Mickey’s face was a battleground between amusement and annoyance as Bridgette bounced us the whole ten feet to the office door before jerking to a stop. She crooked an eyebrow at Mickey. He sighed and leaned forward, swinging the glass door open. Bridgette paraded us through.
“Mr. Hayes?” she said.
Mr. Hayes looked up from the desk, stacks of paper scattered here and there, his golden hair disheveled. He looked like an absentminded professor turned god, just like everyone else around here.
“Hmm? Oh!” His face flushed bright red. “Yes, the new student.”
He sent sheets of paper flying as he fumbled through a few stacks. At last, he held up his prize: my schedule.
“Kella James.” He flicked his eyes up to stare at me over his black-rimmed glasses. He stretched the sheet toward me. The paper trembled in his hands as it inched closer. Mickey muttered something under his breath as he swiped my schedule from Mr. Hayes’ hands. Mr. Hayes snatched his hands away as if Mickey’d smacked them with a ruler.
“Um. Thanks. I guess,” I said. Mr. Hayes brown eyes shot back to mine.
“A pleasure, Miss—” His gaze swung back to the office door behind me, his jaw dropping as it opened. Mr. Hayes’ eyes darted between me and the new arrival.
“I—I. Uh. This is, uh…”
When I twisted around to see who had managed to get Mr. Hayes even more flustered—a fact I wouldn’t have thought possible—I ended up with a face-full of blonde hair. I jumped back, bumping into the counter behind me. Did Bridgette not understand the concept of personal space?
“You.” Mickey said, his voice far more serious—and angry—than I’d thought it capable of.
“Yes, me,” drawled a lazy voice tinged with amusement.
My heart sped up. Before I looked over Bridgette’s shoulder, I already knew who it belonged to. Dread pooled in my belly even as my eyes confirmed it.
Edon.
Chapter 5
He looked different than when I first met him—younger, in a way. Maybe because the relaxed black t-shirt he wore hid most of the muscle that laid underneath. My heart did a flip, the little traitor. Edon was not the kind of guy I could crush on and be safe, the kind a girl could reel in and let go like a fish. No, Edon was more like a shark that could pull a girl into the water and drown her in his honey-brown gaze—a gaze that was currently laser-focused on me.
When had that happened? Heat flooded my cheeks as I glanced away, hoping he didn’t think I was checking him out. And I wasn’t. I was merely making an observation on how a black t-shirt could hide all that definition in his…well.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked over at Bridgette in surprise. By the way her peppy voice had iced over, her words clipped and tight, I knew there was history between them. And judging by the way every line in her body tightened, promising violence, I’d bet my firstborn that it was the romance-gone-bad kind.
I scooched to the side so I could get a better view of the situation, but Mickey stepped closer to Bridgette as I did so, his taller frame making it hard for me to see over his shoulder.
“Getting my schedule.” His bored voice indicated that he thought this should be obvious.
“Schedule?” Mr. Hayes squeaked. I looked back to see that his face had turned white and that he wobbled on his feet a little, like he was about to faint.
“Yes. Schedule,” Edon said, pushing past Mickey to stand next to me at the counter.
Bridgette placed a hand on my shoulder, nudging me to switch places with her. I shrugged her off. I wasn’t about to let Bridgette get closer to her ex—not when she reminded me of an over-tight guitar string that could snap with one more twist of the knob. The last thing I wanted was to get dragged into the principal’s office on my first day of school as a witness to whatever Bridgette would do if Edon pushed her too far. And, judging by the menace oozing out of her eyes, he wouldn’t have to push much.
“B-but you aren’t a student here,” Mr. Hayes said, his trembling hands gripping the counter.
“Just transferred over,” Edon said with a small smile. “I was told I could start today.”
Mr. Hayes swallowed before he turned back to rummage through the same stack of papers that had held my schedule.
“How did you get away with that?” Mickey said, glaring at him. Bridgette’s hand had reappeared on my upper arm, digging in uncomfortably.
The first sign of temper flashed in Edon’s eyes, but he quickly smothered it. “Mickey, how about we each mind our own business,” he said.
Mickey crossed his arms. “I would, except our ‘business’ is diametrically opposed.”
Edon lips twitched. “It’s nice to be on this end of things.”
“What end is that?” Mickey asked, his eyes narrowed. “The suicidal one?” I looked over at goofy Mickey in surprise. Did he just threaten a guy that could bench press ten of him? Was my foster brother a complete idiot?
“No, the end where you know where everyone stands at the offset. I know you’re used to it, so you can’t appreciate how nice it is to not have to worry about someone you trust stabbing you in the back.”
Oh, backstabbing friend drama.
I looked between Edon, Mickey, and Bridgette, the pieces clicking together as Bridgette’s fingernails dug into my skin.
If Bridgette and Edon shared a bad breakup and Edon thought Mickey had betrayed him, it wasn’t a stretch to see who had come between the two of them. And making stupid threats against a much bigger guy fell in line with the idiotic stuff people did when they were “in love.” What I couldn’t figure out was why Bridgette made the switch. Compared to Edon—or anyone else at school, for that matter—Mickey was, well, not hot.
But then, there were all of those girls checking
