I already knew that, but it bothered me to hear a guy like Drew, a guy who had no idea what the world looked like outside of the Hill, say it about him.

“Race is Race. I have no illusions about what kind of guy he is.”

Drew sighed and let his hand fall off my shoulder. “He’s a criminal, a gangster. He has people beaten up that owe him money and takes their cars for collateral if they can’t pay. People say he was the one that set Novak up and that he did it so he could take over the black market Novak ran.”

I knew all of that and more because I was friends with Dovie and couldn’t ignore it when she had been right in the thick of it.

“People have to do what they need to in order to survive, Drew. Not everyone has a full-ride scholarship or comes equipped with rich parents able to fund a college education.”

He reared back and narrowed his eyes at me.

“Well, since you’re so tight with him, then you know that’s not the case with Race. His parents have more money than God, and he had a trust fund that could buy and sell this university a hundred times over. He picked that life. He chose to be a criminal. He had all the same opportunities as the rest of us, he just squandered them and sank into the black hole of the Point.”

I doubted it was as easy as that, but this wasn’t a conversation I felt like I needed to be having anymore. I spent too much time having to force Race out of my mind as it was; I didn’t need to be arguing about him with anyone else in my life.

“I think the way things look on the surface is always misleading. Passing judgment based on rumor and speculation isn’t a smart thing to do, and like I said, none of it matters, Race and I are just acquaintances.” I shifted my bag on my shoulder and took a step back. “I have to go to my next class.”

He gave me a concerned look that I turned my back on and walked away from. I knew all about things on the outside hiding the real, ugly truth of the way things were once you got past the front door. I didn’t know Race well enough to try and judge the choices he made or the life he was living, but I was smart enough and intuitive enough to know that there was more to the story, deeper circumstances at work, than what people gossiped and speculated about.

My next two classes, both of which I had high A’s in, flew by and I was rushing across the sprawling campus to meet Dovie for a quick cup of coffee. Now that she no longer worked at the restaurant where we had met waitressing, it was hard to sneak in time to hang out. I spotted her bright, orange-ish-red hair with no problem and threw myself into the chair across from her. She already had a drink waiting for me because it was just in her nature to be that generous and sweet.

She smiled at me, the freckles on her nose wrinkling up, and her eyes, the exact same forest green as Race’s, twinkling at me. Being in love with an unholy terror looked good on her, there was no denying it.

“Hey.”

I had to grin back. “Hey. You look happy.”

She blushed a little; there was no hiding it with that fair redhead complexion.

“I am. What about you? How are things going?”

Ugh. Like they had been for the last year. I shrugged a shoulder and let it fall. “Okay, I guess. I have an evil teacher’s assistant out to ruin my GPA, I almost got shot this weekend, and I got a weird text message on Saturday night after that party. Things at the restaurant are about the same . . . and things at home . . .” All I could do was shake my head. “I just have to wait until Karsen is out of the house.”

She cocked her head and concern colored her mossy-toned gaze. “Jeez, Brysen, that’s a load of stuff.”

I laughed drily and fished out my laptop so I could take a look at what I had due tomorrow and what I needed to work on after my shift tonight. “Yeah.”

“What kind of weird text did you get?”

That was the part she was going to pick out of the shit storm that was my current circumstances?

“Just some creeper telling me I looked pretty and that they were sorry they missed me.”

She frowned, her coppery eyebrows dipping low over her eyes. “That’s freaky. You didn’t recognize the number?”

“Nope, and I have turned down plenty of weirdos that ask me out either here on campus or at the restaurant that would love nothing more than to mess with me. It’s pretty easy nowadays to find someone’s number on the Internet if you’re determined enough.”

“I don’t like that at all, Bry.”

Considering she had been kidnapped, cut up, and used as a pawn by Novak to get Bax to behave, I bet she didn’t, but those kinds of things didn’t happen in my world.