Anna Martin's First Love Box Set: Signs - Bright Young Things - Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me

by Anna Martin

  His nose and fingers were frozen. It was barely thirty-five degrees, but there was no point in turning up in the pink Cadillac unless people knew he was the one in it.

  Feeling rebellious, Jared parked across two spaces in the lot closest to the office, in the handful of spaces that were reserved for teachers. He cut the engine, and the stereo dropped at the same time, and the sound that followed was sweet, crisp silence.

  Still humming the tune, Jared got out of the car and tossed the keys to a freshman kid in the same way he’d seen Adam do. Insanely arrogant. Just as he wanted.

  “Put the top up,” he said, leaving the shades on and not even looking at the kid as he strode purposefully to the main steps of the school. “Scratch it, and I’ll rip your balls off.”

  He was hyper-aware he was being watched, being judged, by every kid at Harbor Academy. No one other than him and Chris knew about the car, although he was pretty sure there wasn’t a kid out there who didn’t know about the argument and the bet. The few who had been elsewhere on Saturday night, grounded or out of town or at a family thing, would be kicking themselves.

  Jared was clawing back some of that control, some of the respect he’d surely lost over the weekend.

  At the office, he leaned on the counter and tipped his sunglasses down his nose, giving a winning smile to Ms. Horncastle, guarding the school like the dragon she was.

  “Ms. Horncastle,” Jared drawled.

  “Mr. Rawell. You have been absent for several days.”

  He reached into his back pocket and flicked a sealed envelope at her. He’d forged a doctor’s note—not difficult, what with access to the Internet—and had created a signed note from Hadley, and that was tucked into the envelope too.

  “I was sick,” he said, in a tone of voice that begged for sympathy.

  He got a hard-eyed stare instead. “Is that so.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah.” Jared faked a cough.

  “To your class, Mr. Rawell. I’ll file these.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Horncastle,” he said in a sunny voice and walked out of the office.

  When he reached homeroom, the keys to the Caddy were lying in a patch of weak sunlight on the desk next to the window. He picked them up with a hum of appreciation and tucked them into his messenger bag. Out the window he could see the car—top up—still parked obnoxiously. It gave him great pleasure to look at it like that.

  The room was buzzing softly with the murmured conversations of thirty or so students, each catching up on or trading gossip. Jared heard his own name mentioned more than once, his ears sharp to the familiar sound. He ignored them all and plugged his earbuds into his iPhone, turning music on to drown out the background noise.

  Bowen hated it when they wore headphones in class, but it wasn’t rebellion, not today. Jared didn’t look up when Chris walked down the main aisle, or when Adam came in and flopped into his usual seat.

  The burn in his chest hollowed out into a deep ache, and Jared forced himself to breathe slow and deep. He wasn’t going to look at Adam. It was a promise he’d made to himself.

  To try and appease Ms. Bowen, Jared tugged one earbud out, hoping to avoid drawing attention to himself. When Adam responded to his name during roll call, Jared felt the hole in his chest widen, broadening with resonating pain and forcing thorny stomach acid up into his throat.

  Don’t throw up, Jared instructed himself sharply. Don’t you fucking dare throw up.

  He forced his attention to his phone and tapped away at nothing.

  If he had been so inclined, this would have been the day he turned to narcotics. Drugs would whisper through his veins, numbing the pain and taking him to a floating cloud where nothing could penetrate the walls he’d built.

  Jared told himself he was too strong for that, though. He wasn’t some pussy who needed chemical enhancements in order to face the day. He wasn’t his mother.

  The bell rang, and Jared stretched up out of his chair, swung his bag onto his shoulder, and started his mission to—what had Chris called it? Make all these motherfuckers his bitches.

  By the time he got to the period before lunch—gym—there was a dull ache behind Jared’s eyes that was caused from trying to look like he didn’t care. Nonchalance was exhausting.

