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆

"SO I MIGHT'VE DONE SOMETHING MILDLY DUMB."

The moment Kiara left to get soda, Tatum turned to the two boys with a serious look sitting on her face. Rafe Cameron, Kelce Smith and Topper Thornton had been eying the group since they arrived at the field. JJ laughed at her words - he missed those exact words. But Pope raised his brows, knowing whatever was about to come out of her mouth was not going to be any good. She waited until after Kiara left, which meant she had done something very dumb and was scared of the girl's reaction.

"My brother told me about how Rafe and that jumped you yesterday, and I lost my head a little bit, so I kind of...smashed out his house and set his bedroom on fire."

JJ laughed and clapped his hands together upliftingly. "God, it's really good to have you back, Tate."

But Pope stared at her like she was the most idiotic human on this earth. "Are you kidding me?" he asked incredulously. He pointed at the three kook boys. "They're not gonna come for you. They're gonna come for me." And he was completely right. The boys weren't stupid; they weren't going to go after a Quinn. They were going to go after her friend - the one who she went crazy for.

Tatum nodded and slapped her hand over her mouth, as if what she did the night before was only just hitting her. "Crap. Kie is going to murder me."

JJ laughed again. "I really missed you, Tatum. You know, I never -"

The girl slapped him before he said anything else. "Shhh. Shhh. She's coming. Shhh."

"You're the only one making any noise," Pope pointed out as Kiara slowly made her way towards them.

"Oh."

Kiara joined them with a light smile. She handed Tatum a Pepsi and rolled her tongue over her lips. Tatum gulped. She was hot. She knew what she did. She was angry. Shit. She was going to die. Her future wife was going to murder her.

"Just saw Rafe, and he said, and I quote, 'Tell your girl that we know what she did'."

Tatum nodded. Yup. She definitely knew.

"What is that?"

"So..."

"Where is he?" asked JJ, his mouth full of food. Technically, Tatum was only doing what she thought was right at the time. And it wasn't like she'd never set a house on fire before. Yes, Kiara completely did go nuts on her for it. But maybe things had changed. After all, Kie didn't even comment when she killed a guy. And that was worse than trashing a house, right?

Kiara pointed behind them. "Right there."

The other three turned to face the boys, who were knowingly grinning at them. Tatum stuck up her middle finger. Pope slapped her hand. "Great, the whole death squad."

"Don't stare, bro," said JJ casually, forcing Pope's head back around. "Just warning you, bro. If they corner me, I'm coming out swingin', okay? Slice and dicin'. I'm on edge right now."

"Yeah."

Tatum rolled her eyes. "Don't be dramatic," she told him, and pointed to a group of junkies at the other side of the field. "Thomas is here. If they come for either of you, they have to deal with the Quinn twins. And then it'll get ugly for them. They know that, so they wouldn't dare even try." Pope still looked on edge. She sighed, and turned to Kie. She was watching the three of them, trying to understand what was going on. Tatum unzipped her coast's pocket, revealing her pink pistol. "And if, for any reason, things go south, I've already killed one guy with no empathy. I can easily drop three more."