by AC Washer
“A pleasure, Miss—” His gaze swung back to the office door behind me, his jaw dropping as it opened. Mr. Hayes’ eyes darted between me and the new arrival.
“I—I. Uh. This is, uh…”
When I twisted around to see who had managed to get Mr. Hayes even more flustered—a fact I wouldn’t have thought possible—I ended up with a face-full of blonde hair. I jumped back, bumping into the counter behind me. Did Bridgette not understand the concept of personal space?
“You.” Mickey said, his voice far more serious—and angry—than I’d thought it capable of.
“Yes, me,” drawled a lazy voice tinged with amusement.
My heart sped up. Before I looked over Bridgette’s shoulder, I already knew who it belonged to. Dread pooled in my belly even as my eyes confirmed it.
Edon.
Chapter 5
He looked different than when I first met him—younger, in a way. Maybe because the relaxed black t-shirt he wore hid most of the muscle that laid underneath. My heart did a flip, the little traitor. Edon was not the kind of guy I could crush on and be safe, the kind a girl could reel in and let go like a fish. No, Edon was more like a shark that could pull a girl into the water and drown her in his honey-brown gaze—a gaze that was currently laser-focused on me.
When had that happened? Heat flooded my cheeks as I glanced away, hoping he didn’t think I was checking him out. And I wasn’t. I was merely making an observation on how a black t-shirt could hide all that definition in his…well.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked over at Bridgette in surprise. By the way her peppy voice had iced over, her words clipped and tight, I knew there was history between them. And judging by the way every line in her body tightened, promising violence, I’d bet my firstborn that it was the romance-gone-bad kind.
I scooched to the side so I could get a better view of the situation, but Mickey stepped closer to Bridgette as I did so, his taller frame making it hard for me to see over his shoulder.
“Getting my schedule.” His bored voice indicated that he thought this should be obvious.
“Schedule?” Mr. Hayes squeaked. I looked back to see that his face had turned white and that he wobbled on his feet a little, like he was about to faint.
“Yes. Schedule,” Edon said, pushing past Mickey to stand next to me at the counter.
Bridgette placed a hand on my shoulder, nudging me to switch places with her. I shrugged her off. I wasn’t about to let Bridgette get closer to her ex—not when she reminded me of an over-tight guitar string that could snap with one more twist of the knob. The last thing I wanted was to get dragged into the principal’s office on my first day of school as a witness to whatever Bridgette would do if Edon pushed her too far. And, judging by the menace oozing out of her eyes, he wouldn’t have to push much.
“B-but you aren’t a student here,” Mr. Hayes said, his trembling hands gripping the counter.
“Just transferred over,” Edon said with a small smile. “I was told I could start today.”
Mr. Hayes swallowed before he turned back to rummage through the same stack of papers that had held my schedule.
“How did you get away with that?” Mickey said, glaring at him. Bridgette’s hand had reappeared on my upper arm, digging in uncomfortably.
The first sign of temper flashed in Edon’s eyes, but he quickly smothered it. “Mickey, how about we each mind our own business,” he said.
Mickey crossed his arms. “I would, except our ‘business’ is diametrically opposed.”
Edon lips twitched. “It’s nice to be on this end of things.”
“What end is that?” Mickey asked, his eyes narrowed. “The suicidal one?” I looked over at goofy Mickey in surprise. Did he just threaten a guy that could bench press ten of him? Was my foster brother a complete idiot?
“No, the end where you know where everyone stands at the offset. I know you’re used to it, so you can’t appreciate how nice it is to not have to worry about someone you trust stabbing you in the back.”
Oh, backstabbing friend drama.
I looked between Edon, Mickey, and Bridgette, the pieces clicking together as Bridgette’s fingernails dug into my skin.
If Bridgette and Edon shared a bad breakup and Edon thought Mickey had betrayed him, it wasn’t a stretch to see who had come between the two of them. And making stupid threats against a much bigger guy fell in line with the idiotic stuff people did when they were “in love.” What I couldn’t figure out was why Bridgette made the switch. Compared to Edon—or anyone else at school, for that matter—Mickey was, well, not hot.