  He got to the locker room before the bulk of his class and changed quickly, heading for his now habitual treadmill. The girls would join him soon enough, and the guys would go to the other side of the gym to grunt and lift weights.

  As always.

  Jared walked for a few minutes to warm up while he set up his music and his earbuds, then pushed himself into a blistering run to get his heart pumping and legs aching. He was aiming for oblivion, the blissful moment when the pain in his throat, lungs, chest, legs all blended, forcing coherent thoughts from his head.

  He looked over when the machine next to him started and caught Mia’s eye.

  Goddamn it.

  After giving her a terse nod, Jared resumed his eyes-forward sprint, hoping she’d ignore him. A small hand reached across and pressed the down arrow, slowing the machine.

  No such luck.

  With a heavy sigh, Jared pulled his earphones out and continued to jog.

  “Can I help you?” he said to Mia, any venom in his tone lost by the fact he was breathing heavily.

  “Are you okay?” she replied.

  Jared rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Thanks for your concern.”

  He went to turn the speed back up, but Mia swatted his hand away. The girl to Jared’s left, someone whose name he’d not bothered to learn, looked like she was trying very, very hard not to be caught listening.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Mia asked.

  “Not nice, is it, being out of the loop,” Jared said rhetorically, again without any menace. Mia was involved, for sure, but she wasn’t the mastermind of the bet. She was just a willing participant.

  Mia glowered at him. “You pull up this morning in Biggie’s Caddy? The car that was supposed to be Adam’s. Chris isn’t talking, Adam looks like shit, and you’ve turned into Elsa the fucking Ice Queen.”

  Despite himself, Jared grinned. “I like that, actually. The Harbor Academy Ice Queen.”

  “Jared,” Mia said, a touch of pleading in her tone.

  “Why don’t you ask Clare?” he suggested. “After all, she’s the one behind it all.”

  He shoved the earbud back in his ear and turned the speed up on the treadmill, determined to slap a bitch if Mia tried to interrupt again.

  Knowing Clare didn’t have any more information than Mia was incredibly satisfying. Mia had actually given him more than she realized; Chris wasn’t saying anything about the change in the Caddy’s ownership, and Adam looked like shit.

  Both of those little nuggets kept him going on the treadmill for another half hour before he moved to the rower and worked on his arms without having to pump iron.

  Jared purposefully didn’t look up when he returned to the locker room to shower and change. He kept his head low, not meeting any of the curious gazes as he fiddled with the knot on his tie.

  In the hallway it was different. Here he was more confident in keeping his head high, still not looking at any of his classmates but with a proud jut to his chin that defied anyone to dare to speak to him.

  The fact that Chris was holding court in the middle of the canteen, as always, was vaguely comforting. Before last night he would have been wary about joining that group of people for lunch. Now, though, he and Chris had an understanding, and he wasn’t about to forget that. Or lose the opportunity to exploit it.

  Jared collected a baked potato and tuna from the hatch, and a can of soda, then walked over to the table. He was aware that everyone was looking, everyone wondering what had happened between him, Adam, and Chris.

  You have the power here, Jared told himself as he walked across the crowded lunchroom. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.

  By way of greeting, Jared held out his fist to Chris, and he
bumped it with a grin that showed one gold incisor. In silence, Jared sat down in the unoccupied seat to Chris’s right and began to eat.

  The noise around him blended into a comfortable, indistinguishable hum. Jared was still warm from his post-workout shower, despite the definite chill in the air. The lunchroom never got truly warm, or it hadn’t since he’d been here, at least. The space was too cavernous, too expensive to heat, despite the fact this was a fee-charging school.

  Bastards.

  People came and went, joining Chris’s posse until all seats were taken. Logically, Jared knew Adam was here somewhere. Not wanting that conversation, not now, and definitely not in front of Clare, Jared refused to allow himself to look around.

  When his phone buzzed in his pocket, it was a welcome distraction.

  Dylan: Are we still on for tonight?

