Typhon

Chapter 5

Stone~

As soon as Chicago had sent me over all the information that he'd gathered on Rylee Madden and her family, I had spent all night pouring over it. I had damn near memorized everything that he had sent over, and there'd been nothing in the report that'd been alarming enough to change my mind about picking her for Friday night.

Picking her for fucking forever, actually.

Rylee Madden came from a good family where both her parents were law-abiding and unassuming. Her father was a pharmacist, and her mother was a lab technician, and that was about as banal as you could get. She also had a brother that was in the military and was a Marine of all things. Luckily, he was deployed, or else he could have been a problem if Rylee had difficulty with our new arrangement. After all, I knew what I had planned was crazy.

I knew it.

I'd never spoken to Rylee Madden before Monday, so there was no way that she was going to jump onboard with this without good reason. Somehow, I didn't think that she'd buy into the whole 'love at first sight' possibility, especially since it hadn't been. I'd seen Rylee around campus and in town before, because Hales University was big but not that big. So, I'd seen her around, and this was definitely not a 'love at first sight' situation, which was just really powerful lust in disguise.

This was something different.

Something inherently bigger and more prevailing.

I'd been balls-deep in a few females before, and I hadn't felt an ounce with them of what had coursed through my blood from just having my arm wrapped around Rylee's body. I'd also had girls swallow me whole before, but I'd forgotten about them the second that my pants had been zipped back up. Yet, I'd been thinking of Rylee almost non-stop since Monday, and that meant something. That crash had changed everything, and now Friday couldn't come fast enough.

"What's got that scowl on your face?"

I turned to see Lennox walking out of his room, a grin on his face. Lennox Wilde was my best and probably only real friend. We'd met our freshman year at a party that we'd both been at, and he'd seen a girl slip some shit into the drink that she'd made for me. Now, while I never would have drunk it-because I did know better-when she had tried to hand it to me, Lennox had stepped up, then had exposed her little plan. Of course, there'd been drama that had followed, but I'd never forget how his honest character had impacted me that night. Living a life where I'd been constantly surrounded by users, manipulators, and liars, Lennox had been something good in the midst of all that evil.

So, after that night, we had become friends during our freshman year, and that had resulted in us becoming best friends and sharing an off-campus condo for our sophomore, junior, and senior years at HU.

I trusted the guy with my life, just not my secrets. However, that was because they weren't only my secrets to tell. Plus, if anyone ever came after Lennox because he had accidentally crossed the line, I'd have to kill them. So, in the best interest of everyone involved, Lennox knew nothing about Cronus.

I'd been sitting on the couch, my laptop opened for Managerial Economics, when I turned to look at him. "Do you know Rylee Madden?"

His feet faltered on his way to the kitchen, and his brows furrowed a bit with a confused expression. "Uh, actually, I do," he replied, then shrugged. "I mean, we shared a class back during our sophomore year, and we've spoken before, but...well, I wouldn't say we were friends. More like acquaintances, maybe."

A part of me didn't want to ask the question, but I knew that I needed to. While I was straight, I was still able to appreciate if a guy was good-looking or notice if he had charisma; take August Remington, for instance. He was a complete dick, but I knew that girls still fell for that dark blonde hair and brown eyes combination of his. I knew that he wasn't an unattractive man, even if I did get bad vibes off the guy.