Chapter Fourteen

Elle

I decided to give them a pass. It took me a couple of classes, but I slowly came to the realization that Nate had done the right thing. I might not like it, but I would have hated Jimmy getting hurt even worse.

That didn’t excuse them keeping secrets from me. But, what was I going to do? He’d saved my brother. Again. I couldn’t exactly stay mad, could I? Especially when he flashed me those silvery blue eyes of his. My insides just seemed to melt and my anger washed away.

A new warm peace was settling over me. Things were going sort of good. They’d stopped hassling Jimmy. The rumors had seen to that. We’d made it through Sunday dinner without any fatal errors. Yes, life was good.

Or it was until I was confronted with a sight that set my nerves on edge. Nate, standing by his locker. And two of the evilest skanks in the world hanging on his every word. Cindy Havers and Julie Chase. My arch-enemies. The two girls who had made mine and Jeanna’s lives miserable for the last eleven years.

Cindy was looking up at Nate like he’d built the pyramids single-handed. Dressed in a tank top and shorts that barely met the school’s dress code. The girl looked like an advertisement for a cheap escort service. She had that dazed, adoring look that I knew guys found irresistible and her rather ample chest thrust forward, just begging him to notice

I swear, I saw red. My world changed, and all I wanted to do was charge in there and stop it before Nate fell to her many charms. A rage began to build up inside of me and not all of it was focused on Cindy. How dare Nate be interested in something like that? Besides, if he wasn’t so hot, she’d have left him alone.

No, some of this was definitely his fault. I didn’t know how, but it was.

I pushed my way through the crowd and turned on the biggest smile I could muster.

Cindy saw me coming and shot me a look of pure hate. That girl look that we reserve for the one person we despise more than any other in the world. I returned the favor.

“Hey Babe,” I said as I reached up, my hand slipping around the back of his neck to pull him down for a quick kiss on the lips.

Nate didn’t miss a beat as his lips brushed mine and for just the slightest moment I forgot about Cindy and the rest of the world.

“There you are, gorgeous,” he said as he slipped an arm around me and pulled me in close. My side next to him. We fit together like we were designed to.

I couldn’t resist shooting Cindy a quick look of victory.

“Do you know Cynthia, and … Julie is it?” he asked. “They were telling me how great the football team was.”

I had to bite my tongue for just a second. She’d announced to the world early last year that she preferred Cynthia to Cindy. And our football team hadn’t been great since the seventies.

“Oh, Cindy and I have known each other for years,” I said as I patted his chest, my fingers running over very hard muscles. Such a large, solid chest. The very chest I had laid my head on only the day before. Closing my eyes I drank in his scent and had to fight to keep myself from moaning in pleasure.

“Yes, … well. We’ve got to get to class,” Cindy said with a frown that made my day. “I hope to see you at the game, Nate,” she said, flashing him a smile.

“Maybe we should go to the game,” I said, “I know you wanted to go to the park and our favorite spot. But we could go after the game.” I said with an adoring look. Making sure Cindy heard every word.

Nate paused for just a moment as he stared back down into my eyes. I swore I saw a dozen different, very steamy, thoughts pass through his brain. The kind of thoughts that could make a girl squirm with a sense of power.

“Who needs football?” he said. “I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather be doing.”

I froze, okay, this might be getting out of hand. What was real and what was pretend? No boy could look that passionate and not mean it. No one was that good an actor.

The two of us stood there staring at each other while Cindy and Julie looked back and forth at us like we were two lovebirds ready to do it right there in the hall. And she might not have been far off in her thinking.

The heat generated between the two of us was like a dozen suns in August. The kind of heat that could singe a girl’s heart.

“See you later, Nate,” Cindy said with a sad little smile as she grabbed Julie and pulled her into the stream of passing students.

I continued to look up at Nate, he was just so darn tall, I thought.

“Is she gone?” he asked, breaking the spell.

“Um … yes,” I managed to reply as I frantically fought to pull myself back together.

He laughed. “Did you mark your territory well enough,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

I felt my cheeks grow warm as I quickly backed away from him. How did he always know the one thing to say to ruin a perfectly great moment?

“I know we said one of the reasons we were doing this was for you to get a girlfriend,” I said through a clenched jaw. “I understand. But not her. Anyone but her.”

He frowned for a moment and looked at me strangely then nodded his head. “Sure, whatever you say.”

I don’t know why, but I got the feeling that he was upset with me for some reason. I don’t know why. I should be the one pissed off. My supposed boyfriend was flirting with my arch enemy in the middle of the hall. I should be furious. But instead, I felt lost. Like I’d missed something I might never get back.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” he said with a crisp dismissal as he turned and walked away. No goodbye squeeze. Just nothing but a wide back sinking into the stream of students.

.o0o.