Saint Sloan (Saint Sloan #1)(20)
Sloan wanted to crawl into a hole. She might not have to wait for Mr. ICU to make her fall. She was doing a pretty good job at it herself.
Perfect.
CHAPTER FIVE
BY LUNCH, SLOAN HADN’T SEEN DARCY. It was both good and bad. Good, because, hello, she hadn’t seen Darcy. And bad, because she really needed to talk to her. She needed notes, and she needed information on if, if, she was Mr. ICU. Sloan didn’t think she was, but if she could prove it, it would shut Ray up, wherever he was.
At lunch, Mackenzie snapped her fingers in Sloan’s face. “Hey, you even in there?”
Honestly, no she wasn’t. She was way off somewhere in la-la land where frogs jumped in lovely ponds and unicorns frolicked in the blowing wind. Anything sounded better than Chapel Hill at the time. “Sorry.”
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Zoning out. Everything okay?”
No. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” Sloan took a drink from her water, not sure how much nervousness she was showing. She hoped not much. She hoped she was showing calm and cool. But Mackenzie, always observant Mackenzie, would probably see right through her.
“I don’t know. Something’s off with you this week.” She leaned back and studied her.
“Your eyes are going to stick that way if you keep furrowing them like that,” Sloan observed as she moved a few pieces of food around her plate. She so wasn’t hungry.
“Does anyone actually use the word furrowed in real life?”
“They would if they looked at you.” Sloan grinned. It was so hard to be serious around Mackenzie. The girl always had a face or an expression or a joke or even just a snort that made a person feel better and laugh. Laughing was good. Mackenzie had been hurt after Travis had left due to his involvement with Boyd attacking Sloan. Sloan knew she liked him more than she let on. She’d driven him to school for a few days, after all. Mackenzie never talked about him now, but Sloan knew it had to be hard on her. Sloan wondered every once in a while where Travis was, but she’d never asked Mackenzie if she’d heard from him. She assumed she hadn’t and didn’t want to stir up old, painful memories.
“Touché.” Mackenzie snorted and tossed her red hair to the side. She’d cut it recently and hadn’t gotten used to how short it was. It wouldn’t even go all the way around over her shoulder now, an annoyance for her. “But truthfully. You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? Did you see Boyd again?”
Sloan noticed how she worded it. Not “Did you think you saw Boyd again”, but “Did you?” Her friend apparently believed her through thick and thin, but she had no idea how much to tell her. She wanted to tell her everything, but she didn’t want to put her in danger. Who knew who her attacker was? It could be someone in the room. If Ray was right, it was Darcy who had ears all over the place, ready to tell her things. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Mackenzie; she didn’t trust anyone else at the school at the moment.
“I’d tell you. I would. How about I call you tonight? We can talk about the prom.”
Mackenzie tilted her head, “You hate talking about the prom.”
And she had to say it out loud. “I know that. But maybe this one time, I’d like to.” Sloan tried to give the best look she could to let Mackenzie know she was talking about more than the prom.
Mackenzie looked more confused.
Sloan lifted her eyebrows.
Mackenzie shrugged.
She made her eyes nearly pop out of her head.
Mackenzie finally had a light bulb moment. “Ohhhh.”
Sloan scrunched her face together so Mackenzie would get it to shut up and not let anyone in on the plan. That’s all she needed. Darcy still had a lot of pull in the school, and any freshman wanting an in would run with the information she had to get in the clique. In fact, not three seats away, sat a group of juniors. They were all pretty much doing their own thing, involved in their own conversations… all except this one girl. Sloan had seen her around the halls from time to time. She didn’t know her name. Seniors didn’t always know underclassmen. She had mousy short hair that stuck out at uneven angles, not apparently achieved with products, and black-rimmed glasses. Her eyes were a light brown, and she was skinny as a rail. Something about her seemed so familiar. Her looks or mannerisms or… something.
Every once in a while, Mousy would tilt her ear toward Sloan and Mackenzie like she was trying to hear, but not be caught hearing. If she ever wanted a career in spying, she very much needed to up her game because the girl was so obvious it was pitiful.
“Are you listening?” Mackenzie asked. Sloan so needed to keep her mind turned on when her friend was talking. Mackenzie would start to get a complex if she kept tuning her out.
“Absolutely.” Insert overly friendly smile.
“Okay.” Mackenzie winked. The girl really didn’t know how to be subtle. “We’ll talk about the prom.”
Oh, good glory…
“I do need to talk to you about it, actually. I’m totally okay going by myself. It’s not like I want a date after, well, you know.”
Sloan knew. It hurt that Mackenzie was dateless to the prom, but the girl seemed to be handling it well. “I don’t want one. I’m fine going stag.”
“You aren’t going stag. You’re going with me and Ray. A hot girl on each of his arms.” Sloan tried to make light of it, but truthfully, she hadn’t thought much about Mackenzie having to be solo at the prom. If it were her, she wouldn’t care… well, that was a lie. She would care. She’d probably leave early, go home, and eat a ton of ice cream, but that wasn’t Mackenzie’s deal. That curly-headed girl could be the life of a party at a funeral.