Now it’s my turn to swat her arm. “And second, stop drooling over him.”
Salem chuckles. “Not your guy. Suuuure.”
Salem and Poe high five and Wyn laughs.
Even though I purse my lips at them, I don’t blame them for admiring him.
He does look gorgeous. And you can see his abs through his shirt.
But the thing that gets me the most is his hair.
It’s really grown out in the past couple of months. So instead of looking all civilized and tamed in the gray suit with white dress shirt, those long, unruly strands make him look the opposite.
They fall over his forehead and get tangled up in his starched collar and make him look like the reckless, wild beast that everyone used to call him at Bardstown High.
The Wild Mustang.
The one with wolf eyes and vampire skin.
The boy that every mom wants her daughter to stay away from. The boy that every dad wants to run off his porch when he comes calling for his baby girl.
Even though he’s not playing anymore, he still embodies that nickname, and the reason he’s here, standing outside of the black gates, leaning against his white Mustang, is because he’s come for me.
He’s come to pick me up after school. He’s been coming to pick me up from school for the whole past week actually.
“I can’t believe you’re not living with me anymore,” Wyn says from beside me, pulling my attention away from him.
Something gets stuck in my throat. “I know. I miss you. I miss all of you.”
I’m pretty used to crying at everything — although this does call for tears — but all my girls have moisture in their eyes and in this moment, I’m so glad that I could stay.
That he made me stay in school.
Because I swear to God, I would’ve missed them like crazy.
Just the fact that I’m not living in the dorms with them anymore has me so upset.
Because I’m not.
I’m living somewhere else now.
The only girl in the history of St. Mary’s who gets to live off campus.
It makes sense though, doesn’t it? I am also the only girl who got pregnant in the history of St. Mary’s while going to St. Mary’s.
All courtesy of the guy who’s waiting for me.
He made all of this happen.
While I was making plans, he was making plans of his own. I already knew that, but I didn’t know how elaborate those plans would be. They put my plans to shame.
They involved pulling all the strings, throwing his Jackson weight around and keeping me in school. They also involved finding me a place to live and not letting me take a job because I need to focus on graduating and taking care of my health first.
And also ballet.
He’s not letting me quit that either.
My dream.
Because he’s already broken my heart, he won’t break my dream too. He won’t let anything happen to the dream I’ve had since I was five.
He said that to my brothers and I have to say that my brothers love this plan. All four of them.
Which would be surprising, given the fact that they all hate him, but it’s not.
After the whole showdown on the curb and Reed’s promise to Conrad, my brother invited him into our house and they spent that whole day listening to Reed’s plans and hammering out details. Even Stellan and Shep came down from New York to chime in.
I always knew that Reed was exactly like my brothers in the protective department but it was never more apparent than it was when they were brainstorming ideas.
In our dining room.
In the same room where only the night before I’d broken the news to my brothers and I’d thought that my bond with them, that life as I’d known it, would be over.
In that room, I got something that I always wanted.
I always wanted them all to get along, my brothers and Reed. Back in Bardstown High that was all I thought about. I wanted them to put their vendetta and ego and differences aside, because deep down I knew that they could be friends.
But then everything happened and I buried that.
I shoved that hope under layers and layers of hurt and heartbreak.
I never thought that my crazy wish from two years ago would come true now. Especially now, when everything is even more chaotic.
But somehow it has and no, they’re not friends. God no. But they’re not fighting either, and that’s enough for me.
All because he has a plan and he’s promised to make it happen.
He’s making it happen.
Anyway.
I say goodbye to my friends and take a deep breath. With my green backpack over my shoulders, I begin my walk down the concrete pathway toward the black gates.
And his eyes land straight on me.
So far he’s been staring down at his phone and appearing as if he was completely oblivious to his surroundings. But I know he’s not.
I know this is what he does.
I’ve watched him do it for the past week.
In the afternoons, he arrives at the school and climbs out of his Mustang to wait for me. And then he focuses on his phone until I say my goodbyes to my friends and start to walk toward him.
As if he’s giving me privacy.
He’s letting me say my goodbyes in peace before I go to him.
And so as soon as I break away from the group, he looks up, his eyes clashing with mine.
They flare as he watches me walk toward him, leaving everything behind. The school, my friends. And he straightens and begins to walk toward me as well. Slowly, lazily, to match my small steps. As if timing our walk. Synchronizing it so he reaches the black gates the same time as I do.
It takes me a minute and a half to do that. I’ve timed it.
I timed it last week, last Monday, the first day he came to pick me up, and exactly ninety seconds later, I’m out the black gates and on the other side.
And he’s standing in front of me.
“Hi,” I say, looking up to him, my heart spinning, the flutters in my belly raging.
She knows he’s here as well.
He doesn’t say anything to that. Again, I knew he wouldn’t.
Instead he looks me over.
He studies my face, my braided hair that’s held together with a mustard-colored ribbon. He even eyes my uniform skirt, my Mary Janes.
I try to stand tall and straight under his heavy scrutiny, under his sparkling wolf eyes.
The scrutiny that makes me feel like a young schoolgirl while he stands there in his grown-up business suit, making sure that I’m okay.
Because that’s what he’s doing. I know.
He’s making sure that no harm has somehow befallen me in the six hours that I’ve been at school.
In the six hours since he last saw me.
Because he drops me off at school in the mornings as well.
“Everything go okay?” he asks, reaching out to take my backpack from me.
See? He was making sure I was okay. And he thinks I can’t carry heavy things such as my backpack.
I nod, looking at his face. “Yeah.”