by Snow, Jenika
After that exchange, Harlow probably thought I was a major asshole.
I wanted to address the text, or my lack thereof. I’d wanted to tell her I wanted to see her again, that I wanted to take her out and hang out. But I froze, telling myself I had this last year of school to get through and focus on. Seemed easy enough for someone who didn’t have the shit school history like I did, one that was filled with fights, detentions, and suspensions.
I hadn’t actually meant to grow any kind of relationship with Harlow, not as friends, and certainly not as more than that. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I had other things on my plate that I should focus on.
But then I’d seen her at Mickey’s, and it was like kismet, like fate had our paths cross all over again. Or maybe it was just because Mickey’s was the closest body shop to the school?
Either way, I’d like to think it was the former, because forgetting about her didn’t feel right and something I knew I wouldn’t be able to do, even if that was what was best for everyone.
I wasn’t the type of guy she was probably used to hanging out with, those preppy jocks with money, who said sweet things to have them dropping their panties.
But I didn’t feel like I was a novelty to her.
I felt like I was someone.
* * *
Several days later
I’d told myself I was doing the right thing by keeping a wide berth from Harlow. I wouldn’t let myself fall any more than I had for her. But it seemed like telling myself that just made me want her even more.
The weekend had given me two days where I didn’t see her at school. I thought maybe that would’ve helped clear my head, to try to talk myself into focusing on other things. But there was this longing inside me to talk to her, to see her. I couldn’t count how many times I picked up my cell and wanted to send her a text, to ask her if she wanted to hang out. But here I was, Monday morning and sitting in my car in the school parking lot, hoping to see her.
I’d been working on her car at Mickey’s, but because we’d come into a snag with the part, it was taking longer than necessary. Hell, I wanted to call her and ask if she wanted me to pick her up, to see if I could be the one to drive her home after school.
God, I was fucking insane. I couldn’t even stop thinking about Harlow no matter how hard I tried. In fact, forcing myself to try to put her in the back of my mind only resulted in me thinking about her even more.
It was to the point I basically said fuck it, that I’d just give in. Because what was the point of fighting something that felt so right?
I grabbed my books and got out of the car before heading toward the front doors of Silver Creek High. There was a line of yellow school buses curved around the driveway, students piling out.
I moved around everyone, keeping my head lowered, although I wanted to search for Harlow.
“Dude, she was so fucking into it Saturday. She was practically begging for my dick.”
The annoying clearly male conversation and responding laughter came through over all the other noise in the front corridor of the school.
“She would have let me put it in any hole, no fucking doubt.”
I curled my lip in disgust, knowing who spoke. I’d recognize his condescending, chauvinistic attitude and voice anywhere.
I didn’t even look at them as I passed by, but I could feel their stares on me. I knew if I glanced at them, told them exactly what I thought about their attitudes toward females, it would result in violence.
Although I was nothing like Braxton, I knew he had a short fuse. I guess that’s where he and I were the same. But where he was used to getting what he wanted, so when he didn’t get his way, he threw a temper tantrum and became aggressive, I was this way out of pure survival.
And Braxton was the kind of guy I had altercations with, the kind who thought he was better than everyone else because of his good looks and money, because his daddy bought him a brand-new car for his sixteenth birthday. He probably never worked a day in his life.
Fuck him.
I headed toward my locker, and once there and the door opened, I tossed the books I wouldn’t need this early in the morning inside. I still hadn’t seen Harlow, and probably wouldn’t until lunch. And that fucking sucked. Now that I’d come to the conclusion that I’d stop fighting my need for her, I was anxious for us to run into each other.
God, I wanted to see her and talk to her, wanted to make plans so it could just be her and me.
Maybe she didn’t even want to hang out with me.
Maybe I was reading into all this too deeply.
But I saw the way she looked at me. I saw the need that matched my own.
I didn’t know how deep her interest in me went, but I wanted to find out.
I played through my mind what I’d do when I saw her. What would I say? How would she react?
I guess I’d find out soon enough.
Chapter Eight
Harlow
I sat down at the lunch table and saw Pixie coming closer. She held a tray of food in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, and Braxton walked beside her. He had his arm over her shoulders. I didn’t know what she saw in that guy, but she had a crush on him for the past year. I was pretty sure it was because he lavished attention on her, but it was only because he hadn’t been with her yet, and he was trying to get in her pants.
Pixie was a gorgeous girl, but she was shy and overlooked that some guys were just plain assholes. She tried to look for the good in everyone. And I doubted Braxton had any.
And for some reason, the girls at Silver Creek cared more about money and social standings than a guy’s personality. They didn’t care that Braxton was a huge dick who bragged to his friends about the girl he banged over the weekend. And it made me feel sorry for them, that they needed that kind of validation from an asshole.
Fuck him.
Braxton glanced over at me as soon as he and Pixie stopped at the table. The slow grin he gave me made my skin crawl. He looked over at Pixie a second later and leaned in to whisper something in her ear. I could only roll my eyes. I’d told her plenty of times Braxton wasn’t a good guy, and although she gave me a look like she knew, she also still hung out with him and his asshole buddies. She still talked to him and told me how much she liked him.
