Them Seymore Boys: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 1)

by Savannah Rose

  “I’m going to get to school after he does tomorrow,” she said. “I want to make an impression. I’m going to need you to stall him at the door if he looks like he’s going inside before I get there.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You know he still has a crush on you. Oh don’t worry, I don’t think of you as a threat—you’re too smart, for one thing—but he doesn’t know that you aren’t a threat. He’ll probably be all pissed off at me and wanting revenge or, at the very least, he’ll be easily distracted. All I need you to do is flirt with him a little bit. He’ll take it from there, trust me.”

  I made a face. “I’m aware.”

  “Oh yeah, he kissed you, didn’t he?”

  “Wasn’t my idea,” I said grumpily before the plotting gleam in her eyes could turn its attention on me. “I slapped him for it.”

  “Good, then he’ll think you changed your mind. Oh! Tell him that I told you we had a fight. And I guess…hmm…” She bopped her head from side to side, thinking. “Offer to comfort him. Not in those words, obviously. Just make him feel like he has a chance with you for a few minutes until I show up, then if he still tries to push it after I step out of the car—I mean, let’s face it, he won’t—but if he does, just laugh at him and walk away. He’ll be crushed. He’ll crawl back to me in front of everybody.” She smiled an evil smile at her reflection.

  The coldness in her face gave me chills. If I didn’t already hate Thomas on principle, I might have stopped to consider whether or not he really deserved to be publicly pussy-whipped. After all, he hadn’t done anything that any other reasonable human who was tired of playing stupid games wouldn’t have done. But it was Thomas, so he was guilty by default in my mind. I agreed to do it, then went home to finish my extra credit.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I stood on the school steps early the next morning, wearing my most Julianne-inspired outfit—a pink pencil skirt and matching short-sleeved blazer.

  It wasn’t my usual style – and definitely nothing to be compared with my orange pants - but it was one of the few things she’d insisted on me buying that I saw actual potential in.

  It would kill at an interview, either for a job or on TV (I wasn’t crazy; if I walked in my father’s footsteps the way he wanted me to, I’d end up on TV eventually), so I kept it.

  Today it was the bait.

  For as much as Thomas had professed to be interested in me before, he, like Julianne, had never stopped picking on my style choices. He’d wanted me to “represent” him as his girlfriend, which apparently meant dressing like his dad’s secretaries—or Julianne. I had to admit, in some very twisted way, they were perfect for each other.

  He did a little double-take when he saw me standing there. I lowered my eyes and smiled bashfully at him, luring him in. Glancing around only half-nervously, he sauntered over to me.

  “Hey, girl,” he said. “Long time no talk. How you doin’?”

  I giggled, burying my annoyance under flirtatious affectations. “Better than you are, from what I hear. Julianne told me you two had a fight.” I touched his arm when I said that, letting my skin press intimately into his.

  God, it was almost embarrassing how good I was at this.

  Thomas sighed. “I try so hard to make her happy, you know? She’s just impossible.”

  I pouted and nodded at him. “I totally understand. It’s a shame, really, for someone as handsome as you to be stuck chasing your tail all the time.”

  “You’ve got that right. I could get just about any girl I want. Julianne’s taking me for granted.” He was whining like a child. A cocky, stuck-up, self-centered child. I kept half an eye on the parking lot, waiting for Julianne to show up and put me out of my misery.

  Thomas put a hand on the wall beside my head and looked into my eyes. “You would never treat me the way Julianne does, would you Kennedy?”

  “Of course not,” I said soothingly. Because I would never be in a relationship with you in the first place, you absolute troglodyte. Those are the words I thought, but of course, I didn’t say them. Instead, I simply smiled at Thomas and petted his arm, looking past his right ear toward the parking lot. A parking lot that didn’t have Julianne walking across it. Where the hell was she?

  Thomas took a step, closing the space between us until I wouldn’t be able to move without brushing against the entire front side of his body.

