Free Kiss Me Goodbye: (Prequel to Asher) (Inked Brotherhood) by Jo Raven Page A

the school gates.
     
     
     

     
     
    The cafeteria is crowded. Nevertheless, Tessa and I find a half-empty table at the end of the long room and set our trays down. She got burger and fries, her standard fare. Girl likes cheap, greasy food. If I ate like that I’d go up three sizes.
    She also rocks ripped jeans and dirty sneakers. Everything her parents don’t let her have when she’s home with them, in Chicago. The way she tells it, when she’s with them, she has to dress up in skirts and high heels, do her hair up and act all grown-up.
    And rich. Because she is. That is, her parents are. But when she’s here in Madison, living with her aunt, she can do whatever she likes, and she’s quite wild. She has a list of TBK (to-be-kissed) boys and she’s been striking them off one by one. Nobody has come back to complain so far.
    Only there’s that one boy who’s not on the list and yet he’s the one Tess really wants: Dylan. I know this because she flushes whenever he’s around and peeks at him whenever he’s not looking.
    And the funny thing is, he does exactly the same thing when she’s not looking.
    It’s too cute.
    I have a plan to bring them together during Rafe’s birthday party at his house this Saturday. Okay, so it’s not really a planned plan, but an idea.
    Fingers crossed it will succeed. I want to see her happy. Dylan, too. That boy has a list of his own, that much is obvious. It’s as if they’re both working their way through the school and around each other, making sure they never meet. I’m about to foil their carefully laid-out plans.
    And this is one mission I don’t plan on failing.
    The thought makes me grin and I turn to filch a fry from Tessa’s plate. Then I see Ash. He’s sitting down to eat a few tables away, together with a boy I don’t know. I raise my hand and wave at him, gesturing for them to come sit with us.
    His gaze is right on me and I lower my hand, waiting for him to stand up, pick up his tray and make his way over. We always eat together. Well, apart from the times he never showed up, more and more often lately.
    But he just sits there, working his jaw. Then he turns his gaze back down, to his tray, and picks up his fork and knife.
    My jaw hangs slack. Why is he doing this? To me, his best fiend? I can feel everyone looking at me as I make a fool of myself—waving like an idiot and then my face crumbling when he ignores me as if I’m dirt under his shoe.
    Christ.
    “Just ignore him, Aud. He’ll come around. Full circle.” Tessa tugs on my arm. She must be going through her Buddhist phase again. It happens, like, once a year.
    I struggle not to let the tears burning in my eyes fall. “You think? He’s been like this for weeks now. Giving me the cold shoulder.” Though it’s the first time he ignores me completely in a public place. The first time he won’t even eat with me. I lift my ice-tea and take a sip, willing its coolness to fill my veins with ice.
    “Except when he’s looking at you. Then his eyes go like X-rays, shooting flames and everything.”
    I choke on my ice tea. “What?”
    “He just stares at you when you’re not looking, and he has this really intense expression on his face, like he’s suffering. Like you’re tearing his heart out of his chest and then—”
    “Tess, shut up!” I shove her until she flops in her chair. “You’re watching too many soap operas.”
    “I’m so not. He really does look at you like that.”
    “Gross.”
    But it makes me feel a bit better. I can’t forget the way he looked at me that day in the school yard, the heat in his gaze. I don’t understand why it unsettles me and pleases me so much. Why I want to see that look on his face again.
    Can’t understand what is happening to him. Why he’s so contradictory when he’s always been the most stable thing in my life.
    Zane slips into the seat next to mine. His dark hair is spiked in the middle and his dark, slanted eyes widen. “What are the long