2.4 | Knight In Distress ✓

05 | knight in upperhand

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k n i g h t   i n   u p p e r h a n d

I knew I had my work cut out for me when I agreed to help Miles. But the thing was, I didn't exactly realise how much, until I put down the phone that night and realised that simply having connections wasn't enough.

The plan needed to be fool-proof. One of the most important things to do was to make sure Liam was going to keep Miles in until round seven. There was no way for Liam to keep that promise to me, since we were merely acquaintances and hardly friends. I simply knew him because of Marcel.

And it was Marcel who was the key factor in this. Only she wielded the least bit of influence over Liam and his decisions regarding the initiation rounds. So even though I knew Marcel was going to badger the crap out of me, I had to swallow my pride and ask her anyway.

Except she didn't seem surprised at all when I approached her the next day during our shift at Wavelength and asked for her help, since there was no way I could do this on my own.

I explained the whole thing to her, starting from the very moment Miles stepped into the shack that first day. Even though she turned to complete mush in front of Liam, I'd known Marcel all my life and knew she wasn't going to sell me out.

When I was done, the expression on Marcel's face was unusually calm, the corners of her lips were pulled up in a small smirk. I didn't quite like the glint in her eyes; they held a certain degree of mischief in them that made me realise she was up to no good.

"Sure," she said, lightly, "I'll help Dots get through."

My eyes narrowed at her nickname for him, and I knew she was doing that on purpose, since I'd told her earlier that was what I referred to Miles as, way before I knew his name. "You'll keep me updated about anything Liam tells you about his frat?"

She nodded.

"You'll get Liam to make things easy for Miles?"

Another nod.

"Help in whatever way you can - even if it means getting into trouble?"

She nodded again and I frowned suspiciously. Marcel never did things like these unless it benefitted her. Greg and the others - especially Callum - constantly kept a firm distance away from her, only coming to the shack whenever she wasn't around.

And while I was family and Marcel and I got along like a house on fire, she didn't generally do these sort of things. Least of all for someone like Miles, who was pretty much the kind of person she'd never associate herself with, just because it reflected badly on her social status.

So I surveyed her critically and asked, "What's the catch?"

"No catch," she returned, but then her eyes slanted into a look that was positively naughty. "I'm going to do this out of the kindness of my heart because I know you like Dots."

I sputtered. Where was the coke? I needed a drink desperately, just so I could spit it out in a dramatic manner the way I did to Greg.

Miles and I were just friends. Granted, I liked talking to him, listening to his warm voice on the other end of the line and I worried about him a lot, but that didn't mean I was feeling anything for him other than plain friendship.

So I gaped at her openly, until I collected my wits and blurted, "What?"

"Come on, Darcy, it's pretty obvious. No one goes all the way out for someone else unless they actually like the person."