  I was starting to worry, but I didn’t approach panic until I met Rudy’s eyes over Thomas’ shoulder. I caught a bare, raw flash of hurt before his expression closed. Then he raised an eyebrow, twisted his lips in a weak mimicry of amusement, and went to join his brothers by the door without looking back.

  “—My place after school,” Thomas was crooning in my ear.

  “Sorry, what?”

  He chuckled softly. “I know, right? Super distracting to be this close to the star of the football team. Don’t worry about it, I understand. I’ll pick you up after practice and we’ll just—see where it goes.” His hot, moist breath spread over my neck, making me cringe and shudder all at the same time.

  “Oh, don’t you think Julianne would be upset?” I asked, batting my eyes a second too late.

  I wanted to stop this charade, wanted to bolt away from him and hide inside, wanted to slap Julianne for being so damn late, but I couldn’t seem to move.

  Thomas was almost a foot taller than me and full of football muscles, and I hadn’t managed to develop the same kind of feminine intimidation that Julianne had perfected.

  Where the hell was she?

  Thomas cupped my face in one hand and jerked my gaze away from the parking lot to his face. He cocked a small, sly smile at me.

  “Don’t worry,” he said huskily. “She won’t spot us. She told me this morning that she was calling in sick. She won’t even be here today.”

  A trickle of sweat dripped down my spine. Maybe she had just told him that to put his guard down—but I could see Macy and Joan standing in the parking lot, looking around confused.

  Macy pulled out her phone and texted for a moment, frowning. I watched her face as she got a return text—her brow smoothed and she said something to Joan, then the two of them went inside.

  Julianne wouldn’t have told them to walk away from this if she was coming. She enjoys an audience more than anything, and the crowd out here was really thin already. The last clusters of students started moving toward the doors, and I was still trapped there between Thomas and the wall.

  “Did she?” I asked, my voice high and nervous. “Do you know what she’s sick with?”

  He shrugged. “Temper, probably. I made the mistake of having fun without her. How dare I, right?” His hands were moving closer to me, reaching to touch my waist and neck.

  Time pulsed, then slowed as he dipped his head, moving lower and lower, closer and closer, with every breath. So close that his lips were only an inch away from mine and the warmth of his exhale brushed against my lips, my chin, wafted into my nostrils. His head, hands, and body were boxing me in.

  I ducked, sidestepped, and was caught around the waist. His lips fell on my temple instead of my mouth, and I wriggled hard to break free of his arm.

  “Bell’s about to ring,” I said breathlessly. And just like that, it did.

  Quick as I could and maybe with a bit of luck, I hurried away from him, not even trying to hide the shudder of disgust running down my spine.

  I charged down the corridors all the way to my class, almost slamming right into Rudy who was just going through the door.

  I stopped short, but gasped loud enough for him to glance over his shoulder. There was a look in his eyes—one that I’d seen before, when we were working on a difficult problem or learning a new concept—like he was trying hard to figure something out.

  I danced around him, putting him between me and Thomas, who had recovered from the shock of rejection enough to jog up to the doors. I didn’t look back as I hurried through the hal
ls, and slid into my seat in homeroom just as the second bell rang.

  I nudged Joan and looked pointedly at Julianne’s empty seat.

  “She called in sick,” Joan said under her breath. “Facial peel accident. Burned the hell out of her skin, it’s awful.”

  I murmured something that sounded halfway sympathetic in response, but my hands shook as I slid my phone out of my bag.

  She hadn’t texted.

  She hadn’t called.

  She had done nothing at all to give me a goddamn heads up.

  Determined to excuse her if I possibly could, I checked every messaging app I had, but nothing indicated that she had tried to get in touch with me.

  I slid the phone back into my bag, my chest tight with fury. She’d set me up. It was clear as day; so clear that even the fucking idiot in me saw it.

  I couldn’t even attempt to convince myself that she had simply forgotten about her plan. Julianne didn’t forget things like that, not with her pride on the line.

