My stomach muscles clenched. The thing with my grandmother was that nothing was given without the expectation of something in return. Everything had strings attached: she’d been more than willing to help Mom get her residency at the hospital, but Mom had to agree to bring me to live with her on the estate, and even though Mom had never said it out loud, I knew it irked her that she’d been given little choice about where we’d call home.
And, if I were being completely honest, I’d have to admit that I didn’t really like my grandmother. I’d tried to like her, but she was a cold, rude snob of a woman, and she thought she could control everyone through her money.
Given our current situation, she was partially right, and that really bugged me.
“That’s okay,” I told Mom. “A Vespa would be fun. I’ll look around for something used.”
I had money saved from the generous checks my grandmother had sent every year on my birthday. Maybe I could swing a Vespa on my own.
Mom tried to hide it but I saw a bit of relief in her eyes. “That’s my girl,” she said. “Call me when you get home, okay?”
I nodded and shut the car door, turning to face the school.
Chamberlain High was a big place, built in that style that most high schools are constructed—like a prison. I had to tamp down the urge to turn and run.
Squaring my shoulders, I took my first steps away from the car, and resisted the temptation to wave at Mom. I knew she was watching me climb the steps up to the front door, but I couldn’t look at her or I’d lose my nerve to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Once I was through the double doors, I pivoted to my right. Mom and I had come here the week before for student orientation, which I’d been forced to take along with four hundred incoming freshmen. Not that I have anything against freshmen, it’s just that, as a junior, I felt really out of place. It’d been a long day.
Still, it had been good if only for the fact that I’d figured out the general layout of the school and thought I could navigate it with a little help from the map they’d given me.
I thought wrong.
The warning bell sounded, and I found myself in some section of the school I didn’t recognize. I tried the map, but it was no help. Kids all around me were ducking into classrooms, and I felt my palms grow moist. I didn’t know what the penalty was for being late, but I did know that coming through the door after the bell would draw a lot of attention to myself, which was the last thing I wanted on the first day.
I looked up from the map to see the hall all but empty. My heart started to race.
“Where the hell am I?” I muttered, flipping the map around to view it from another angle. My vision started to blur as my breathing quickened. God. In a minute I’d have to knock on a classroom door and ask a teacher how to get to my first period. How would I ever live that humiliation down?
“You lost?” asked a deep, slightly smoky voice.
I stiffened, and glanced up to stare into the most impossibly blue eyes I’d ever seen. The sight of the guy they belonged to stole the breath from my body.
“I…uh…” I said, blinking furiously.
“Where’re you headed?” he asked, moving a few steps closer to look sideways over my shoulder at the map and my schedule.
His nearness filled me like honeysuckle invading the senses of a bee. For a moment, I was dizzy with it.
“Mr. Rennick,” I managed as he leaned close enough to brush my arm.
He cocked his head at me, his smile sending another wave of dizzy disorienting wonderfulness through my system.
“You’re on the right track. Just around that corner.” Pointing ahead, he added, “First room on the right.”
“Ah,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d never had a reaction to anyone like I was having to the boy at my side. I slid a sideways glance at him, and took in his tall frame—the tight fit of his T-shirt against a well-defined torso, the ripple of biceps stretching the fabric around the sleeves, the square line of his jaw with a bit of stubble on his chin and the ash-blond hair. It was cut close on the sides, while fuller on top, and styled in a slight peak toward the middle. I focused again on the map and found myself blinking furiously just to try to clear my head.
“Better hurry, though,” he said, mindless of the spell he was casting on me. “Bell’s about to ring.”
Stepping away and tilting his head to the classroom on my right, he offered me another gorgeous smile.
“Thanks, Spence,” I said, trying to play it cool and fold up the map. And then I realized what I’d just said.
For a second I held my breath, but when I looked at him, his expression was one of surprise. “What’d you call me?”
“I…I…” Where the hell had that come from? Spence? I thought. I didn’t know anyone named Spence, and yet, it’d flowed right out of my mouth as smoothly as if I’d spoken it every day of my life.
He stepped toward me again and offered his hand. I took it out of reflex, and it felt right and warm and wonderful against my palm. “Cole,” he said to me. “Spencer is my middle name.”
Whoa! I thought. That was weird. Still, I nodded again, hoping I didn’t look too much like a bobblehead.