Between the Girls (The Basin Lake Series Book 3)

by Stephanie Vercier

  My body stiffens at his voice, and I’m sure I must look like a robot when I turn ever so slightly toward him, seeing him for the first time since June.

  “Fine,” I reply, not even trying to smile, only noting his sandy blond hair is a little longer, his skin more tan, but not really in a good way—I think I preferred Austin a little pastier.

  “You not going to ask how I’m doing?” He laughs, the kind of stupid laugh he used to have around his friends, the laugh I reminded myself about when I had that talk in the mirror.

  “How are you doing, Austin?” I parrot, asking it like someone being forced.

  “Good. Spent the summer in ‘zona,” he says, sounding oblivious to my lack of interest before adding, “but you apparently don’t care.”

  ‘Zona. That might just be what he thinks Arizona is actually called.

  “Why should she?” McKenzie snaps back at him. “You’re kind of an asshole, Austin.”

  “Only kind of?” He doesn’t take his eyes off of me. “Claire, you want to meet up after school? It’s been too long.”

  I shake my head. “No thanks. I’ve got homework—”

  “On the first day of school?” He takes his hands off the table and stands at his full height, a little over six feet. “I’ve never heard of homework on the first day of school.”

  “You’ve never heard of homework, period.” McKenzie gives him an authoritative look. “Isn’t that why you’re here yet again?”

  He smirks at her. “Well, I’m here early aren’t I?”

  “You probably just fucked up the setting on your alarm clock.”

  “Hard crowd. You talk to James that way?”

  “James actually holds my hand,” she pushes back. “James buys me gifts and takes me to dances and doesn’t just fuck me the way you did Claire.”

  “McKenzie!” God, my skin is really burning red now and I’m shielding my eyes behind the palm of my hand.

  “That why you dumped me?” he says with a quick laugh.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, leveling a glare at McKenzie before facing Austin again. The last thing I need is for him to think he hurt me or that I’ve been carrying a torch for him this entire time. “We’ve both moved on, right?”

  He shrugs. “I guess, but I’m here now, so I wouldn’t be against you and me happening again.” It’s said as though he’d be doing me some kind of favor.

  “I’ll see you around.” That’s what I say to end this conversation, then lean down and pull a few books out of my bag.

  “See you around? Yeah, fine… I’ll see you around.” He looms above us for a few more seconds before turning and walking off, and I’m grateful.

  “Why did you do that?” I hiss at McKenzie.

  “Do what?” She looks at me with wide, innocent eyes.

  “Make it sound like I’m vindictive, like I’m still upset about him and me.”

  “Not what I was trying to do,” she says, letting out a heavy breath. “I just figured he should be called out, trying to come over here and act like he wasn’t a jerk of a boyfriend.”

  She launches into an apology, but I kind of zone out for a few seconds, allowing my gaze to float toward the spot the new guy had been sitting in before Austin came along. His seat is empty, and I’m disappointed, even if I would have probably just freaked out again if he’d looked up at me.

  “I wish James would tell him off too,” McKenzie continues. “Guys like Austin don’t deserve girls like you.”

  “Because I’m such a prize?” I try to make light of it, try to shake off that tight feeling in seeing the new guy and the dread I’d felt in seeing Austin.

  “You are a prize… totally. Too bad none of the local boys will get you before you head off to school and become a doctor.”

  A doctor.

  Yes.

  It’s all I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever really dreamed of being, to be that person who can heal someone, who can give them more years on this earth with their friends and their families, to maybe give a little girl not so different from me more time with her own father. That dream is why McKenzie agreed to get us to school super early today, so that I could go over my class schedule one more time, could re-organize my binder and be sure my refurbished laptop was fully charged so it wouldn’t crash like it sometimes did with only a half charge, to make sure everything was in place and ready to go with enough time to fix it if it wasn’t. I don’t want there to be any hiccups this year, just a perfect launching pad into college.