  Now there would be rumors flying all over school that I’d taken advantage of her misfortune to try and make a move on her boyfriend, and I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on because that was the exact impression I had been trying to convey. Everything I’d done hinged on Julianne’s big reveal to absolve me.

  It didn’t take long for the story to get around, either. By the time the three of us sat down for lunch, Macy was ignoring my existence entirely and Joan kept shooting me awed, horrified looks from the corner of her eye. I didn’t even have time to say anything before Thomas sat down in Julianne’s place, crowding Macy.

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “What do you think you’re doing? Go sit at the jock’s table where you belong,” she hissed.

  He grinned at her; the kind of grin that was filled with all kinds of ill-intentions and shit-startery. “Who died and put you in charge? There’s no law against me joining some pretty girls for lunch.” He said that last bit while looking straight at me. “Matter of fact, I guarantee someone here wants me to stick around for lunch. Isn’t that right, Kennedy?”

  Rudy sat facing our table today, and was glaring holes in the back of Thomas’ head. I glanced from him to Macy, who was still ignoring me, to Thomas.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I sure as shit don’t want you here. Joan?”

  Her eyes widened. “Julianne doesn’t like us talking to you,” she said in a small voice.

  “Well Julianne isn’t here today, is she?” he asked with a big, toothy grin. He winked at me and my stomach churned. The nerve on this asshole was huge, the gall even huger. “Figured we could finish what we started before we got all onioned up on cafeteria meatloaf.”

  I shoved a huge bite of the offensive stuff into my mouth and chewed slowly.

  Thomas frowned, then shrugged. “That’s all right. I don’t mind sharing.” He pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and offered it to me.

  “No thanks,” I said, talking around a mouthful of food, being as deliberately disgusting as I possible could. “I don’t like gum.”

  He smiled, shaking his head like I’d just said something nonsensical. “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s for your breath.”

  I shrugged. “Nothing wrong with meatloaf breath unless you plan on kissing somebody, which I don’t.”

  He frowned at me again, shot a suspicious look at Macy and Joan, then growled, “This conversation doesn’t leave this table.” It wasn’t a threat, or even a plea. Just one of those things that he said because he had a mouth to speak out of.

  The truth of the matter was, I didn’t think he gave a shit whether or not Julianne found out. Thomas thought he was big and bad and that every person on this planet was put here specifically to be his little plaything. Again, he and Julianne were a lot alike in that regard.

  “The conversation won’t leave the table if you do,” I said flatly.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, then picked up his tray and went back to his usual place at the jock table.

  Macy raised a cold eyebrow at me. “So you’re what, just playing with his feelings while Julianne isn’t here to defend him?”

  I shook my head. “I only talked to him this morning because she asked me to. It’s not my fault he sees basic human kindness as flirtation.”

  “He does do that,” Joan piped up, rubbing a hand on her thigh nervously. “He thought I was interested in him for a whole month because I gave him back a paper that he’d dropped.”

  A part of me thought that maybe Joan was simply saying that in my defense. Not that I couldn’t see the truth in it. But if she put that out there, then I wouldn’t be to blame and when Julianne found out – which, of course, she already fucking knew – she could at least have some grounds for taking my side. I could be wrong, of course. Come to think of it, I probably was.

  Macy thought it over for a minute, then nodded sharply. “I’m never nice to him. That explains it. All right, Kennedy, you’re off the hook—for now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She smiled contentedly. “It means while Julianne is gone, it’s my job to maintain the status quo around here. So while I might buy your explanation for one compromising rumor, you’ll have a hard time convincing me a second time. Understand?”

  “Yep.”

  I wasn’t worried about that at all. I had no intention of flirting with Thomas—in fact, if he came up to me again, I might just smack him—or anyone else, for that matter.

