I balled it between my hands and pitched it onto the floor of my locker. Reece Whelan could forget it. I knew he was working for Nicholson. No way was I letting him follow me around and spill the details of my miserable life to the police just so he could hold on to his Get Out of Jail Free card.
The first period bell rang. I set my mental timer for five minutes, barely enough to cross the length of the school and up two flights of stairs before the tardy bell. If I cut through the courtyard, I’d make it with seconds to spare. I turned, smacking into a wall of black T-shirt.
I leaned back against my locker, my pulse sky-rocketing. “Do you always sneak up on people like that?” I angled to shove past him, that too-close feeling snaking through me.
“Hey, wait up.” He grabbed my wrist and I snatched it away with a curse. The rush of his emotion was cold and sudden, like someone had dumped ice cubes down my back.
“What the hell is wrong?” He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I said to make you so mad yesterday. If you don’t want to hang out after school, it’s cool. I get it.”
I drew in a deep breath, passing it off as impatience. It wasn’t a psychic smell. It was him. A spicy masculine-smelling soap mingled with the tang of his leather jacket into something warm and appealing. I massaged my wrist. “It’s not cool. Just leave me alone.” I pushed past him, careful not to touch him, and kept walking.
He followed me and I had to work twice as hard to stay ahead of his long strides. He was almost as tall as Jeremy.
“Hey,” he said, his tone carefully measured. I could actually hear the effort in his restraint. “Can you slow down a little?”
“No.”
“Why?” He hovered, one step for every three of mine. I slipped between snuggling couples, jostled through groups of broad-backed jocks. He was impossible to shake. The throng of oncoming traffic parted for him with a reverse magnetism.
“I’m late for class,” I snapped.
“So?”
“So, maybe it’s okay for you to ditch. You can just take it again. Some of us have scholarships to worry about.”
Reece jockeyed himself in beside me. “I don’t want to take it again. That’s why I asked you to tutor me.”
I stole a quick glance at his face. He was clean-shaven and his hair was combed neat.
“I’m not going to tutor you,” I said. “I told you yesterday.”
He muttered something under his breath and raked a frustrated hand through his bangs.
“Look, can we start over? I’m not sure what I did to piss you off. All I did was introduce myself and ask for help.”
“Yeah,” I said, recalling my visit to the police station. “I can totally relate.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.”
“Fine, I’m starting over.”
“Good luck with that,” I mumbled.
The burr was back in his smile, his voice bristly. “It’s nice to meet you, Nearly.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t call you what?”
I stomped past the library doors, marking the halfway point to class. I wished I could move faster, but my legs burned and my lungs were tight. I was all elbows and knees, hands in my pockets as I pushed through the crowd.
“Leigh. You can call me Leigh.”
“Leigh?” He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Why? Don’t you like your name?”
I rolled my eyes. “Just trying to blend.” A point a narc should sympathize with. “And for the record, no, I don’t like my name.”
“So, Leigh,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”
In two minutes this conversation would be over and I’d walk into a class he wasn’t qualified to set foot in. “What?” I kept my pace brisk, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Well, you obviously dislike me.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I’d have to know you to dislike you, and I don’t know you at all.”
“That’s exactly my point!” He blocked me with a long, deliberate stride just before I reached the door to the science wing. “I’m trying to get to know you. Why are you making this hard?”
I tried to step around him, but he wouldn’t let me pass. “I didn’t think easy was part of the job description.” I cringed, berating myself for saying it out loud. I told myself I should just walk away, ignore him and he’d lose interest. But he kept pushing. And even though it was stupid, something inside me couldn’t resist pushing back.
He shook his head. “You’re not making any sense. I don’t follow.”
“Yes, you do follow me. You’ve been following me. And I’d like you to stop!”
I looked at the clock behind his head. I had thirty seconds to end this conversation and get my butt to class. I felt the curious onlookers hovering nearby. “This is a complete waste of my time,” I muttered.
He ground his teeth and glared at me, looking insulted. “What are you saying? You think I can’t learn this stuff ?”
“Move!”
“Not until you tell me why helping me is a waste of your time.” His peppermint breath touched my face. Who was he trying to impress?