  But while my dread has dissipated, there is still a tightness in my stomach, and I realize, much to my horror, that it’s because of the new boy and the unwelcome thought that I really want to see him again.

  TYLER

  The sun feels good. In fact, it feels great. I didn’t sleep all that well last night, and I figure I could probably just fall asleep here on the bench outside the cafeteria. I’m still insanely early. Classes won’t start for another half an hour, but I’d rather be sitting here than at home, talking to mom about Laney and how she’d done me wrong.

  If I hadn’t come early, I wouldn’t have seen the beautiful girl in the cafeteria. I couldn’t quite decide if she was a student or a teacher, a really hot one. She wore a dress and a light sweater and had her hair, a rich, shiny brown color, up in a perfect ponytail, not one hair out of place, at least not that I could see. There was red lipstick on her lips that was this perfect contrast with her creamy white skin. And even at a distance, I could see she wore the kind of makeup that wasn’t too much, the kind you could still imagine what she’d look like without it… beautiful. She might have been tutoring that other girl, the one who was still doing that rebellious thing Dad used to scoff at with her bright red hair and what I think was a Def Leopard T-shirt.

  I guess I was staring when she looked over, and all I could think was shit, shit, shit! Then the other girl looked at me, more brazenly, like she didn’t mind staring. I figured they were talking about me, and I could have just gotten up and been a man and introduced myself to them since, regardless of my issues back home in Denver, I wasn’t a total introvert. Besides, just saying hi didn’t mean having to share my life story with them. That’s something I’m still hoping to keep under wraps.

  And I just might have gotten up the courage to go over there too, even if I figured the girl with the ponytail was completely off limits, for being too beautiful or maybe being a teacher or maybe just being a girl who would want a guy who was whole, not fractured and scarred and disgusting to look at without his clothes on. But even if I’d pushed past all those roadblocks, another guy had appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be laying claim to the girl I liked, and that offered me my cue to leave.

  Out in the sun, I’m reminded of the pain you feel when you love someone who doesn’t love you back and how eager you are to inflict that pain on someone else, on the person you hold responsible. I can’t even think about going through that again, not so soon, and not when my heart is still telling me I love Laney Barlow while my mind could list off a good two dozen reasons why I’m the dumbest fuck in Denver… no, make that the dumbest fuck in Basin Lake, maybe even all of Washington State, for thinking I still love that girl.

  So it really is better just to forget this new girl, the first one that has made my insides churn with excitement since Laney. Easier to forget, put blinders on and find a way to survive this year unnoticed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TYLER

  Second period. Advanced chemistry. That’s the next class on my schedule and the one I’m least looking forward to. I think I barely managed a B in just plain old chemistry back home, so I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this one with anything better than a C. And C’s are supposed to be my cutoff. I get a C, and I lose the Jeep until I’m back to all A’s and B’s.

  “You’re new,” the kid next to me says just after I slide into one of the few remaining empty seats at a table toward the back of the room.

  “Uh, yeah.” I set my m
essenger bag down on the floor and then turn my attention to the skinny, blond guy next to me with a shirt that says Nerds Make Better Lovers. “I’m Tyler.” I can’t help but grin.

  “Nick,” he answers, tilting his head toward me. “Saw you before school… your locker isn’t far off from mine. New students kind of stick out like sore thumbs here.”

  “So, I won’t be going unnoticed, huh?” I answer, very casually looking around the room, at the pairings of students that I imagine have probably lived here most of their lives.

  “Small town living,” he says with more of a smirk than a smile. “Not as bad as it used to be. A few of the newbies around here have parents that commute to Spokane. They like the peace and quiet.” At that, he chuckles.

  It’s a couple minutes before class is about to start, but there isn’t a teacher at the front yet, and everyone is talking to one another with voices at full volume.

  “By peace and quiet, you mean boring, right?” From what I’ve seen of Basin Lake, that pretty much sums it up to me.