But then, there were all of those girls checking him out earlier. Maybe this school was full of jerks and Mickey was the only decent, funny guy around.
“I, uh—” Mr. Hayes leaned over the counter, waving a sheet of paper in the air. “For one Edon MacCuill.”
.Edon snatched it out of his hands and turned around, shooting Mickey a sardonic smile. “And really, Mickey, what skinny fifteen-year-old kid uses the phrase ‘diametrically opposed?’” He shook his head as if Mickey had disappointed him.
My back tensed, his words reminding me of the jeers thrown at Caleb when I was in sixth grade and he was an eighth grader—at least, for the couple of weeks it took to get the district’s permission to move him up to high school. Caleb didn’t know how to dumb himself down back then, and there were more than a couple students who’d picked on him because of it.
I knew Edon MacCuill was trouble, but I hadn’t thought he was a jerk, too.
For a few moments, silence wrapped around us, each in our own thoughts until Mr. Haye’s nervous fumbling with a pile of folders sent them crashing to the floor.
I jumped just as Bridgette grabbed my elbow, her face back to her cheerful normal.
“Thanks, Mr. Hayes!” Bridgette piped up, her voice overly bright as she pulled me out of the office. She didn’t bother to get Mickey to hold the door this time.
“What was that about?” I asked once we were out in the hallway.
“That was Edon,” Bridgette said, her voice surprisingly neutral. “He’s—someone you need to avoid. Always.”
I raised a brow. “And would you know this from personal experience?”
Bridgette’s eyes bore into mine without a hint of a smile on her lips. “Absolutely.”
Message received. Yes, they’d been together. And yes, Edon was a hell of a jerk.
“And the whole ‘backstabbing’ thing?”
Bridgette glanced at Mickey, who seemed content to ignore our conversation, focusing on my schedule instead.
She shrugged. “Sometimes you have to do what’s right for you, not everyone else.”
What a great non-answer. Before I could dig deeper, Mickey smiled and said, “It looks like we have the same first block.”
I instantly forgot Edon, tearing my schedule away from Mickey instead.
“Calculus.” I narrowed my eyes.
His hands came up, placating. “Homeschooled, remember? Not many classes to take after that.”
“I’d like a low-achieving brother for once,” I muttered.
Bridgette linked her arm through mine again. “Oh, Mickey might know a lot, but I’m sure he’s done with the high-achieving thing,” she said, escorting me down the white and gray-speckled hallway.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
Mickey frowned. “Really, Bridgette?”
Bridgette ignored him. “Mickey’s gone for popular girls in the past. He had to find out the hard way why they’re better off left alone.”
Before I could point out she, with the bubbly attitude that screamed cheerleader, was an odd one to bring that up, Mickey said, “I think you mean popular girl, singular. And if you think I was with Ashlyn because of what she was—” Mickey shook his head.
“Well, I didn’t mean—”
“Let’s not talk about this right now.”
Bridgette looked away, a grimace on her
face.
I had expected Bridgette to be full of drama from the first second I saw her, but Mickey? Not only had he stolen—or rescued—his best friend’s girlfriend, but he’d dated someone before Bridgette, and it sounded like he wasn’t the one who ended it.
So that left this pile of crap I’d stepped in full of two exes, one best-friend-turned-enemy, one boyfriend that hadn’t gotten over his ex, and a girlfriend who knew it.
Lovely.
Thankfully, I had other things to think about than my foster brother’s troubled relationships—like how to get to my first class.
I looked down at my schedule. “Where’s room 115?”
“Oh, let me see that.” Bridgette plucked my schedule out of my hands and scanned through it.
“We have second and fourth block together.”
“Blocks? You guys call classes blocks?”
“It’s a block schedule,” Bridgette explained. “Day A has one set of classes—the even ones—day B has the odd. Except for your first class. That one’s shorter, but it meets every day. Make sense?”