Whatever Braxton said made her cheeks turn pink, and then he was gone, leaving her standing there clearly embarrassed. I didn’t even bother asking what he whispered to her. It was probably something filthy and sexual, knowing the kind of guy he was.
Pixie sat down beside me, and I looked around the lunchroom, hoping to see Aiden. It wasn’t like I saw him frequently during school, but now that I was actively looking for him, it was almost like he was avoiding me. Or maybe it was all in my head.
His usual spot in the cafeteria was empty, and I felt this dejection fill me.
I told myself I’d talk to him, just have the courage to break the weird ice that had seemed to grow between us. Or maybe I was making something out of nothing.
“You want to hang out this weekend?” Pixie asked, and I glanced over at her, her voice pulling me from my thoughts.
“Hang out?” I had a feeling I knew where this was going, but I didn’t say anything else as I opened up my water bottle and took a long drink.
Although Pixie was one of my closest friends, we didn’t hang out with the same crowd most of the time. She tended to flock around Braxton’s crew, whereas I kept away from them as much as I could.
She shrugged and didn’t respond right away, and I knew it was because she probably assumed what I would say. I knew she was going to ask if I wanted to go to Braxton’s party after the game this weekend. And my initial, instant reaction was to say hell no. But then she looked at me, and the expression on her face was one where she thought she could get her way if she looked pathetic.
“You know how Braxton is having that party?”
I made a disgusted sound in the back of my throat and took another drin
k of water so I wouldn’t start bitching about him.
“He invited me, but I’m not going alone. Will you come with me?”
I was already shaking my head, but she gave me this big, watery look.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head more before setting my water bottle on the table. “Pixie, you know that doesn’t work on me. I’m immune to your pathetic expressions.”
She held her hands up and clasped them together, as if begging me.
“Please?” She drew out the word, leaning in close and resting her head on my shoulder. “I know you hate him and his friends, and I can see why, but he hasn’t ever really shown me much interest until now, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to jump on that opportunity, even if it’s just for that night.”
She lifted her head from my shoulder, and I snapped my head in her direction, my eyes wide. “Pixie, he’s an asshole. You know he just wants to use you, right?”
She shrugged and opened her bag of chips, popping one in her mouth and crunching away while she wore a damn smirk. “Or maybe I’m the one using him.” She waggled her eyebrows, and I couldn’t help but chuckle and shake my head.
Pixie was in a league all her own. “I really don’t want to go. I can’t stand him. He creeps me out.” Before she could respond, Aiden was setting his books on the seat in front of me and then sitting down. I swore the table went silent as Pixie and I stared at him and as the other students at the end of the table glanced over in our direction. He never sat with anyone and instead kept to himself during lunch.
“Hey,” he said in that deep, masculine voice that had tingles instantly moving throughout my body.
I had a hand around my water bottle and involuntarily squeezed the plastic, the crunching noise seeming deafening. I loosened my grip and gave him a smile, but I felt my face already starting to heat.
Now was not the time to be awkward.
“Hi.” We didn’t say anything else for long seconds, and I saw him glance at Pixie. I looked at her and could see she stared at him with wide eyes and this little smirk on her face.
Please don’t let her embarrass me. Please don’t let her tell Aiden how much I stare at him, even if he does probably notice.
“It’s Aiden, right?” she asked and rested her elbows on the table, propping her head in one of her hands as she looked at him. “I’m Pixie, Harlow’s best friend.”
He nodded and shifted on the bench-style seating so his shoulder was up against the window.
“You like it here?” Pixie asked, and I saw Aiden smirk.
“Sure” was all he said.
Pixie snorted but immediately started with more conversation. “So, Aiden, do you have any plans this weekend?”
I snapped my head in Pixie’s direction and clenched my jaw, giving her a look that told her to shut up. And even though she wasn’t actually looking at me to see my silent demand, I could tell by the smile she wore that she could see me well enough out of her peripheral.
She didn’t wait for him to respond before she started in again. “I was trying to talk Harlow into going with me to a party Saturday after the game. She’s not really having it, but I think if you tagged along, it would make is so much more fun.” Pixie looked at me then, her grin clearly shit-eating now.
Oh that bitch.
I narrowed my eyes at her, and she started chuckling.
“And if Harlow has somebody there to keep her busy, I can go do other things.” She was speaking to Aiden but looking right at me, and you didn’t have to be a genius to know what “other things” she was referring to.
I swallowed roughly and looked at Aiden. His expression was stoic, and his focus was on me, and in that moment, I felt like it was just the two of us—that Pixie wasn’t sitting right beside me, that there wasn’t a room full of students surrounding us, that the noise wasn’t ear-splitting.
He looked at me as if I were the only person in the world. No one had ever looked at me like that.
I didn’t know how many seconds passed, but I felt like it was a little too long by the way Pixie shifted on the seat beside me. Although it didn’t feel uncomfortable to me, I knew outsiders might think it was weird that Aiden and I couldn’t break eye contact.
