“Where at?” he asked, pretending an ease those M&M eyes failed to project.
“Well, uh…hmm.” How could I answer that without spilling info about myself?
The two boys “guided” me around a corner by pressing their shoulders into mine and steering me. I’d wanted to go the other way, to my locker. Whatever. I could deal. I might not want anything to do with violence, but I could handle myself, even with bruisers like these. My dad had made sure of that.
In fact, I’d taken my dad down a time or twelve, flipping him over, popping his eye and once even breaking his nose. Every time I’d bested him, he’d smiled, so wonderfully proud of me.
A burning in my eyes…a tremor in my chin. Dang it, I needed to concentrate on the here and now.
What had Frosty asked me? Oh, yeah. “If you want to know where I met Kat, you’ll have to ask Kat.” There. An answer without being an answer. Meanwhile, I’d be pulling her aside the next time I saw her and asking her to mentally torch the details.
Frosty acted as if he’d just been stabbed in the gut. “Cruel, Ali, so cruel. At least give me a hint. Pretty please with cherries on top of me.”
Charming. But I couldn’t forget that he’d cheated on Kat. Thinking fast, I said, “Okay, here’s a hint. A lot of people were there. There was some screaming, definitely some writhing. A looot of touching.” Doctors were very hands-on.
In the next instant, I was given a deeper glimpse of the criminal-in-the-making Frosty was. That mask of affability fell away, revealing hard, dark eyes and lips compressed with rage. “Did she touch anyone? Did anyone touch her?”
Dude. You left her for the entire summer. “It’s been nice talking to you and everything, but I really need to—”
We rounded another corner and I slammed into something solid, losing my concentration as I stumbled backward.
Bronx caught me, righted me and then let go of me as if I’d just given him third-degree burns.
“I’m sorry,” I began, focusing on the person I’d hit.
A girl, shorter than me by several inches. Silky dark hair curled to the middle of her back and framed a face God might have used to design his favorite angels. Her makeup was perfect. Her skin was slightly sunburned but still perfect. Her clothes were expensive and sexy, yet still elegant—and perfect. She wore a pink cashmere sweater and a flirty white skirt. She was the only diamond in a sea of glass.
I wasn’t into girls, but…wow. This one could probably turn anyone. Not even Kat and her catalog friends could compare.
“Is this your newest slice of tail?” she asked Frosty, all kinds of you’re beneath me in her tone. A tone clearly directed at me.
Maybe she wouldn’t be able to turn me. I wasn’t into nasty.
“Back off, Mackenzie,” Frosty said.
Mackenzie. As in, Mackenzie Love. This was Cole Holland’s ex?
Of course she is, I thought next, wanting to laugh without a bit of humor. Beautiful boys dated beautiful girls. That’s how the world worked. And yes, by those rules, I was destined to be with a lanky loner with a tragic past. Wonderful.
“Cole wants you,” she snapped at the boys, “so your little missionary trip will have to wait.”
Cue my exit. I’d already said my goodbye, so I pushed my way past Mackenzie and entered—the cafeteria. So that’s where they’d been taking me. Time for lunch, then. No wonder my stomach had been growling. The smell of food paired with a thousand other appetites could have turned a mannequin into a savage.
Already lines snaked from every direction. I had no idea what was what, so I scanned the area until I spotted a familiar face in the far corner.
Kat waved me over. Behind me, Frosty yelled for my attention while Mackenzie called him an idiot. Ignoring them, I tromped forward. The deeper I entered the room, the more I noticed the grease that coated the air. I also caught hints of sugar, perfume and cologne, everything combining to form a cloying musk. Goodbye appetite.
“What were you doing with Frosty?” Kat asked the moment I plopped down beside her.
No rage. Good. “He and that other boy, Bronx, were waiting for me after class. Frosty asked me how the two of us had met.”
The roses drained from her cheeks. “What did you tell him?”
I bullet pointed my response, praying I’d gotten it right.
Relief wafted from her, her color returning. “Rock on! You did almost as awesome a job as I would have done.”
I so needed that kind of confidence. “Thank you.”
“Just don’t tell anyone where we really met, okay?” she said, her gaze pleading at me.
No problem there. But why didn’t she want anyone to know?
Before I could question her, the rest of her troop arrived. I greeted each with a half smile, since that’s all that I was currently capable of.