Here it comes. Apparently mocking me this morning wasn’t enough. Maybe Lars was right…maybe I’d crossed some forbidden line when I’d flirted with the cheerleader. I pasted a smile on my face and faced him head-on as he drew closer to our table. But the big, burly guy wearing the football jersey wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring at Harley.
Lars leaned over and spoke quickly in a hushed voice. “That’s Tristan O’Hare,” he said. “Senior. Quarterback. Basically, a god among men.”
I shot him a quick look and his grin grew. “You know, to some people.”
“Yeah, like the whole student body population,” Harley muttered under her breath.
My mouth opened but too many questions raced to my mind and I didn’t know which to ask first. How had Harley learned so much gossip in one morning at this new school? How did she know this god among men and why was said god coming over here?
Most of all—why was Harley suddenly staring down at her pizza like it held the secrets of the universe?
When the towering giant—I would not refer to him as a god anymore, not even in my thoughts—when the giant approached, he ignored me and Lars completely, hovering over a cowering Harley.
What the—
Brotherly instincts I didn’t even know I had surged to the surface and I gripped the edge of the table, ready to stand up and face off with this guy if he gave Harley a hard time.
She peeked up at me, her head still tilted down and gave a little shake of her head like she knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Hey, Harley.” His voice was a low rumble and I glanced back and forth to see him staring down at the top of her head. “Guess you’re not sitting with us for lunch?”
She stared at her pizza, her expression inscrutable. “Guess not.”
I looked to Lars as if he might have any idea what was going on but he was gawking at Harley and Tristan with a wide-open mouth.
“Shame,” Tristan said. He was eyeing Harley oddly, a smile hovering over his lips but I couldn’t tell if it was mocking or amused.
Which meant, I had no idea if I should be angry or like the guy.
It was a difficult position and I found myself sitting by silently without a witty retort for quite possibly the first time ever.
Tristan turned to head back to his friends and that was when I noticed that all eyes were on us.
Nay, all eyes were on her.
Harley.
The vibe didn’t seem to be mean—no one was sneering or jeering or leering or anything else that rhymed with earring, but they were curious. No doubt wondering, just like I was, why on earth the king of the school had come over to invite Harley to his table.
He was a few steps away when he turned back. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Harley didn’t look up and she didn’t respond. Tristan went back to his seat but the interest in our little table was still apparent.
“Uh, what was that?” I asked.
Harley shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lars shifted in his seat so he was full-on facing Harley. “Did Tristan O’Hare just invite you to eat lunch with him and his friends?”
She shrugged.
“And you said no,” he confirmed.
“He wasn’t serious,” she mumbled.
Lars and I just sat there in silence for a long moment, considering this strange girl before us with her Wednesday Addams esthetic and her mysterious new friendship with the quarterback.
“You think he invited you over there as a joke?” I asked, some of that overprotectiveness coming back as I realized that if my stepsister was being hazed or whatever, it was up to me to put a stop to it. I was just starting to get a good self-righteous buzz on when Harley shot me a withering glare.
“Of course he’s only kidding,” she said. “You know better than anyone that guys like him don’t take notice of girls like me unless it’s to mock me.”
Just like that the feel-good holier-than-thou sensation faded into a sick sort of guilt. Lars’s brow was furrowed in confusion but I didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about.
For the record, I had never been mean to Harley a day in my life—but that didn’t mean others weren’t. She’d been the target of some bullies back at our old school, and I’d…well, I’d done nothing about it.
What was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like they’d physically abused her or anything, they’d just made some jokes at her expense.
It was junior high so, basically, it was par for the course.
Besides, she hadn’t been my stepsister back then, she’d been…nobody.
As if reading my thoughts, her face fell and I could have sworn I saw a flicker of sadness there.
“If he’s giving you a hard time—”
“Save it, Conner.” Any hint of sadness was gone. “Tristan is…whatever. I can handle him.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I stayed quiet.
Her smirk was back as she picked up her food again. “Besides, I’m not the one who’s hated by half the school.”
I frowned. “I’m not hated—”
“You’re not beloved either,” she said.
I shrugged. “Like I said, give them time.”
Lars, who’d been watching our exchange avidly, like we were the best form of entertainment, now turned to Harley. “So, what? This guy was super popular in your old school?”
Harley rolled her eyes, which apparently was answer enough.
Lars looked back to me and if I wasn’t such a laid-back guy I might have been offended by his look of disbelief. “Really?”
“Really,” I said.
Harley sighed. “Particularly with the girls. All he had to do was crook his finger and they’d come running.” Her tone said just how disgusted she was by the thought. And honestly, when she put it like that it did sound rather…callous.
“I wasn’t a total dog,” I said. “I just like the ladies.” I flashed Lars a grin. “And they liked me.”
His answering smile was goofy and…yeah, still a little creepy. My own smile faded fast.
“Boys,” Harley muttered under her breath.
“That’s so cool, man,” Lars said.