  Damn. Jared had forgotten today was Thursday, and he was supposed to be meeting Dylan in the city for their study session. Vaguely, Jared wondered if Ryder had filled her brother in on what happened. Probably.

  Sure, he texted back. Same place?

  The Starbucks was their regular meeting place, and the staff was nice enough. They let Jared spread out with his books and laptop. He had no desire to go anywhere else.

  The thought of spending some time with a person outside Harbor Academy, one who might not know what had happened in the past few days, carried Jared through the rest of the day at school, allowing him to blissfully ignore everything that didn’t matter. There was a lot that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

  When the final bell rang, he had time to loop back to his locker to swap some books before heading to the Caddy. It was still parked in the teacher’s lot, across two spaces, and there was a ticket on the windshield that told him the school had fined him $50 for “parking violations.”

  Jared laughed out loud as he tucked the slip of paper into his satchel. Fifty bucks to these kids was small change, not a deterrent.

  When he looked up, Adam was standing across the lot next to the Jag.

  Having successfully avoided him all day, the sight of Adam—and he really did look like shit—hit Jared like a punch to the stomach.

  There were deep, purple bruises under Adam’s bloodshot eyes, and for the first time in, well, ever, he looked scruffy. He hadn’t shaved, and there was fuzz on his jaw that was visible from a hundred yards away.

  Jared looked away quickly and leaned down to swing himself into the Caddy, aware his heart was beating harder than it had all day, including during his marathon run before lunch. With shaking fingers he started the engine, which came to life with a low roar, and pulled out of the parking lot.

  This time he didn’t look back. He’d made that mistake once before and was not about to do it again.

  Chapter 15

  If he rushed, Jared had time to drive home, get changed, and go to Seattle in the truck, because fuck, did the Caddy drink gas.

  It wasn’t that he wanted to impress Dylan, but tonight, for some reason, Jared had taken more time than usual in picking his clothes, styling his hair. The cashmere sweater had been a gift from his eldest sister when she learned he was moving to Washington. It was a deep forest green that looked nice against his skin. Jared pushed the sleeves up to his elbows and pulled on dark jeans to go with it.

  He wasn’t thinking, forcing any conscious thought from his mind, as he slicked cologne over his throat and tried not to look at his eyes in the mirror.

  When he arrived at the designated Starbucks, Dylan was waiting and Jared rushed to get his order from the barista.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Jared said.

  “No, it’s fine. I got here a while ago. You look nice.”

  Jared blushed. “Thanks. I get so fucking pissed off with uniform, you know? Sometimes it feels good to dress up.”

  Dylan nodded in agreement and reached for his coffee. “Definitely. I couldn’t wait to leave the Academy for the same reason.”

  Jared opened his laptop and pulled up the notes from their last study session. His grades had seriously recovered since he’d started being tutored, and he made sure to let Dylan know how grateful he was. In one of the classes he’d been failing—chemistry—he was now in the top third of the class. It all made sense to him when Dylan was the one talking him through the equations and formulas.

  “So, where have you applied for college?” Dylan asked while Jared got his notes and homework in order.

  “Brown is my first choice,” Jared said distractedly. “Dartmouth and Rice, even though I don’t particularly want to go back to Texas.”

  “Interesting mix.”

  “I threatened to apply for Sarah Lawrence to piss my dad off,” Jared said with a grin.

  Dylan grinned back. “Sarah Lawrence is a great school.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a ‘chick college,’ according to him. He’s such a fucking misogynist.”

  “There’s no love lost between you, is there?”

  “What, the man who sent me to military school to pray away the gay?” Jared huffed. “No. We don’t get along.”

  “That’s a shame,” Dylan murmured, then turned to Jared’s chem textbook. “Thermodynamics?”

  “Ugh,” Jared groaned. “Yeah, okay.”

  An hour later Jared’s eyes were starting to hurt. He understood all of this; that wasn’t the problem. Apparently Clare, Chris, Adam, and all his troubles hadn’t been left at Harbor Academy.

