Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(59)

“Even when I was beating you in spelling bees?”

David closed his eyes, a smile lifting his lips. “Especially then,” he told me, his hand cupping the back of my neck. “And I feel like I finally got everything I ever wanted, and I screwed it up.”

“You didn’t,” I promised him. “I mean, it’s not like any relationship between the two of us was going to run smoothly. Making the shift from mortal enemy to boyfie was bound to be difficult.”

He huffed out a laugh, opening his eyes. “I told you not to call me—” he started.

I kissed him.

It was stupid, probably. I never wanted to admit that Alexander was right, but if David couldn’t be saved and he would eventually be that glowing, powerful creature all the time, I’d only get my heart broken.

But maybe it was too late for that, anyway.

“Pres,” David said softly when we parted. “Is this, like, the absolute worst time in the world to tell you I love you?”

I wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or a sob welling up in my throat, but I nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“We suck at timing, don’t we?”

“We do.”

And then David smiled. “Good thing we’re so good at kissing.”

He kissed me again then, and again, sitting on the edge of his bed, our arms twined around each other.

After a long while, David lifted his head, his fingers playing along the back of my neck. “Choose,” he mused, and I shook my head, letting my hand rest on the back of his neck, too.

He sighed, his breath ruffling my hair, and I tightened my grip on him. “I choose you,” I whispered. “I choose you, David. No matter what.”

David wanted to argue. I knew him well enough to know that, to understand that that was why his mouth quirked down, why his eyebrows drew together, why he said “Pres” one more time.

But then I kissed him, really kissed him this time, and there was no more arguing.

There were hardly any more words at all.





Chapter 30


“ALEXANDER WANTS to see us.” I have to be honest, those were not exactly the words I wanted to hear from David after everything that had happened the night before, but when he came up and found me at lunch, that was what he blurted out.

I was eating in the library again, thinking that after a few more days like this I’d have to buy an all-black wardrobe and stop combing my hair, so when David suddenly appeared in the stacks, my cheeks flushed bright red, and I felt weirdly nervous.

As a result, it took a minute for what he was saying to sink in. When it did, I stood up, dusting my hands on my pants—I’d taken to wearing pants more often at school on the offhand chance that something Peirasmos related could happen—and crammed my half-empty water bottle back into my bag.

“Did he say what it was about?” I asked, and David gave me that look from underneath his brows. There were still little pinpricks of light in his eyes, glowing brighter in the dim library, and I noticed he still had sunglasses hanging from the collar of his shirt.

“Pretty sure there’s only one thing it could be about, Pres. He has to know about last night.”

Again with the blushing. I knew David was referring to the vision at the golf course, but I remembered the way Alexander had looked at the two of us when he’d figured out what we were to each other. What if he wanted to talk about . . . the other thing that had happened yesterday?

The same idea had apparently occurred to David, because it was his turn to go pink, his eyes dropping to the floor. “I’ll meet you by your car after school?” he asked, and I nodded.

I could barely concentrate on anything else for the rest of the day, and when Bee found me as I made my way out to the parking lot after the last bell, she had to call my name more than once.

It was another beautiful sunny day, and Bee looked just as beautiful and sunny herself as she jogged toward me in a lime-green shirt and white jeans. “Hey,” she breathed when she caught up with me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said with a quick nod, even though I felt anything but. The weirdness between me and David, knowing that Alexander was waiting . . . It was a lot on my mind, almost too much for me to focus on the fact that things with me and Bee weren’t exactly the best right now. But then she reached out, laying a hand on my shoulder, and looked down into my face.

“Are we okay?”

Taking a deep breath, I shook my head. “Probably not?” And then I smiled, a little shakily. “But we will be.”

Now it was Bee’s turn to take a deep breath, but she smiled back at me, squeezing my shoulder. “Good. That’s . . . good.”

I wanted to stay and talk to her longer, but I could already see David standing by my car, so with a little wave at Bee, I made my way toward him.

? ? ?

“How?” It was the first thing Alexander had said to us when we walked in the door, and he seemed determined to repeat it now. We were in his office, but for once, he wasn’t sitting behind the desk. Instead, he was pacing, a hank of hair coming forward to fall over his forehead.

David and I stood on the rug like a couple of kids called to meet the principal, and I wondered why I felt so guilty. David could do whatever the heck he wanted with his visions, and while, yeah, it had gotten a little scary there for a second, it wasn’t like anyone had been hurt. Besides, he’d proven exactly how powerful he was, and that seemed like something we should actually be pretty pumped about.