My shrug was all false modesty. Cool? That was me. A smile tugged at my lips at the memory of my old school. The girls, the friends…
“Yeah, well, those days are over, bro.” Harley used the word bro like it was an insult. To her it probably was. She clearly hated the fact that we were suddenly and unenthusiastically a family.
I didn’t love it either, but I didn’t have such a bug up my butt about it. Unlike some people, I could make the best out of a bad situation.
Like this school.
Nope. Now was not the time to start wallowing, again. This was day one. There was still plenty of time to show this school who they were dealing with.
Those days are over, bro.
I toyed with my pizza and told myself I’d do my best to ignore her words, to drown out her mockery, but the words rankled. Worse, they brought with them a pang of doubt.
What if I didn’t fit in at this school?
I glanced over at Lars the goofy outcast who’d clearly never had friends to sit with at lunch. What if the remainder of my high school career I was stuck with Lars as my only friend?
I shoved my chair back from the table. “Not gonna happen.”
Lars looked lost, and even Harley’s scowl turned to a narrowed-eyed look of confusion. “What?”
“I’m just saying, I’ve still got it. I never expected everyone to accept me on my first day—” That was a lie, but whatever. “Just give me a little time and I’ll have them all eating out of the palm of my hand.”
Harley considered me for a while as Lars gawked at me like I was an actor on a stage or something. Harley’s gaze seemed to catch on something behind me and a slow smile spread across her face. “Prove it.”
“What?”
“Prove it,” she said again, this time p
ointing behind me. I looked back to see Rosalie, pretty and perfect, walking over in that cute little uniform to join a table full of football players and fellow cheerleaders. “Get the ice queen to go to homecoming with you.”
From here it was clear why she was called the ice queen. Her looks were almost too perfect, every strand of hair in place, no imperfections on that pearly white skin. She could have been a doll. Her chin was tilted up slightly, and that button nose of hers added to the impression that she was forever looking down her nose at the people around her, if she even noticed them at all.
But it was the icy expression that really sealed the deal. Up close I could have sworn I’d seen emotions in her eyes, but from here those blue eyes looked cold. Dead, even.
From here the term ice queen seemed totally warranted. She was a princess in a tower, a queen on her throne. She seemed intimidatingly untouchable.
She looks like a challenge.
Homecoming was weeks away. Plenty of time to work my magic. A bolt of adrenaline shot through me and my heart pounded in my chest as I turned back to Harley. “Consider it done.”
5
Rosalie
The girls’ locker room was empty except for me, Erika, and Allie after cheer practice. The other girls had hurried to change and get out of there, but we were lingering because my BFFs were still debating what I should do. I’d finally told them this afternoon at practice after Erika called me out on the fact that I’d been a space cadet, just going through the routines by rote.
“She should definitely tell her mom,” Erika said, arms akimbo as she faced off with Allie.
They’d both seemingly forgotten about me as they argued their case.
“But why?” Allie leaned back on a bench in front of the lockers to look up at Erika. “I mean, ignorance is bliss, right? And if Rosalie and her brothers can avoid the hell that is divorce…?”
Erika pursed her lips as she thought that over. We both heard horror stories from Allie’s family on a regular basis. There was dysfunctional and then there was Allie’s life. Finally, Erika shook her head. “I agree it would be hard, but this is her mom we’re talking about. I mean…” she turned to me with a look that was almost pleading. “She’s your mom.”
I flinched with guilt. That was exactly why I wasn’t sure whether to tell her or not. I wasn’t crazy close with my mom—we weren’t those ladies you see at the mall shopping together or doing girls’ day out or whatever—but she loved me and I loved her and…I didn’t want to see her hurt.
Which was exactly why I was torn.
They were both looking at me now, waiting for me to make a decision, I supposed. I eyed them both. “I…I think I’m going to tell her.” As I said it, I knew it was right. “Soon.”
Anxiety made my stomach churn and I welcomed my friends’ hug, even though it was awkward to hug them both back at once. My mind was already spinning trying to figure out the when and where of this intervention. I couldn’t tell her when my brothers were around, or my dad… Or did I tell my dad I knew first and make him tell her? My stomach was tied in knots but the decision had been made and there was no going back now.
“I think you’re doing the right thing,” Erika said.
Was I? I wasn’t so sure, but I couldn’t keep going like this. My way of dealing so far had been to avoid my home as much as possible. If I didn’t see my parents then I wouldn’t have to deal with it. But that was no way to go on. Even my little brothers were starting to call me out on the fact that I was never home any more.
Allie didn’t say much but her arms around me tightened. When she pulled back she gave me a look of disbelief. “I can’t believe you’ve been sitting on this for days and didn’t tell anyone.”
“You’ve been going through this week like nothing was the matter,” Erika added. “I don’t know how you do it.”
I kept quiet. It was far from the first time my friends had marveled at my ability to keep it together. After the breakup last year, they’d both hovered around me, waiting for me to weep and wail or binge eat ice cream.