  “Do you wanna talk about it?” Dylan asked and Jared realized, with a rush of heat to his face, that Dylan knew.

  “Not particularly,” he mumbled. Then, “not here.”

  “Okay.” Dylan nodded in understanding, and Jared suddenly pushed himself upright.

  “Can we get out of here?” he asked in a rush. “I’ll take you for dinner.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’d like to take you to dinner,” Jared amended, hoping he wasn’t making an epically huge mistake.

  Dylan smiled softly. “Okay,” he said again, and helped Jared pack up his things.

  When they got outside, Jared was pleased, for a reason he couldn’t name, that he hadn’t brought the Caddy. It was ostentatious and so not him, and he got the impression Dylan would call him out on that kind of bullshit. His sleek red truck was far more his style.

  Since Dylan knew the area, Jared followed him a few blocks over to a warm-looking Indian restaurant. While Dylan parked, Jared wondered if this counted as a date and silently sent a prayer of thanks to his sister for the gorgeous sweater. At least he looked good.

  “Does this work for you?” Dylan asked when he joined Jared at the door.

  “Yeah, absolutely. I haven’t had decent Indian food in forever.”

  “You’ll like it here, then,” Dylan said with a grin and held the door open.

  Edging into date territory, for sure.

  The hostess seated them in a good spot near a window, so they could people-watch during any lulls in conversation and within sight of the open-fronted kitchen. For a moment they both watched as white-jacketed chefs shouted instructions to each other over the hiss and steam of the sizzling curries.

  They requested water, since they were both driving, and ordered from a young, smiling Indian girl who relayed the message to the kitchen in her mother tongue.

  “This place is nice,” Jared said. He sipped ice water with lime.

  Dylan nodded. “One of the guys I have a class with brought a bunch of us here. His family owns a few restaurants here and in Tacoma. The food is amazing.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes, and Jared looked over Dylan’s body. Tonight, he was wearing a sort of ugly knitted sweater that actually looked pretty good on him and tight jeans tucked into his boots. There was fuzz on his jaw that might be the start of a beard, and even though the guy was in total hipster territory, Jared decided he was cute.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Dylan offered, giving Jared a sympathetic glance that made him squirm.
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  “I wish people didn’t know,” Jared muttered. “It’s….”

  Dylan was already shaking his head. He was playing with the edge of his napkin, twisting it over and over. “You still don’t know these people,” he said. “You’re not the first and definitely not the last person who will get caught up in their games.”

  “You used to be one of them,” Jared said. He refused to meet Dylan’s eyes.

  “A long time ago.” Dylan sounded a little hurt at being lumped in with Clare and the rest. “Jared… Ryder told me what happened. Right now it’s going to seem like the end of the world, but you don’t realize how much you’re fucking with them at the moment.”

  “I’m not fucking with anyone. I’m keeping my head down and staying out of the bullshit.”

  “Exactly!” Dylan exclaimed. “Clare runs people out of town. It sounds dramatic but it’s true. The fact that you took the car….”

  “How much do you know?” Jared asked curiously.

  “Pretty much all of it.”

  “How long have you known?”

  Dylan gave him an unreadable look. “About a day and a half,” he said. “Trust me, Jared, if I’d known sooner, I would have told you.”

  “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Dylan said. “You don’t have to believe me. But I know Clare, and my sister, and Mia, and Chris and Adam. I’ve known them nearly all my life. I know it seems impossible, but you might actually be able to come out on top of all this.”

  Jared snorted. “Bullshit.”

  “I’m serious. Clare plays games with people, and she doesn’t care what the consequences are. I’m pretty sure she’s psychopathic, in the medical sense. She’ll either end up in an institution or in politics.”

  Jared wasn’t sure if Dylan was serious or not, but the mental image was more than a little amusing. Or terrifying, depending on how you looked at it.

  “I just don’t want her to win,” Jared said as their orders were brought over by the smiling waitress.