The Problem with Forever(41)

There was no chance to respond. He wheeled around and started power-walking down the hall, hitching up the back of his pants with one hand.

“Yo! Jayden,” the older boy shouted, picking up his pace. “Where you going, bro?”

Glancing back, I saw Jayden round the corner, and when I looked up, his older brother appeared out of freaking nowhere, coming up behind the guy. Hector’s jaw was clenched as he clapped a hand down on the guy’s shoulder.

“What’s going on, Braden?” Hector demanded.

Braden wheeled around, shrugging Hector’s hand off his shoulder. Anger colored his tone. “You know exactly what is going on. Jerome is pissed, because of your stupid brother, and that shit rolls down. It ain’t gonna roll on me. He needs to get right—”

I ducked into my class just as my homeroom teacher ambled out into the hall, calling both of the boys’ names. I worried my lower lip as I hurried to the open seat in the back. Nearly every time I saw Jayden, trouble hovered. That couldn’t be good.

Then it hit me with the power of a speeding truck as I took my seat and the tardy bell rang, and thoughts of Jayden floated away. I realized I’d done something I’d never, ever done before.

I stood up to Paige.

It had only been three words.

But I’d done it. I’d stood up for myself.





Chapter 13

My sense of accomplishment was strong, a bright spot in the day that glowed throughout lunch and into my afternoon classes. I sat with Keira again. I also didn’t talk, but no one seemed to be bothered by the lack of communication on my part.

Standing up to Paige was huge. Like climbing-Mount-Everest-and-not-dying level of huge. It had been Jayden who’d intervened twice now, but this time, it had been me. Might not have been much, but it had been all me.

Only when I was heading out of my next-to-last class did my stomach start doing somersaults again. Speech was next. The morning and my small victory felt like forever ago. Not only was I going to have to show my face again, but I was also going to have to see Paige once more.

Gathering up my textbook, I shoved it into my bag and stood. If I’d thought walking this morning had been like pushing through wet cement, this was like trudging through quicksand laced with cement.

But as I looked across the hall, my heart skipped in my chest. Wrong reaction, so wrong, but there was no stopping it.

Rider was waiting outside the classroom, leaning against the lockers across from the class, hands shoved in the pockets of the worn jeans with frayed edges.

There was an odd hitch in my throat, and my stomach cartwheeled for a whole different reason than it had before. Warmth zinged through my veins as he lifted his lashes and those soft gold-brown eyes collided with mine.

Rider looked... Goodness, he looked good.

Good in the way I didn’t know a teenage boy could look. Like they did on TV, when played by twenty-five-year-olds.

His brownish-black hair was messy, as if he’d woken up, washed it and then let it dry whichever way it fell. Bright yellow light glanced off his high cheekbones. The full lips were slightly tipped up in one corner, the dimple in his right cheek absent. Stretched across his broad shoulders, the emblem on his blue shirt was so faded I couldn’t make out what it was.

As he straightened, he lifted a hand and brushed the hair off his forehead. The new cut above his brow was faded, barely noticeable. That made me happy. I walked up to him, trying to keep a goofy smile off my lips.

“Hey, Mouse,” he said, and the way he said Mouse was so different from how Paige hurled the nickname. It was soft and deep and infinite. “What’s the plan?”

It hit me then, as I shuffled out of the way of the sea of students, that he was outside my class waiting because he knew what was coming next for me. He wanted to know the plan. Was I going or bailing, and deep down, I knew he would be right beside me no matter what I picked.

My insides turned gooey, and I told myself that anyone would feel this way, but a wisp of guilt curled around the warmth. My insides were not allowed to turn gooey for Rider. He was a goo-free zone.

A second thing occurred to me. Paige had said that Rider had always protected me and that I was somehow influencing him to do the same again. She believed I was after Rider. I hadn’t knowingly done anything, but she was right in a way. Rider had taken up for me when I left the class, followed me out, and he was here now, willing to do whatever I needed him to do.

He was still protecting me.

And that made me pathetic.

“You in or out?” he asked, glancing up as someone lightly bumped my shoulder. His eyes narrowed.

I cleared my throat. The urge to run was there, because it would be the easiest thing to do, but it was short-term. I knew that, and if I didn’t go back to class, I would never forgive myself. Squaring my shoulders, I nodded. “I’m in.”

His expression was impassive with the exception of the corner of his lips tipping up more. The dimple made an appearance, blessing the hallway. “Let’s do this, then.”

“Wait.” I grabbed his arm.

Astonishment scuttled over his face. He wasn’t used to me grabbing him. I opened my mouth, prepared to ask him about what he had told Paige. I wanted to know what he told her. I wanted to know if pity was what drove his actions. I started to speak, but people crowded us. We weren’t alone, and this seemed like a private conversation. One that really couldn’t be carried out in the minute or so between classes.