“Well, Aiden? Are you game for this Saturday?” Pixie’s voice was excited, and I blinked a few times before looking at her.
I could’ve strangled her in that moment. She was good at trying to convince people of things, peer pressuring them. I looked at Aiden again, about to apologize, to tell him that he most certainly didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, but when he leaned forward slightly, all words died in my throat.
“If Harlow goes and wants me to be with her, I wouldn’t say no.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted.
My heart jumped into my throat, and I felt my cheeks heat once again. He said it in such a deep, silky-smooth voice that I couldn’t help but feel it throughout my whole body, like he actually reached out and touched me.
“You hear that, Harlow?” Pixie prompted, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from Aiden. “He said he’s game. Now, you’re not gonna have him go to the party alone, are you?”
God, in this moment, I was so annoyed with her, but I also secretly loved that she said something.
“If Aiden goes, so will I.”
There, the words were out in the open, unable to be taken back.
But you know what? I didn’t regret them one bit.
Chapter Nine
Aiden
The bell for the last class of the day rang and I gathered my books, wanting to get the fuck out of here. I kept replaying the scene at lunch with Harlow’s friend asking me to go to a party. Fucking Braxton’s party. And if Harlow hadn’t been going, if it hadn’t been presented to me that I’d be there with her, I would’ve said fuck no and had no shame about it.
But if Harlow was going, I wanted to be there to protect her, to make sure no fucking assholes looked at her or even thought about touching her. I knew what drunk cocksuckers could be like. Hell no was I going to let her go alone into that fucking wolf den.
I felt possessiveness so deep in my body that it was like another living person inside me, like this stranger I’d never known existed was finally making himself known. But I embraced him. I let that fucker out and take control.
I made my way out to the parking lot and started passing the line of school buses, students loading into them. And then I saw her, Harlow in the line, her backpack slung over her shoulders, her focus on the cell in her hand. I felt my heart jump a little bit, felt a smile start to spread on my face. God, just seeing her excited me.
I could’ve kept walking, but instead, I went right toward her, gently nudged my shoulder against hers until she looked up at me, and fucking loved how I could see the excitement on her face. I swear her eyes fucking lit up when she saw me.
I was pretty sure I’d never felt anything better before.
“Hey,” she said in a soft voice.
“Hey, yourself.” I tipped my chin toward the parking lot. “Want a ride home?” Her smile brightened and she nodded slowly.
She stepped out of line and we headed toward my car. I didn’t miss the looks we were getting from some of our classmates. They could fucking stare all they wanted to. I’d never cared before, and I certainly didn’t give a fuck now. No doubt they were wondering what the hell she was thinking spending time with me.
Once at my car, she climbed in before I could open the door for her. Yeah, I was actually going to open the car door for her. The last thing I would’ve ever been called was a gentleman, not because I was that kind of asshole, but because I’d never felt this way about anyone before to the point I wanted to do things like this.
But it just seemed like the right thing to do and something I really wanted to do for her.
I climbed into the driver seat and looked over at her. She had a smile on her face as she looked at me. It felt right having her in the car beside me.
I di
dn’t say anything as I started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. I started heading toward her house, although that was the last place I wanted to go. I’d love to hang out with her, just go somewhere and talk, but I was too much of a chickenshit to actually ask her.
“I don’t have to work today, do you?”
I shook my head and then said, “Not today.” My heart was beating a little faster. Maybe she’d say she wanted to hang out. Maybe we’d be on the same wavelength with that.
“Do you want to go to the park? Or go to the coffee shop on Harrison Drive? I work there part-time, and one of the perks is free drinks.”
I held in my grin, because I didn’t want to seem overly excited that she mentioned it. “Sure. I’m game for whatever.”
She told me the directions to the coffee shop, and less than ten minutes later, I was pulling into a parking spot in front of a little cafe called Cool Beans. There were some bistro tables set up on an outdoor patio, and an elderly couple sat at one of them, and a businessman sat at the other.
I climbed out, and she did the same, and we both headed inside. The scent of coffee was instant and strong as soon as we walked in. A couple employees waved at her as we walked up to the front counter. The young guy standing behind the cash register was in the process of putting his apron on, and I assumed he’d just gotten out of school.
His face lit up as soon as he saw her. He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, his face becoming pink, as it was clear her presence flustered him. I didn’t have to be a genius to see he obviously liked Harlow. Hell, I couldn’t blame him. But I sure as hell hoped he didn’t try making a move. Not that I was intimidated or threatened by this dude, but I felt this proprietary sensation toward her. It was a little barbaric, sure, but it was pretty intense that there was no way I could ignore or attempt to rein it in.
“Hey, Mitchell,” Harlow said and gave him a friendly smile.
I wasn’t getting any kind of vibes from her regarding how Mitchell obviously wanted her, but then again, she might have been oblivious to it. Regardless, I stayed close to her. Hell, I wanted to wrap my arm around her, letting him know the looks he gave her right now we’re not appreciated or welcome by me. But I had no claim on Harlow, no matter how much I did want that.
