Marrying Ember(8)

“Excuse—” Willow started, but was cut off.

“Correct?” Georgia stepped up one more stair so she was as close as she was going to get to Willow’s eye-line.

“Whatever,” Willow mumbled as she slumped down in her seat right behind Ashby.

“Will that be all, Georgia?” Ashby arched the eyebrow he’d passed down to Ember.

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “You betchya, Mr. Harris. Bye guys! See you in a few weeks!” She waved frantically at us for a second before bounding off the bus and back to her car.

The RV was silent with the precise tension that fills a high school classroom after a clashing of the social groups. I thought, based on Willow’s initial silence, that we’d successfully passed through level one unscathed.

I was wrong.

Ember’s shoulders rose with a huge breath as Willow stood and walked with an inappropriately seductive grin to the back of the vehicle.

“Don’t worry,” Willow said, smiling at Regan as she sat next to him across the table from Ember and me. “You’re not really my type. No offense.”

“None taken.” Regan pulled his Kindle out of his backpack and diverted his attention from the table.

“Doing anyone and everyone isn’t really a type, Willow.” Ember pulled her iPod from her bag, plugged in her earbuds, and leaned her head back as she closed her eyes.

A flash of homicidal irritation passed through Willow’s eyes before she turned her gaze to me. And grinned.

“Not everyone,” she whispered.

I held my face steady enough as she rose from the table and walked back to her seat.

I exhaled once I was sure Willow was securely fastened somewhere far from me. Regan shook his head and lifted his eyes from his reading. “Good f*ckin’ luck, dude.”

“Thanks,” I murmured.

Let me be clear. There wasn’t one ounce of anything I found attractive about Willow Shaw. Sure, she was visually attractive, but the venom that appeared to course through her body erased it all, and then some. The problem, it seemed, was that she wasn’t going to give up. I hoped that stunt she pulled was more in response to feeling burned by Georgia, and not any lingering game she saw in me.

*

“Bo … Bo …” A sickeningly familiar voice called me from the pleasant nap I’d been enjoying. As consciousness overtook me, I realized the RV had stopped. Looking to my left, out the window, I saw we were at a park and some of the band members were eating at nearby picnic tables.

I didn’t want to look right. I knew who was there, and I didn’t want to acknowledge her. Sitting up, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, wondering where Ember was, and why the hell she’d leave Willow in the RV with me.

Looking up, I indeed saw Willow, who was sitting in the chair across the aisle from the table I’d been napping at. Her legs were crossed at the knee, and her foot bobbed softly as she sat with her arms crossed.

I cleared my throat while I sat up. “Where is everyone?”

She nodded her head to the windows. “Eating. Stretching.”

“K …” I took a deep breath and slid out of the bench seat, standing in the aisle, stretching once more.

I felt her eyes on me as I made my way toward the door. You’d think I would breathe a sigh of relief as I saw Ember approach the RV. You’d be wrong. Just as I reached the top of the stairs, Ember pushed past me and headed straight for Willow.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” She yelled, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.

Willow’s voice was maniacally even. “What? You don’t trust your soul mate?” The sarcasm around the term threw Ember into a rage. I turned around and walked quickly back to the quarrel.

Ember’s hands flew everywhere as she screamed some more. “I don’t trust you! You’ve already tried to put your slutty hands all over him once, and I’ll be damned if you try again. He’s too much of a gentleman to tell you to f*ck off, but I’m not.”

Willow thrusted her hands forward, aiming for Ember’s hair, but Ember stuck her arm up. The cracking of skin sent me forward, and I wrapped my arm around Ember’s waist, pulling her back as she lunged forward.

“Are you kidding me? You were going to slap me? Slap me, then! Do it! I f*cking dare you, Willow. Slap me.”

I spun Ember around, so I was standing between the mortal enemies, my ears fielding obscenities from both sides.

“Guys, stop!” I yelled. A completely futile effort on my part as words shot through and around me, and hands grabbed at whatever they could.

Willow’s eyes were black with rage as her lip curled with each perfectly crafted insult.

“You’re a spoiled little daddy’s girl who can’t handle when she loses.”

Ember scrunched her face as she growled. Growled. “I’m spoiled? I’m spoiled?! You’re the one who grew up with her daddy’s trust fund behind every school you were admitted to, before you were kicked out!”

What seemed like a full minute later—and a minute is a long time when you’re in the middle of a bonafied cat fight—Regan raced up the stairs.

“What the f*ck?” He held out his hands, seeming to feel as helpless as I probably looked.

“Get her out!” I nodded to Ember, who was closest to the door, as I held Willow back with my forearm.