Shaking my head, I turn on my heel and stalk back toward my house. “For that, you fuckers are on dinner, and it better be good, otherwise, you’re running sprints for an hour following practice tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” Jax mutters behind me.
Making my way back inside, I take off upstairs and slip into my bedroom and come to a standstill, my eyes widening in surprise. Every available space on my walls is taken up with a single word written a million times over, scrawled in a deep plum lipstick, sending a wicked grin stretching across my face and making something settle in my chest.
ASSHOLE!
Well, well, if she’s still down to play, then play we shall.
Unable to help myself, my gaze flicks toward her bedroom window to find her staring back at me, a smug grin resting on her face and her middle finger flying proud for every girl who’s ever been screwed over by me. Then without even a flicker of regret, she pulls the blinds, leaving me to deal with the mess she’s left behind.
Chapter 24
BRIELLE
“Holy shit, she’s alive,” Ilaria cheers as I walk into homeroom on Tuesday morning, her eyes sparkling with laughter.
Rolling my eyes, I stride toward her and drop down into my seat. “What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, wondering if she’s referring to me being a no show before school.
“Rumor has it that the douchebag duo tried to decapitate you yesterday and that the asshole with a god complex saved your pretty little face.”
I groan and lean forward onto my desk, not nearly getting enough sleep after being terrified of Tanner’s revenge. He’s not going to let me off the hook for what I did to his room yesterday. He’s going to come for me, the only question is, when? All I know is that whatever it is, it’s going to knock me off my feet. It’s going to be epic, and it’s going to remind me that while things are seriously messed up between us, we still share this strange connection that neither of us truly understand.
“Ugh, how did—”
“Miss Ashford,” a stern voice says from the front of the room, cutting off my explanation of yesterday’s insane adventures. My head snaps up to find my homeroom teacher staring back at me. “Please make your way to Principal Dormer’s office. Your presence has been requested.”
“Oh?” I say, my brows furrowed, unsure what the hell he could want with me, mentally going over everything that’s happened since being here and struggling to figure it out. “Do you know what this is about?”
“No idea,” he says. “I’m just the messenger. Now scram. You’re already late.”
Shit.
Letting out a heavy breath, I get to my feet and trudge out of the room, wishing I could just catch a break. It feels as though I’ve been running since the moment I woke up, which as usual, was late, but no matter how late I was, it didn’t stop me from spending a few minutes scouring every inch of my room, making sure that Tanner hadn’t made himself welcome during the night.
The student office is swarming with bodies, and as I stand in line to check in with the lady at the desk, someone calls my name from down the hall. “Brielle,” I hear a feminine tone and turn to find Miss Harper half hanging out of a doorway, presumably Principal Dormer’s office. Dread fills me. This is about the essay. “We’re ready for you.”
Shit. We’re? They’re going to tag team me, work me from both sides until I crack. Just great. Who doesn’t love a little double penetration on a Tuesday morning?
Nerves eat at me as I make my way down the hall and step through to Dormer’s office. It’s huge, but modest—a little fancy but not over the top as I was expecting. He’s an older man with a bit of a silver fox vibe going on, and if he didn’t look so serious, I’m sure girls all over the school would be calling him daddy.
“Welcome, Miss Ashford,” Dormer says, indicating to the chair opposite his desk as Miss Harper stands off to the side, a copy of my essay clutched in her hand. “Please take a seat. We only need a moment of your time.”
“I, ummm …” I start, hesitantly making my way across the room and nervously glancing toward Miss Harper. I drop down on the very edge of the seat, a fight or flight tactic for a speedy getaway. “If this is about the essay, I can explain—”
“This is about your essay,” she confirms, cutting me off before I can get lost in a lengthy, ranting explanation about how I was wronged in the most humiliating way. “However, you are not in trouble. We’ve brought you here to let you know that Tanner Morgan put in a call last night. I don’t know how he found my personal cell, but that is beside the point. He explained everything and took full responsibility.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “What?”
She nods, stepping forward to hand me the papers. My gaze drops and quickly scans over the words, finding the essay I’d written with a big A+ drawn in the top right-hand corner. “Tanner emailed me your original essay. It was inspiring, Brielle. I am thoroughly pleased with your work. You demonstrated a sound understanding of the concepts discussed and it’s clear to me that you take your work very seriously.”
My head snaps up, meeting her impressed stare, still reeling with the fact that he called her to make it right. “I do, I take my workload very seriously,” I tell her. “I don’t have the luxury of paying my way through college as many of the other students do. My grades are the only thing I can count on to get me noticed for a scholarship.”
“I assure you,” Dormer cuts in. “From the feedback I've heard from your teachers, you should have no issue securing a scholarship.”
I give him a tight smile, still feeling weird about this meeting. “Thank you,” I tell him before looking between the two of them. “If I may be so bold, I don’t understand why this meeting needed to be held under the guidance of the principal. I mean no disrespect, but it seems like this is something that could have been quickly discussed during class time.”
Principal Dormer smiles. “It was my decision to bring you here this morning. When Miss Harper shared with me the events of her evening and discussed the grades for your essay, I wanted to meet with you face to face. I believe you are a very bright student and with the right guidance, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to get into the top college of your choice with a scholarship. However,” he continues, his expression darkening, “I don’t think it would come as a surprise to you to know that young men like Tanner Morgan, while incredibly talented and one of the top performing athletes of this school, spend many hours in my office. You are new here and I am sure you are still learning the ropes and figuring it out as you go. I think it would be a wise decision for you to distance yourself from the likes of Tanner Morgan and his friends. They are bad news, and while I understand you are in a peculiar situation living next door, it seems that Tanner has set his sights on you. I have seen it many times over the past few years, bright students being torn down by his tactics, and it would be a shame to see the same happen to you.”
Uhhhhh … is this guy really trying to warn me away from Tanner? Is that even allowed? More so, how am I supposed to respond to that?