  “Understatement,” he says flatly. “But there’s the lake. Of course most of the stuff that transpires out there is reserved for the more popular among us.”

  “So, you spend most of your time there, then, huh?”

  He looks at me, puzzled for a moment, then cracks a smile. “Ah, I see what you did there. Good one. It’s the shirt, right?”

  “Well, you’re calling yourself out with it,” I say, feeling fairly at ease in joking with him.

  “Yeah, you’d think it would get me lots of game, but not so much. Seattle nerds might get some, but Basin Lake nerds don’t stand a chance.”

  I offer a short laugh, and I find myself grateful the seat next to Nick hadn’t been taken. Not one person had talked to me in first period United States History, which in a way was good, but it also made me feel like an island unto myself.

  “It’s usually the nerds that make good. The jocks peak in high school,” I return as we wait for the instructor and the order he or she will bring.

  “And you aren’t a jock?” He looks hard at me, slightly bemused.

  “Nah.” I feel myself turning pink.

  “I could have sworn we’d be seeing you playing on the field this year. You look… built.” He shrugs it off, but he almost looks peeved he hadn’t pegged me right.

  Before the attack, the one that left me disfigured in places people couldn’t see, I’d been in little league and pee wee football. I loved sports, the pride at being on a team and the excitement at running around and scoring touchdowns or homeruns, even if those were very few and far between. The competition side of things felt secondary to me, and I was definitely a kid that was in it for the love of the game and nothing else.

  When I’d recovered enough, I’d wanted to go on playing, but it had been my dad who’d thrown up the caution flag.

  “I don’t want him in the showers with other boys when he gets older,” I’d overheard him say to Mom one night while I was supposed to be in bed sleeping.

  “So, he just sits out of the things he loves then?” Mom had asked in a voice I’d remembered as being pleading.

  “Better that than get taunted.”

  “Oh, please… he’s grown up with these boys. They’ll understand.”

  “You don’t know… you’ve never been in a locker room,” Dad snapped back at her. “Boys can be brutal when they want to be.”

  I’d been eight years old when I overheard that, and I hadn’t done more than toss a football around since.

  I’m getting a little lost in my memories when a throat clears and the talking in the room dies down to nothing. Turning toward the front of the class, I first see a tall, gray-haired man in a white lab coat before the door to the classroom flies open and the girl from this morning practically runs in.

  “Ms. Kessel,” our instructor says loudly, nodding at her before she slides into a seat in the front row.

  “Kessel,” I say, only aware it’s come out in more than a whisper when Nick and a girl in front of me turn my way, making my cheeks burn.

  “Her name’s Claire,” Nick says in a quiet voice while our instructor shuffles some papers at the table up front. “Off limits to mere mortals, but you might have a chance with her.”

  “I doubt it,” I say, eyeing her slender neck exposed by that perfect ponytail of hers.

  At least she isn’t a teacher.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he says. “Besides, I don’t think Austin Michaels is done with her.”

  “Austin—”

  “Is there something important you’d like to share with the class, Mr. Ollerman?” the instructor questions, stepping around his desk, his hands behind his back.

  I realize he’s talking to Nick just as everyone else in the class, including Claire Kessel, turns around and eyes not only him, but me too. So much for going unnoticed.

  “My bad, Mr. Turner,” Nick says easily. “Just giving the new guy here a rundown on our fine institution of learning.”

  “Is that right?” Mr. Turner doesn’t appear amused as he moves closer to us.

  “You can ask him if you don’t believe me,” Nick says, nudging my knee with his.

  Oh, Jesus. Literally everyone is looking at me now.

  “A new student, eh?” Mr. Turner’s tight face loosens a bit. “What’s your name, son?”

  Shit. I close my eyes, swallow hard, clear my throat and then say, “Tyler Duncan, sir.”

  Every fucking pair of eyes are on me—I can feel them. And when I risk a look toward where Claire is sitting, she’s turned around with the rest of them, but she’s looking off to the side, and it’s a relief to know I’m spared a gorgeous girl like her staring at me through my embarrassment.