  What I was worried about were the looks flying in my direction. The baffled outrage on Thomas’ face which was slowly morphing into an idea I could see in the set of his jaw. The heated looks from Rudy, which looked like fury one minute and desire the next. The wide-eyed awe from Joan, complete with the anxious little wiggle which meant that she had juicy gossip burning a hole in her pocket that she was going to spread like wildfire at the first opportunity.

  I’d never been happier for lunch to be over. Joan stuck close to me as we hurried to history.

  “Why did Julianne ask you to talk to Thomas?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “The two of them got in a fight last night. I guess I was supposed to be an extended olive branch or something.”

  She frowned. “That’s not like her. Usually she just lets him stew until she’s ready to talk to him again. Making an effort to bridge the gap makes her look weak—or at least she thinks it does.”

  “Maybe she’s growing up,” I suggested.

  Joan gasped. “Are you seriously calling her childish?”

  I blinked, thought about it, and cocked my head. “I guess I am,” I said, surprised at myself. “Huh.”

  Joan shook her head at me, so fast it was almost dizzying. “You better not ever, ever let her hear you say that.”

  I was beginning to realize just how many of my thoughts and feelings I could never, ever let Julianne hear me say. They were stacking up, a new one every week at least. Unless Joan was just hypersensitive about Julianne’s feelings.

  I looked at her, the way her eyes lit up whenever there was drama around. No—if she thought there was a chance of decent drama without any real damage being done, she wouldn’t try to intervene. She enjoyed the rush too much.

  Besides, she didn’t tell me much about Julianne that I hadn’t already determined on my own. Julianne was fragile and dangerous, a nuclear warhead in a pretty dress.

  I had the sickening thought that she might pretend that talking to Thomas was not her idea, laying all the blame at my feet for reasons of her own, though I couldn’t imagine what those reasons might be.

  The room had been rearranged for a video, with all the desks stacked and a bunch of chairs gathered around the big screen in a semi-circle. Joan took a chair way in the back and gestured for me to go over to her, but I needed time to think so I pretended to tie my shoe. When I was finished, the back row was full around her.

  I shrugged apologetically and took the chair nearest to the door. If I was lucky, I could just do
dge everybody for the rest of the day.

  Rudy had different ideas, apparently. He didn’t look at me as he took the seat next to mine, but he didn’t have to. Every cell in my body stood at attention and I could feel his focus in the stillness around him. My head buzzed and I glanced up to make sure that nobody else noticed my sharp, sudden reaction to him. Only Joan was looking in our direction, and her frown was just for him. I relaxed, sighing a shaky breath.

  The lights went down and the movie came on. The substitute—which explained the movie—propped his feet up on the teacher’s desk, put his head back, and slid sunglasses over his eyes. He would be asleep in minutes, but since most of the class had their backs to him, I doubted that many people would notice. Rudy did, though. I snuck a glance at him and saw the same conclusion roll across his face. It left a little dimple in its wake.

  I really liked that little dimple.

  The movie was a decent one, a PG-13 popular flick which was only vaguely related to history, and only because the hero had been cryo-frozen since World War II.

  I wasn’t even sure how much of the “history” it showed was actually historical, but it didn’t really matter. It was a fun break from the drama and in the dark I could pretend that it was a real theater. Which would mean that Rudy and I were out on a date, I supposed—

  The strange, excited wriggle in my belly at that thought flipped over to anxiety a moment later when Rudy nudged my arm. I looked at him and he jerked his head toward the door, then got up and crept out.

  I looked at the faces around me and across from me, but nobody seemed to have noticed him leave. Still, I couldn’t see Joan’s eyes clearly from where I sat—if she saw him leave, then saw me leave immediately after, she’d jump to all kinds of crazy conclusions.

  I waited a full five minutes with cold sweat trickling down my spine, debating whether I should just let him wait out there or if I should go and try to resolve this tension between us one way or another.

  Julianne’s absence was the deciding factor; this could be the only chance I’d have to talk to him without her finding out about it immediately afterward. She had the uncanny ability to know everything that happened in school, even if she was nowhere around when it happened.