“What am I doing to you?”
Like I was really going to mention my craziness without confirmation of his. “You tell me.” Because really, he could be talking about something totally different. Maybe he wanted me to stop eye-stalking him, as I’d first assumed. Maybe he wanted me to stop conversing with his friends, even when they cornered me like a rabid animal.
We kept walking, neither of us saying anything else. I wanted to wait him out, but I lacked the willpower and ultimately cracked. “So…who did you fight?”
There was only a beat of hesitation before he responded, “No one you’d know.”
Annnd more silence.
O-kay. He’d arranged this little meeting, had asked me two questions and now had nothing to say to me. That was a…relief. Yes, a relief and not a huge disappointment.
All too soon—uh, I mean, a torturous eternity later—we reached my classroom and stopped. “Thanks for the escort, but let’s not do this again sometime,” I muttered. Forget answers. I could live without them.
He stretched his arm in front of me, flattening his palm against the door frame, preventing my escape. “I’m sorry about Mackenzie,” he said, and some of his animosity had drained. “She won’t bother you again.”
Well, that was something at least. “I wasn’t worried,” I replied honestly.
His lips quirked at the corners, as if he were fighting a smile. “You should be worried. She can be a… Mean. Very mean.”
What had he stopped himself from calling her? A bleep? (Kat would have been so proud. I couldn’t even cuss in my mind.) “I’m still not worried.”
His sorta smile stretched wider. “Have you ever been in a fight?” With his free hand, he pinched a lock of my hair and rubbed the strands together. “Because you look like something out of a fairy tale.”
“The wicked witch?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Please. The princess.”
Uh, had he just given me a compliment? Couldn’t have. There’d been something sharp in his tone.
I noticed two kids standing off to the side, wanting into the classroom but not wanting to squeeze between Cole and me to get there. I wrapped my fingers around Cole’s wrist and lowered his arm. The kids bypassed us, but I didn’t return to my place. I was flush against Cole, could feel his heart pounding and couldn’t bring myself to move.
“Yes, I have been in a fight,” I said, recalling what he’d asked me. With my dad, during training.
Cole’s head tilted to the side, that violet gaze intense. “A fistfight?” he asked.
Uh-oh. I’d noticed his eyes. I was well and truly trapped now. So pretty. “Is there any other kind?”
“Many kinds. So who’d you fight?”
“No one you’d know,” I said, mimicking his answer. If I told him the truth, he’d think my dad had let me win or worse, that I was a major witch for fighting my own father. And I’d have no defense!
The quirking at the corner of his mouth started up again. I amused him, I guess, and had no idea why. Well, he confused me. Why warn me about his ex’s cruel streak? Why try to comfort me? Why do nothing else?
I studied his face, searching for answers, finding none.
“Ali?”
“Yes.” My attention lowered to his mouth. Up close like this, the split in his lower lip revealed a fresh bead of blood. I bet he could have taken my dad and still had the energy to turn the two visions I’d had into a reality.
“I asked if your last name is Bell.”
This newest topic switch threw me, but I quickly adapted without dying of embarrassment for losing myself to such silly thoughts. “Yes. Bell. Why?”
“Your dad was Phillip Bell. Your mom was Miranda Bradley.”
Was, he’d said. Not is. He knew. I swallowed my sudden urge to scream, gritting out, “You’re right, but how did you know that?” I’d never even mentioned their names to Kat.
“My dad went to school with them.”
Someone else had known them, might mourn their loss. How odd to discover that the people I’d lived with for most of my existence had had a life before me, without me. On some level, I’d realized that, of course I had, but hearing the truth was a different matter entirely. “Your dad went to school here?”
A hard nod.
I had about a thousand more questions now. Had our parents hung out together? Been friends? Enemies? Had his dad said anything about mine? How had his dad known about me—had Cole mentioned me to him? I didn’t ask a single one, though. Asking would have invited him to ask questions of his own, and I wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened over the summer.
“My dad wants to know—”
“Thanks for the heads-up about your girlfriend,” I interjected in a rush, making it clear our parents weren’t up for discussion. I wasn’t sure of my reaction, and I wasn’t going to risk it. “We should probably say goodbye now.”