“Sure,” I said, not really caring.
“Mickey’s in your last class today” —her eyes flipped up, showing her lingering displeasure toward him— “and two of your classes tomorrow. You and I have English Lit and art together.”
“What?!” I snatched it back again. In what horrible universe did I have to spend half of my life stuck in class with an overprotective foster brother? Not that I didn’t like Mickey, but I didn’t like him that much. “So we share Physics, history, and… beginning Irish?” I stared at the paper, waiting for the word Irish to transform into something that made sense—like Spanish.
“Yep,” Mickey said, grinning at me again, back to his cheery self. “People here are a bit proud of their heritage.” He shrugged. “It’s mandatory for graduation. At least the first year is, anyway.”
I took a deep breath again. “And you’re in it, too.”
“Yep. Most homeschoolers don’t study Irish, you know.”
“Of course,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry, I’ll help you catch up. We’re only a few weeks into the school year, anyway.”
Bridgette rolled her eyes. “You done playing the helpful little brother yet? We’ve got to get her to class.”
Ouch. Was Bridgette getting jealous? Of Mickey paying attention to me? I was so not into this kind of drama.
“Okay, I’m going into class now. How about you guys hang out and talk for a couple minutes? Maybe kiss and make up before next block?”
Mickey froze. Bridgette looked like she swallowed a hot pepper.
“Unless…are you not dating? Wait a second, did you breakup? Or is this the awkward maybe-we-should-get-back-together thing.”
Mickey’s eyes darkened and Bridgette looked away.
“In which case…”
If the tick in Mickey’s clenched jaw was any sign, I may have stomped on a wasp nest.
I cleared my throat. “Oops.”
Bridgette forced her lips into a brittle smile, even though her eyes stayed narrowed into thin, ice-blue slits. “No apology necessary. We have a complicated relationship. You see, we’re together, but I’m not really his type.”
“Bridgette…” Mickey drew her name out like a line, one he was warning her not to cross.
But a light sprung up in Bridgette’s eyes and she said, “He has a thing for half-crazy damsels-in-distress. You know, the kind that put you in miserable situations as a sort of power play. He still hasn’t gotten over the last girl. She left our world before he figured out who she really was.”
Ouch. Was Bridgette calling Mickey out for still loving a dead girlfriend? The relationship drama just reached critical and I needed to bail.
“You need to leave,” Mickey said. His soft voice made my arms break out in goosebumps. “Now.”
Bridgette briefly closed her eyes. When she opened again, the heat in her gaze had drained away. “That was…I’m sorry.” She turned, walking back down the hallway.
I eyed Mickey, his face as unreadable as stone.
“I’m—"
“Kella, I can’t…” Mickey combed a hand through his hair, his lips still tight. He jabbed his thumb at the boy’s bathroom. “Give me a second, okay?”
He disappeared without waiting for a reply.
Chapter 6
One second turned into a few minutes. And even though I felt bad for Mickey—after all, his girlfriend died—the logical part of my brain reasoned that he’d gotten over it well enough to get a new girlfriend, break up, and be in a pseudo-relationship again. He probably wasn’t having a crisis right now. More likely, Bridgette had hit him below the belt and he was pissed.
I glanced up at the clock at the end of the hall. I only had a couple minutes to get to class before the bell rang. I bet that the other students had snagged all the good back row seats by now, and if I didn’t hurry, I’d get stuck front and center.
I sighed.
That decided it;I’d have to find class by myself—not that it was hard. The only thing that made me uneasy was the number of stares I got as I moved down the hallway. I’d always considered myself kinda cute, but the extra attention had nothing to do with attraction. After all, I was the only non-drop-dead gorgeous girl here.
When I got to room 115, I shoved open the door just as the bell rang.
And there stood my soulmate.
