“Katie! I’m so glad you’re back!” she proclaimed with a silly side-hug, not taking her greedy eyes off Pete. “I haven’t had a chance to meet your new . . . acquaintance yet. Looks like you’ve been tryin’ to keep him all to yourself,” she pouted, eyes still glued to his. “Not that I blame you.” She stuck metallic purple nails out to Pete with a practiced smile. “Hi. I’m Ashley-Leigh Montgomery. Me and Katie have been, like, the best of friends since we were knee-high to a grasshopper.”
Laying on the fake southern charm pretty thick, I thought.
Pete looked at her with a charming, if distant smile. “Well any friend of Kate’s is a friend of mine.” He shook her hand. “It’s really nice to meet you, Ashley. I’m—”
“Oh. I already know who you are, Pete Davenport,” she purred in a tone I found to be more revolting than alluring.
I peeked at Pete to gage his reaction, saw his mouth twitch, smiled to myself.
“Well, that makes it easier on me I guess,” he said, removing his hand from her grip.
She giggled liked that was the punchline to a very funny joke, that only the two of them got. The bell decided to ring, bringing with it an Ashley-Leigh pouty frown. “Uh! I guess I’ll catch up with you later . . .” Her tone, coupled with her pointy nail, made it seem like a threat.
“Sure. Nice to meet you again, Ashley,” Pete replied.
“Actually . . .”—she tilted back around—“it’s Ashley-Leigh . . . kind of a southern thing.” Cue signature wink. After which, she flounced off to her seat sure in the knowledge that she’d left him wanting for more.
Swallowing a smile, I faced the front. I swear the girl had no shame. Hadn’t she ever heard of playing hard to get?
“Ashley-Leigh?” He chuckled into my ear. “Isn’t that a bit redundant?” I turned around to snigger with him, and he said, “Is she for real?”
“You can’t make this stuff up,” I whispered before turning back around.
Midway through class, I was mentally revising my list of questions for Pete and replaying back the afternoon’s highlights in my mind. I was having trouble concentrating on today’s Spanish lesson, because I was hyper-aware of Pete occupying the space behind me. Every little move he made registered in my system on some basic level akin to breathing. Each pencil scratch he made on his notebook, every time he brushed back his hair, or shifted in his seat, sent vibrations of awareness through me.
What I could barely register was anything outside of Pete’s personal space. Mr. Sanchez had to ask me twice to conjugate the same verb. All the stares I was receiving, both the curious and envious, normally would’ve had me blushing red; today they barely made a blip on my radar. At one point Pete leaned forward to whisper in my ear, and shivers of pleasure ran down my spine. Being in the endorphin-releasing presence of the world’s most attractive person seem to blur the lines between fantasy and reality. And I was so enthralled with living the dream that it was almost easy to ignore the little annoying doubts piling up, waiting to be disposed of in that very aptly F-named it-bucket. Almost.
I sighed and made myself lean as far away from him as possible so I could concentrate. Then mentally replayed the footage of this afternoon to focus on what was still bothering me, and all the unanswered questions I had. (Because I certainly wasn’t increasing the fluency of my Spanish today.) Flipping the page in my notebook, I began composing my thoughts.
1.) The brochure only mentioned there was a mentoring program but didn’t go into any detail or reveal the kinds of tests that would be administered.
2.) The “coincidence” of them seeing me walking on the drag.
3.) Ranger’s unexplained hostility towards me.
4.) Why did they come into the diner that afternoon?
5.) “The Mission?”
I was pencil-tapping my notebook, thinking about how I could bring up “the mission” without revealing that I’d overheard his conversation, when the girl sitting across from me gave me an annoyed look. “Sorry,” I mouthed, moving the tapping to the side of my leg. There was something that was slowly gnawing at me, and it was getting more pronounced whenever I replayed the incident in my head. It was right after Pete asked what I like to do for fun, and I’d been so angry and embarrassed that I could hardly think straight. The tempo of my tapping increased when I hit upon the thing that set off a warning bell. Before I could continue with my a-ha! moment, Pete leaned forward and removed the pencil from my hand.
“Kate?”
My industrious mind suddenly blanked out when I saw him looking at me that way. The possibility I was about to drool all over my desk prompted me to promptly swallow. “Yeah?”
“I gotta know what that pencil did to piss you off,” he whispered out one side of his mouth. “That way . . . I can avoid doing the same thing.”
Oh man! He was so sexy when he did that. I couldn’t even think so I just blurted out the thing that had been niggling me: “How didja know my middle name is Lee?”
Even though Pete was as polished as a pristine diamond, I saw a flash of anger dart in and out of his eyes. Any normal person would’ve missed it, but I was really good at reading people and was especially tuned in to him. I blinked, and his face was already rearranged back into its mask of serenity.
A glance at Mr. Sanchez and Pete whispered, “That’s at the top of your list? A better question is, how am I going to convince your father to let me take you out?” He ended with the type of smile that normally would’ve knocked me out.
But something had me on my guard again. That, and years of obedience training, had me turning back around. A few moments later, I heard the familiar click of a ballpoint pen, and after a few quick strokes, I felt a little tap on my shoulder. Pete was handing me a note. How very high school of him I instantly thought, but accepted the note with no small amount of curiosity.
Andrew. I told you I was pumping him for the 411 on you . . .I’m surprised you had to ask. Hey, wanna hang out after school?
My stomach twisted. A lie. I felt it in my gut, and then it spread all over my body, making me feel ill as if I’d been poisoned. And not just a lie—the tone of the note was all wrong. It was dismissive and slightly insulting to my intelligence. And on top of that, he tried to cajole me out of my fact-finding mission by wooing me again—using himself as bait, a maneuver I was sure worked well for him in the past.
Beauty is its own kind of power. I saw that plainly with Mama. His beauty combined with his charisma created a lethal dose of man-nip for females. Plus, there was something more between us—some kind of magnetic chemistry (at least on my part). I’d never felt so drawn to someone before, and it was as scary as it was thrilling.
So I’d been falling for it all day. But I was onto him now. Mama was right about my instinct—it always seemed to kick in when something was off. And now it was telling me that Pete was scamming me, so I’d get on board the IEA train. . . . Like taking candy from a baby. I literally felt sick to my stomach that the dynamic person I’d gotten to know was actually an ‘effing fraud. Maybe he really is an actor? What kind of school bred such monsters? I thought of his cohort Ranger—his name practically spelled out danger!