Broken Beautiful Hearts(39)
Supermodel whacks him with her purse. “Shut up. My cousin is none of your business.”
“Settle down.” Miss Ives adjusts her glasses, noticeably flustered. “If anyone else has items of that nature, please leave them in your bag.”
Supermodel’s partner tosses his wallet on the desk and points at it. “That means you might not want to open the inside pocket, Brit. Or maybe you do?”
Supermodel Brit stands up. “I want to switch partners.”
“We’re running out of class time,” Miss Ives says. “We’ll get started today and continue tomorrow. I want everyone to choose three items that are meaningful to you. Then share the items with your partner and explain their significance or what they represent.”
Everyone groans.
“You might have to open the inside pocket after all,” her partner teases.
Supermodel Brit ignores him. “What if we don’t have anything that’s important to us?”
“Look harder,” Miss Ives says. “Check your pockets, inside makeup bags and pencil cases. For example, I carry a lucky penny in my bag.”
Our teacher flits around from group to group while we search through our belongings.
“This sucks,” Owen mumbles.
I ignore him and search for something impersonal to share. “I don’t have anything.”
“Nothing?” He seems annoyed that I didn’t have any girly mementos in my backpack.
Our eyes meet, and I can’t think of anything to say. Owen is gorgeous, and not in an obvious I-worked-my-ass-off-to-blow-your-mind way. His eyes take me in, drifting from my eyes to my mouth and it makes me nervous.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have anything, either.” Owen pushes the items I didn’t even see off the edge of my desk and into his palm. Then he shoves his wallet into his back pocket.
At the party, he seemed nice.
Clearly, I was way off.
“You really know how to turn on the charm.” I lay on the sarcasm and lower my chin, hiding behind my hair as I collect my stuff.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He sounds irritated.
“I guess that sweet boy-next-door personality was just for show?” I push my hair over my shoulder and my eyes drill into him. “Do you only break that out for girls in the dark?”
Owen stiffens. “Should I have gone with cocky-football-player-desperate-for-attention, like your boyfriend?”
He knows about Titan carrying me through the hallway. Did Owen hear about it from someone or did he see it for himself?
“Titan is not my boyfriend.”
The bell rings.
“That’s not the way it looked in the hallway.” Owen stands and flips the chair around.
Now I’m pissed.
Miss Ives issues instructions about the personal items she wants us to bring tomorrow. I’m not paying attention. Owen swings his backpack over his shoulder and heads down the center aisle.
Maybe if I figure out how to get medical treatment for a fantasy football quarterback, Miss Lonnie will switch me to another English class. I turn my back to the door and put my things in my backpack.
Why do I care what Owen Law thinks?
I’ve only had one real conversation with him—two if talking to him for a minute at the game counts. And he’s judging me?
I storm out of the classroom. Some football players are passing a ball in the hallway. The football sails through the air and skims the bottom of a banner hanging above the archway. BLACK WATER WARRIORS is printed in block letters across the top, with two lines of text underneath.
Players go for the win.
Warriors battle for it.
If I could reach the banner, I’d tear it down. I spent the last three weeks battling my heart out, and I still lost.
CHAPTER 16
Sucker Punch
“I’M LOOKING FOR Catherine Dane.” I’m in the boxing gym at the YMCA after school, in search of the doctor who agreed to help me rehab my knee.
The woman keeps her eyes on the fighter in the ring wearing headgear. “You’re looking at her, but nobody except my mother calls me Catherine. It’s Cutter.”
She looks like a mash-up between a delicate fairy and a dangerous assassin. Her platinum-blond hair is almost the same color as her skin and it’s cut in a short pixie style that highlights her feminine features. Tess’ hair is almost the same color, but it looks edgier on Cutter. Maybe it’s the super-short cut or the rows of tiny hoops that run from her earlobes to the tops of her ears. She’s short—maybe five foot two—but her body is lean and well-defined.
“Not what you were expecting?” Cutter cups her hands around her mouth and yells, “Lazarus, tell him to get those damn knees up.”
Lazarus, the tall black man in the ring, with broad shoulders and salt-and-pepper hair, looks old enough to be my grandfather. But he has the strength of someone younger. He gives Cutter a thumbs-up, without losing his grip on the red pad the fighter is pounding.
The guy in the ring with Lazarus is a kickboxer. His knee kicks give him away. His knees hit the pad over and over, each impact pushing Lazarus back a little farther.
The sound of the guy’s bare skin smacking the Vinyl triggers memories of Reed—images of him throwing an elbow jab or a shin kick in the gym, circling an opponent in the cage, the way he cracked his neck to the side before he moved in for the kill.