  “Nice to meet you, Tyler Duncan,” Mr. Turner says, his face easing even more. “Can you vouch for Mr. Ollerman, here? Was he in fact giving you the rundown on our exceptional high school and not using the start of my class to goof off?”

  “Definitely giving me the rundown,” I respond, allowing myself a smile that grows a bit wider when the students in front of me and to my side laugh, the kind of laughter that is with you and not at you.

  “Very well,” Mr. Turner says with a nod. “Welcome to class.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I respond, relaxing back into my seat.

  “And while Mr. Ollerman here can be a royal pain in my ass,” he says, directing his eyes at Nick, “I can assure you his brain is top notch. You picked yourself a good lab partner.”

  “Why thank you, Mr. Turner,” Nick says, which is followed by more laughter.

  Our teacher pushes his lips together, sighs and then turns on his heel and walks back up the aisle. His form blocks Claire for a moment, but once she reappears, she’s looking at me, and she smiles.

  “He likes to fuck with me,” Nick whispers.

  “Oh, sure,” I say, not taking my eyes off of Claire until she’s turned back around.

  CLAIRE

  Of course Mr. Turner pairs Nina and me with Nick and the new guy for our first class experiment. It’s not like I don’t want to officially meet him—I do. It’s just that I was hoping to ease into it, maybe say hi a couple of times in class or in the hall before having to face a guy that I know is going to make me nervous. I’m sort of fearless when it comes to facing people in authority, but this is something so altogether different for one very simple reason.

  “Tyler is fucking hot,” Nina says while we wait for he and Nick to join us, and I just sigh.

  Yes, he is, and that’s the reason I know I’m bound to stumble, stutter and perhaps even stare when I get close to him. Guys don’t generally unnerve me, but there’s something about Tyler that makes me incredibly unsure of myself. It starts with his height—I’ve always been a sucker for tall guys, but not too tall—I peg him for being at least six feet. His build is second—he’s muscular, but not too much, not like he spends every second of his life in the gym. He could play football though, might even be planning
to play this year. Beyond the body is the face, kind of full with just enough angle to it to make it incredibly masculine. His eyes are rounded nicely—I think they’re brown. His hair is dark, really dark, almost black, and it’s thick, cut slightly shorter on the sides than on the top, and he’s got this light beard thing going that makes him look so much older, so much more hot. And while he’s dressed totally casual in a short sleeved button up and cargo shorts, I can almost picture him in a suit and tie, which only makes my interest for him grow.

  “Are you gonna squirt over there?” Nina throws me a taunting, impish look.

  “You’re so gross,” I say to the girl who is head cheerleader this year and who apparently just read my mind.

  “You like him,” she coos.

  “Don’t embarrass him… or us… please,” I say, shutting whatever she’s trying to do down while Tyler and Nick make their way over.

  “I would never,” she says with that totally fake innocent act of hers. It’s something guys find cute, but it’s pretty much just annoying to me.

  “I’m just saying, you already have a boyfriend, so don’t like flirt shamelessly with him or something.”

  “Are you staking a claim?” Nina says, apparently oblivious to the fact the boys are now within hearing distance. “Because we could totally let him in on—”

  “Hey!” I call out, cutting Nina off.

  “Hey,” Nick says, giving me a weird look. “I’ve never known you to be excited to see me.”

  “Maybe it’s not you she’s excited to see,” Nina says smoothly, tucking a strand of her blonde hair back behind her ear.

  By some miracle, my face doesn’t heat, and I’m actually able to control my heart rate. “Don’t mind her,” I say to Tyler specifically, waving her comment off. “But it is nice to meet you. I saw you this morning in the cafeteria?” I extend my hand, and he takes it.

  “Yeah.” He half laughs and blushes. “I didn’t want to interrupt you and the guy you were talking to.”

  “Oh my god, were you talking to Austin?” Nina butts in.