Ray’s lips curve up faintly. “Not really, but I can’t deny a lot of the supposed traits we carry are accurate—at least, they are for me.”
“I am a rational woman, I need facts to back this up,” Mom states.
“Whatever we set our minds to, we achieve. We’re deeply loyal, incredibly magnetic, more than a little possessive, and intensely sexual.”
Her eyes widen in mildly scandalized amusement. “Okay, I’m convinced.” She looks back at me. “Also, you should dump Anderson. He sounds like trouble.”
I can’t help smiling at her faulty logic. “Oh, sure—trouble for me, but good for you.”
“I’m an adult, I can handle it. You’re my tiny sweet baby and no one should ever gaze upon you with lust.”
I roll my eyes, abandoning the necklace and the flowers and going over to retrieve my coffee. “I don’t know who’s crazier, you or Anderson.”
___
I sigh, looking ahead at the swarm of high schoolers crowded around the entry doors as I approach. They’re all off in their little groups, chattering away.
Normally when I pass people by, it’s as if I’m a ghost. The air around them might shift, but not so much as one glance turns in my direction. Hunter turned me invisible when he left, and somehow even in his absence, his word is law.
If anything, his influence here has actually intensified. It’s not like I’ve kept tabs on him, so I don’t know everything Hunter has been up to in Italy, but news of some of his exploits made it back here. It was impossible not to pick up tidbits from his fan club.
His “big deal” father has a whole slew of businesses, and one of them is a clothing line. Hunter has always been good-looking, but now that he’s grown up, he crossed the threshold to immensely sexy. His father must have shrewdly decided—bastard or not—he was going to capitalize on it.
The girls at Hawthorne High went absolutely crazy when Hunter started showing up on the company’s Instagram feed modeling shirts. Well, he’s not even wearing one in half the shots, but supposedly that’s what the pictures are supposed to be selling. And at least here, it was effective. After Hunter’s first campaign, a bunch of the girls at our school ordered the shirts for themselves and it became a full-on fashion wave for a good couple of months.
That was when he started getting tagged in photos with models and splashed across Italian tabloids. I can’t read any of them, but there’s always some new girl in each picture, so I can guess what they’re about.
Today as I open the door to head inside the school, there’s something different in the air that I can’t quite put my finger on. People are talking a little faster with more excitement on their faces.
I guess it’s because it’s the first day of senior year. I guess for some people that’s exciting.
For me, it just means I’m one day closer to never having to walk through these doors again. If I’m a ghost, my unfinished business is that much closer to being wrapped up and tucked away so I can finally have my freedom.
There are a couple of things I’m genuinely looking forward to today, but the conversation I’m about to have with Anderson does not make the list.
I liked Anderson or I wouldn’t have gone out with him to begin with (even if he is technically my only option), but he came on way too strong this morning and I’m finding myself a little turned off by it.
Anderson is a nice guy and I would never have pegged him for the “I own you” type. There might be guys in the world who can pull that kind of shit off, but Anderson is damn sure not one of them. I’m closer to dumping him (if it would even be called that, so early on) than wearing the necklace he had delivered to my house like a psycho.
Just thinking about the delivery I got this morning and then picturing his face makes me cringe a little.
Not a good look, Anderson. What the hell were you thinking?
As if summoned by my thoughts, Anderson shows up at my locker while I’m putting away books. He has an easy breezy smile on his face when I look at him—unthreateningly handsome, that’s Anderson Milner. He has chestnut brown hair with dark bushy eyebrows, bright brown eyes and angular features. He’s a little taller than me, and right now he’s wearing his new black and crimson letter jacket, even though it’s way too warm to be wearing a jacket today.
My gaze gets stuck on the jacket.
I don’t love that Anderson is on the football team because a lot of Hunter’s old buddies are also on the football team.
Prior to the flower incident, I worried that as soon as we started back to school, Anderson would get a crash course in whatever Hunter told people to make them treat me like a leper. Several times I imagined him approaching me halfway through the first day, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding my gaze as he made up some excuse to dump me so his new friends wouldn’t hate him.
Wait, maybe he still will. Should I ignore the flower incident and wait for that?
Deciding to feel him out, I paste a half-assed smile on my face and greet him back. “Hey. How was practice?”
The guys on the team have been coming to practices already before the school year even began so it’s not like Anderson is just meeting the team today, but there’s a good chance none of them knew he was dating me… and that probably won’t last long. Everyone knows everyone’s business at this school, I swear.
“Rough.” Anderson leans against the locker and smiles at me despite saying that. “The quarterback we’ve been practicing with got dropped to second string. Some new guy was there today, and you’d think if someone joins the team late they’d have to hang back and catch up to us, but I guess he must be good because Coach rearranged everything to accommodate him.”
“That sounds annoying,” I murmur sympathetically, jamming my chemistry book into place and closing my locker door.
“Little bit. I’m in a better mood now that I get to see you, though,” he says, pushing off the locker and moving closer to me.
Prior to this morning, that comment would have been sweet and maybe I would have smiled at it. Right now, though, I’m afraid he’d find a smile encouraging, so I keep my reaction muted as I hug the books I need against my chest and slowly take off in the direction of my first class.
Anderson falls into step beside me, looking over at me with a mild frown. “Hey, is everything okay?”
Dread weighs on me. I’m not going to be able to put off the conversation and just see if he dumps me first. “Um, not really. Look, I feel like a jerk saying this because the flowers were a very nice gesture, but it was… I don’t know, a little much? And the necklace… the necklace was a lot much, and the note you sent along with it—I don’t know, Anderson, that’s so not like you. I was really put off by it, to be perfectly honest.”
Anderson is still walking beside me, but he’s scowling in absolute befuddlement. “What are you talking about? What flowers?”
I frown at him. “The… first day of school flowers you had delivered to my house this… morning? You didn’t send me flowers,” I realize slowly.
Anderson’s dark eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “First day of school flowers? Is that a thing? Was I supposed to send—? I’ve never heard of this.”