Bad Boy Ink (Get Ink'd #5) - Ali Lyda Page 0,2

dad’s face. It might not be curing cancer or racking up millions of dollars, but I could potentially help safeguard the entire fucking country, you know? Help people who aren’t able to help themselves.”

Bryan tipped his head and smiled. “Well, I think you kick ass whether or not you’re Special Agent Porter. And I’m super proud of you for going back to school. I know what it’s like to want to feel secure, and what it’s like to be willing to do gross things trying to find that. So I get it.”

Because the universe was fueled by irony, my phone buzzed on the table, and I glanced at the screen. Another interested sugar daddy.

Bryan’s eyebrow shot up. “Are you still using the app, Mr. I’m-too-busy-for-friends? Mr. I-don’t-want-to-rely-on-sugar-daddies?”

“Don’t judge,” I snapped. “You spent your summer sucking Mateo’s dick. Hurray for you. I spent the summer building a large client base and raking in the cash to set me up for the semester. I forgot to lower my availability for the school year. It’s no biggie.”

Bryan sighed. “When are you going to delete the app permanently?”

I swallowed hard. When would I stop using it as a crutch? It was comforting to know that I always had a way of making money in my back pocket, and it made me feel powerful to access their accounts and siphoning off a bit more than our contracts stated when they wielded their money and status like an asshole.

But I despised being pawed at and having to put on a smile and pretend like I was remotely interested in them.

The hardest part was that I probably had enough in savings to stop now. But I didn’t want enough, I wanted to not have to worry. I wanted to be safe. I wanted to prove that I could take care of myself, however I had to do that.

The only honest answer was what I told him then. “I’ll delete it when I stop needing it.”

The look Bryan gave me was priceless. His blue eyes managed to both narrow and roll, while his frown was borderline comical. “You’re so full of shit,” he mumbled. “You’ve got plenty of money saved up.”

I scoffed. “You know as well as I do how quickly the carpet can be yanked from under your feet. I’m...not comfortable with the idea of just barely being able to make my bills.”

His look softened. “Okay, yeah, I get it. Just be careful. My experience with Steven was insane, but I can’t imagine he was the only psycho using that app. I worry, that’s all.”

Ah, yes. Steven. After he’d been arrested, I’d snooped my way into the police station’s server and put an alert on him. Just keeping tabs because that was what friends did.

Suddenly a horde of waitstaff surrounded the table, singing in a horribly dry imitation of jubilation while setting the saddest-looking slice of cake ever in front of me. Bryan, that lovely dickhead, sang and clapped along with them and took a photo of my scowl.

It was, all in all, a nice birthday.

Much later, as I was getting ready for bed, my phone went off again. I cringed, anticipating another sugar daddy request, but when I looked, it was just Bryan wishing me a happy birthday. With the photo of me and the cake. I couldn’t help it; I laughed.

It was admittedly hard for me to let anyone in, but he...he was a good exception. I sent him a middle finger emoji along with a quick thanks.

Bright and early the next morning, my bag was packed, my laptop charged and ready, and I had a travel mug of strong coffee in hand. I was as ready for school as I’d ever be.

You can do this.

You’d think getting a computer science degree would have been a fucking breeze for someone like me. But the truth was, most of my skills went way past the shit they were teaching—I’d basically skipped over a lot of the rudimentary and foundational stuff, and it was a real struggle sometimes to work backward and not tip off any of my teachers about what I could really do.

August was hotter than usual, which meant I was sweating my balls off by the time I arrived at campus, a hundred happy conversations around me. The other students buoyantly returning to campus, finding friends again, lounging around on the green stretches of campus between classes.

There was a slim chunk of me that was jealous. Having friends like that—not having to worry about