Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(46)

Throwing things feels amazing9.





27


I nocked another arrow and took a shot, not even pausing before my quickly numbing fingers reached into the bucket of the school’s loaner arrows to grab and nock another one. It was wonderfully mechanical. Whoosh, thunk, shoot again. The already calloused tips of my fingers were turning red from the continuous motion and my arms were burning. There was definitely something therapeutic about this. Maeve was right.

Maeve’s shoulder ached, but that distracted her from the ice that was slowly taking over her heart. The memory of Aedan’s blank stare snuck back into her brain and she let out a frustrated scream as she let fly another arrow.

“What the hell are you doing out here? It’s freakin’ cold, you know.” Em jogged up next to me, looking from my bow and me to the overloaded target. “Holy crap, Feebs. Don’t you think that’s a little overkill?”

I let another arrow fly. It just skimmed an arrow in the red of the target. “No.”

Images flashed through Maeve’s mind and she punched them away. Memory upon memory. Aedan, leaning a little bit too close when he blocked her during their last training session. Pushing his hair out of his eyes as he joked with her. Holding her in his arms and comforting her after watching their friends die in the last battle. They came fast and relentless and she hit harder until her knuckles left dots of blood on the dummy.

Alec came up on my other side, wheezing a bit from the run. “Damn. Remind me never to piss you off. I forget that you like turning things into pincushions.”

“Very funny.” Two arrows left. I shot them off in succession, then lay down my bow and marched over to the target to start pulling them out.

“Grace told us all about last night. I know I said I was staying out of things, but I think you might have read too much into what you saw,” Em said, close on my heels.

Instead of wiggling the nearest arrow out, I yanked hard until it popped free. Coach would be having a heart attack right now. “Em, you don’t have to defend Dev. And I really don’t need to talk about this.”

Em joined me in pulling out the arrows, except she was much gentler on the target than me.

“Alec, tell Phoebe she’s being an idiot.”

Alec came into my line of sight, carrying my bow and plucking at the bowstring. I was too worked up about Dev and trying to sound like I didn’t care about the whole situation to ream Alec out for touching it. He shook his head.

“I don’t know why you’re dragging me into the middle of this, but Dev’s not dating Lexie. At least, not the way he made it sound when we hung out this morning. She’s just the hugging type, I guess.” He flipped the bow over in his hands. “These carvings are awesome. Why don’t we get to shoot with bows like this?”

“Because ‘bows like this’ cost hundreds of dollars.” I said, reaching over to extract my baby from his hands. I finished yanking all of the arrows free and marched back with my bucket to a line about five feet past where I had been shooting. Barely waiting for them to move out of my way, I started shooting again.

“Okay, now you’re just being freakishly dramatic. Normal people eat a pint of Chunky Monkey and move on. And didn’t you hear what Alec just said?”

I shrugged, then adjusted my aim to make up for the extra distance. “Guys don’t really talk about the girls they like with other guys.”

This time, Alec snorted. “Right, like you’re the expert on guys. You know, he asked me if I knew if he did anything to piss you off last night.”

I froze mid-draw. “He did?”

“Yeah. I told him that it was probably your introvert nature kicking in.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

“Look, he’s leaving for India,” Em checked the clock on her cellphone, “about now, and I doubt your phone lets you do international texts, but you’re going to have to step things up when he comes back. Like at Grace’s New Year’s party. He’ll be there.”

“What about Lexie?” I turned to Alec for help, but he was too busy checking out the arrows and eyeing my bow. With a sigh, I handed the bow over to him. “Go for it. But if you break my bow, I break your gaming stuff.”

Em shoved her phone in her coat pocket and kept her hands in there. “What about her? I’m telling you, yesterday was a fluke.”

I bit my lip and picked at the fletching on one of the damaged arrows. Distantly, I noticed that my nail beds were turning purplish-blue from the cold.

“I just don’t want to keep making an idiot out of myself and putting everything out there, only to find out this was some kind of joke or a bet, like in those old 80’s movies.”

Em looked at me like I just said I hated her favorite puppy. “Do you think I’d ever do that to you?”

“No,” I said, shuffling my feet in the grass. Some frostcoated blades made a snapping sound as I moved. “But who knows what goes through guys’ heads.”

“I thought you just said you did,” Alec said as he let an arrow fly miserably off-target.

“Very funny.” I reached for the bow, but he held it over my head. “Give me that so I can go back to practicing.”

He managed to stretch it even higher above him. “No way. We’re going somewhere warm before you start looking like the white witch.”