His gorgeously long, sandy hair tied back into a low ponytail, sky-blue eyes sparkling as he smiled at me. His white button-down shirt opened at the collar and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d finished the look with a pair of slate-gray jeans and casual black shoes. No one could be any more perfect as he leaned against the teacher’s desk at the front of the room.
The teacher’s desk. His desk. The guy couldn’t be older than twenty-five, tops. But with the way he carried himself—the air of authority surrounding him—there was no mistaking who he was.
A tidal wave of rightness smashed into me, robbing me of all thought and filling me with a connection that seemed to snap into place like a rubber band. Age, such a shallow measuring stick, couldn’t be a factor in something so right that I felt it throughout my entire being—right?
My heart thumped in total and complete agreement.
His mouth quirked into an amused smile as it dawned on me that I was staring. I was pretty sure that my heavy makeup covered the flush that raced across my face, but I ducked my head just in case.
I mutely held out a slip of paper, my pulse hammering in my throat as his fingers skimmed mine. My gaze jerked up and his eyes captured it. I could happily drown in those blue pools.
“Kella,” he murmured, not even glancing down at the slip. “I’ve been expecting you.” I licked my lips. His voice sounded as sweet and dark as hot chocolate.
My chest thumped, threatening to explode as his eyes continued to drink in mine.
“I would like,” he said, his words as gentle as a caress. I leaned forward, balancing on the tips of my toes, eager to catch his next words.
Mickey chose that moment to burst through the classroom door and walk straight toward me, slinging a protective arm around my shoulders.
My soulmate-teacher leaned back on his heels. Until then, I hadn’t realized he’d been leaning into me, too.
A look of something like embarrassment flashed across his face as Mickey bent his head to whisper into my ear, “You’re not very good at waiting, are you?”
To the teacher, he said, “Mr. O’Faolain. This is Kella.” His stare bored into O’Faolain’s eyes. “She’s my new foster sister. Pretty much my only family.”
If anything could have poured ice water on this magical moment between us, it was Mickey pretending to be my overprotective brother. Pretending to be Caleb. I elbowed him in the ribs. His lack of reaction wasn’t very satisfying, but thought I got the message across: shut up.
Mickey kept his arm wrapped around my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. Caleb
never got away with the whole protective older sibling stuff, so I sure as hell wasn’t about to let my foster brother get all protective on me.
And what was Mickey’s problem? He’d announced to the whole school that I was the newest foster kid while also marking me like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. Yeah, he was my foster brother, but we were on, what, day three of knowing each other?
“Mickey,” O’Faolain said. “I was just telling Kella how pleased we are to have her in our class.” Warmth rushed through me, tingling down my arms and legs.
Mickey bared his teeth in something that kind of resembled a smile. But before he said something else embarrassing, I shifted just enough to elbow him in the ribs again with no one the wiser.
But from the twinkle in my soulmate’s eyes, he might have caught the movement.
“Would you two like to sit together?” He gestured at two desks in the center of the classroom.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Mickey said at the same time.
“Well, those are the only seats left.” O’Faolain’s smile was apologetic. “We do not have assigned seats, but if you get here earlier tomorrow…” O’Faolain’s eyes bore into mine; my breath caught.
Tomorrow, I was sitting front and center.
Mickey cleared his throat. I smiled at my teacher and peeled myself away, brushing past Mickey as I went to sit in one of the two empty chairs.
As soon as Mickey sat down, I couldn’t resist leaning over to whisper, “He is amazing.”
No response.
I pulled my eyes away from O’Faolain long enough to see that Mickey was staring at the teacher the same way I’d stare down Caleb whenever he’d reach out to take the last Oreo. That stare said Are you sure you wanna do this? Because I can take you.
I glanced at our teacher; the glance became a stare. He was writing an equation on the whiteboard, perfectly showcasing his forearms. I’d never seen forearms so hot before. Wait, I had a thing for forearms?
I blinked, distracting myself from my teacher’s arms long enough to remember that Mickey was acting weird.
Mickey was now looking at O’Faolain like he’d dropped out of an elephant’s backside.
