Very Bad Things (Briarcrest Academy #1)(39)

“Nah, we can handle it,” he said, turning his hazel eyes on me. “We can study together if you start having trouble.”

“Pft. Me, have trouble? Please. Tell you what, if you need some extra help, I’d be glad to tutor you, Mansfield.”

He laughed. “You always make me smile, Nora.”

My mouth tightened. “Is that so?”

“Hey, remember that time when Mr. Bray fell asleep during debate practice and his toupee fell off, so we started calling him—”

“Mr. Bray-Toupee,” I interjected rudely, not wanting to share in his little joke.

In the past I wouldn’t have let him know I was hurt by him, but now I wanted him to be uncomfortable. How dare he sit here and talk to me after the way he’d treated me? “So how’s Lori? She’s a junior this year, right?”

He squirmed. “She moved to Miami in June,” he told me, his eyes trained on my face, assessing. “Her dad got a job with a new company there. So, I guess we’re taking a break.”

I nodded my head, thinking of that other time he’d taken a break from Lori. When he and I had been together in New York.

“Can I ask you a question, Nora?” he said, tapping his pencil against the table, like he was nervous.

“What?”

“Do you ever think about our night in New York?”

I turned red, some of it embarrassment, but most of it anger.

“I have. I mean, I felt guilty, because I went back to Lori. And I know I ignored you afterwards,” he said, staring down at his notebook. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to ever talk to me again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sorry for being an * to you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, finally letting what I’d wanted to say for months pour out of my mouth. “Yeah, you were. And what hurt the most was I thought we were friends. I was just a one-night stand for you,” I snapped at him. “And I do want you to sit somewhere else, please.”

He frowned as he stood. “I still want be your friend, Nora.”

He moved to another table and class started. When Mr. Foreman started lecturing about the importance of writing multiple paragraphs and supplying graphs and tables to support our answers, I zoned out, glad to not think about Drew.

After class, he walked with me to my locker. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” I said tersely, thinking about Leo and our “date” at the movies.

“Maybe we can go to that bookstore next to Portia’s you like?”

“How’d you know I go there?” I asked, cocking my head. It was always the nice ones who fooled you. Oh wait, he wasn’t nice.

He shrugged. “I saw you a couple of times.”

“You never said hi.”

“I was with Lori,” he said, looking away from me.

“Great, just great,” I said, glaring at him. “You were there with your girlfriend and checking me out at the same time.” I opened my locker, shoved my books inside and slammed it. “I’m sick to death of being second choice,” I muttered under my breath.

When would I be first?

Drew never got to reply because Sebastian walked up and put an arm around me. “Okay, we gotta talk about this hair color, ’cause I like this look on you, Buttercup.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said, feeling a pang at hearing Leo’s name for me.

“Wasn’t my name for you anyway,” he reminded me tartly, poking me on the shoulder with a pencil.

I poked him back. “Maybe you should call me Nora like everyone else?”

“Um, yeah, I think not. Not my style at all. How about Rosebud ? Oh, or Flame Brain?”

I shook my head because he really was fun. “My brain is not on fire.”

“Okay, what about Cherry or Towering Inferno?”

I snorted. “Are you saying I’m an Amazon? Because that’s been overdone.”

“Okay, okay, I can see you’re hard to please. Wait, I think I have one since you don’t like my nicknames. How about girlfriend?” he asked suggestively, making a face at me.

“Now, I know you’re joking.”

“What? I’m serious all the time. Do you have a boyfriend I don’t know about, ’cause if you do, I’m gonna challenge him to a duel . . . with pistols at dawn or swords . . . or whatever the they do here in Texas.” He flicked his eyes at Drew.

“We mostly fight with our fists in Texas, Mr. LA,” I said, pointing down at his loafers. He and I needed to go shopping. “And wear cowboy boots while we do it.”

“Easy peasy. I know Kung Fu, you know,” he said, jumping into a karate stance and chopping his hands around.

I chuckled and my eyes lingered over to Drew who appeared grim as he watched our banter. I sighed. “Sebastian, this is Drew. He’s super smart and a basketball player. Drew, this is Sebastian. He’s wicked funny and plays football. Now bond,” I said, having a gut feeling these two would hit it off.

They eyed each other warily and must have decided the other was cool, because they started talking sports. I said my goodbyes and headed out to my car at twelve fifteen in the afternoon, leaving them to the mercy of BA.





Chapter 12