Adler | The Aces of St.Sinclair BOOK 1.

Deduction | A SEVEN

"I do. What other proposition is better than what I'm promising?"

"Try talking and listening to me like I'm a human being and don't intrude on my family visits. God, now my parents think you're my friend."

"Aren't I?"

I pulled a face. "You don't know anything about me besides what you researched in order to find me, which by the way, is stalking."

Garren didn't bat an eye. I, on the other hand, was feeling my heart thump in my chest at letting it all out to the very person I feared, knowing he could destroy me with a lift of the finger.

Never did I imagine this would be how things turned out. If our paths were just inevitable to cross, then I'd go down with no regrets.

Garren slowly took a step forward and I braced myself for maybe screaming, cursing or possibly even things breaking.

Then he spoke. "… Your room is filled with academic books and anything outside of that is before the twenty first century. You spend all your time reading when you're not at school or helping your parents in their rust bucket of a store. You don't mind working because that's only an excuse to not be alone. You're used to talking with older people because you centred most of your childhood around them and the reason you did was because it felt so much easier than people your own age. You couldn't understand more than half of the trivial things your classmates babbled on about. Games, current trends, tv shows— nothing. You felt like you were born in the wrong time. You felt different and that's because you are. Your peers knew it too. A few of them even bullied you for it.

It's not that you couldn't grasp social skills, you didn't see the point in using it. So you stuck to being the outcast and your folks knew you were a loner but never knew what to do to fix it. That's why they're so happy that seemed to change when you started at St. Sinclair. You were around people that shared your intellectual advancement— of course you'd fit right in. There's no other way to explain why your parents wouldn't be vigilant of leaving you with a boy they hardly know. Unless, they're just neglectful which I highly doubt since it must've been costing them every penny to admit you to the academy."

My lips were parted, eyes fixed in bewilderment at the boy merely inches apart. Hands on either side of me and crouched for our gazes to be levelled. I hadn't even registered his close proximity, too busy trying to figure out how he had somehow managed to pry into my head and pluck all of that out. Could he have been psychic?

"T-That's... how did...?" In my stuttering, I could barely spit out every word.

"I don't need to follow you on Twitter or work on school projects together to 'know you', Stevie. Everything in this place is capable of telling me plenty. Even what's written on your face."

I swallowed, "I wasn't bullied."

Garren wore that insufferable smile, rolling his eyes. "Right, sure. So also adding denial issues to that list. Are you more convinced now?"

As I found myself struggling to answer him, my door swung open. Garren didn't even flinch at the appearance of my mother. Her brows hiked in amusement at our position and I hastily created a larger space between us.

"Am I interrupting something?" She questioned with an impish grin.

"No, mum," I said with a pointed look. This was the last person on the planet to be getting any funny ideas about.

"Alright, well Benji just woke up from his nap. You know how hyper he is at the start and he'll be bouncing off the walls when he sees you're around so I thought he'd fancy you taking him out on a walk." She held up the neon green leash in her hands. "That is, if I'm really not interrupting anything."