But I hadn’t. I’d never been big on showing emotions, and in some ways I didn’t really know how. It seemed to come easily for most people, but I’d always felt like I’d missed the day at school when they taught how to cry or open up about stuff. It wasn’t like I was an idiot, I did great with my classes. But when it came to showing emotion I was way behind the curve.
“Seriously,” Allie agreed. “You acted like this was just any other week.”
That’s because it had been when I was at school. It was bizarre how one part of your life could be falling to pieces and yet in another realm, nothing was different. Maybe that was part of the reason I’d waited until today to tell Allie and Erika about the drama on the home front.
The longer I went without telling my friends, the longer I could pretend that nothing was wrong while I was at school.
I’d almost made it through the whole school week, but today they’d finally caught on. Now that it was out there I was a little relieved. I hadn’t told a soul, and keeping that sort of secret had been weighing on me.
“Not everything was the same this week,” Erika said, her tone teasing and her gorgeous brown eyes dancing with laughter. “Somebody got herself a new suitor.”
Allie snickered as I rolled my eyes.
“That new guy can’t take his eyes off you,” Allie said.
“He also can’t take a hint,” Erika added.
I busied myself with gathering my uniform into my duffel bag. I didn’t want to talk about Conner—mainly because I didn’t want to think about Conner. Every time I did, my belly did weird flip flops and my heart started pounding too fast.
“What did he say to you in World History the other day?” Erika asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “He just asked to borrow a pen.”
I’d ignored him. In fact I’d ignored him when he’d slid into the seat beside me but I hadn’t been quick enough to relocate and the first thing Mr. Martin had done when he’d come into class was welcome Conner to the class and tell him that he should stay in the seat where he was because we had assigned seats.
Now I was stuck with him once a day three days a week. I shoved the uniform in with too much force.
“He just…asked for a pen?” Allie said. “Erika made it sound like you two were getting cozy in class yesterday.”
Erika widened her eyes, all innocence. “I just said he was trying really hard to get your attention.”
“Yeah, well, he just wanted a pen.” And then later he’d asked what chapter we were on, and then he’d asked if they could share notes after class, and then he’d asked her for the time, as if there wasn’t a giant clock at the front of the room.
I’d handed him a pen and then had proceeded to ignore him for the rest of class because it was obvious he was just trying to annoy me, and the easiest way to avoid those kinds of games? Don’t engage. Did I mention I had two little brothers? I was kind of an expert on dealing with irritating boys. Besides, tuning people out was sort of my specialty. It was how I got through the day, how I waded through the whispers.
But Conner? He’d refused to be tuned out. I zipped up my bag so forcefully the sound of it cut through the locker room.
“And in the hallway on the way to lunch today?” Erika asked, brows arched high in challenge. “I couldn’t hear what he’d said but don’t try and tell me he just ‘asked you for a pen.’”
I regarded her air quotes with amusement.
“Girl, the whole school saw you blush so don’t try and deny he said something naughty,” Allie added with a waggle of her brows.
“He didn’t. He just…” Told me I looked beautiful. I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud. The memory of that bizarre but sweet moment when he’d passed me in the hall and had shocked the life out of me by telling me I looked beautiful was one I wasn’t sure how to process. No one just…talked to me like that. And if they did, they didn’t say kind things without a hint of
teasing. He’d seemed so genuine. So real. So…nice.
I still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Whatever it was that made you blush,” Allie said, “he’d better watch his back. I hear Danny is not pleased that the new kid is moving in on his territory.”
“I am not his territory,” I said.
Allie just rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
Frustration had me heaving a loud exhale. I did know what she meant, but I still hated it.
See, Danny was the one who’d cheated on me, but I was the one who’d ended it. Everyone knew he’d been cheating. In fact, I found out later that the one instance I knew about was far from the first and likely wouldn’t have been the last.
But the thing was, everyone in school loved Danny, not just because he was a ‘nice guy’ but because he was a varsity running back even last year when he was only a sophomore. Because of this, people made excuses for him. Even girls. They all chalked his cheating up to a mistake or the fact that he was a boy, because, you know…boys will be boys.
Ugh. That saying made me want to hurl.
Well, boys could be boys, for all I cared, but I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted nothing to do with him. But he couldn’t seem to get that through his head. He’d made it clear through his friends and mine that he was just waiting for me to come to my senses.
He’d pulled the whole regret routine so everyone took his side, making me the bad guy in our breakup. That was how it had all started. That was when I went from being seen as Danny’s shy, quiet girlfriend to…the ice queen. The big, bad meanie who wouldn’t forgive poor Danny for one little mistake.
Erika was eyeing me oddly, almost warily. “You know, if you wanted to get back with Danny—”
“I don’t.” I didn’t mean to snap at Erika. She’d been more supportive than most when I’d broken up with Danny. But I was so tired of people suggesting that I owed him something—that I should go back to him just because it would make my life easier.
Charming the Cheerleader (The Bet Duet Book 1) Page 4
