“Hi,” he said with a smug smile as he carefully helped me steady myself.
“Thank you,” I breathed, trying to calm my pounding heart. I hadn’t needed that extra shot of adrenaline. My espresso earlier had been enough.
“You’re new,” he commented, eyeing me up and down appreciatively before finally letting me go.
He was attractive, just like everyone else I had seen at this school. He had russet-colored hair to showcase those amazing green eyes of his, and he had to be at least six feet tall with a body that looked good, even under his clothes.
I watched him for a second, hoping that I would feel something, some small glimmer of attraction.
But like every guy I had seen since I was eight, my heart didn’t even twitch.
I was impossibly fractured. Jackson Parker had cast some kind of spell on me and I wasn’t sure that it would ever be broken.
It sank in, awkwardly, that the green-eyed hottie still stared at me. He had said something, but like the awkward turtle that I was, I had completely spaced it and missed what he said.
"Sorry...what?" I stuttered and he gave me a bemused smile like he wasn't used to girls not paying rapt attention to every word that came out of his mouth.
"I asked what your name was," he said, amused.
"Everly," I stated, intentionally not giving him my last name. He would hear about who I was soon, and then he wouldn't want anything to do with me. "What's yours?" I quickly added so he wouldn't ask me to give it to him.
"Landry Evans," he replied, as if he expected me to know who he was.
Whoops. It was a defect that I needed to remedy. For too long, the only people I had cared about were Jackson and Caiden.
You would think that would have changed over the last two years.
"Nice to meet you," I finally answered, aware again of the awkward pause we'd just had while he waited for me to recognize him.
His amused grin grew wider. He had only seemed a little interested when I'd first bumped into him, but now the look in his eyes was almost feral.
It was a little unsettling.
"I'm the captain of the hockey team," he explained, still apparently waiting for that recognition to hit me.
I shrugged awkwardly. The only sport I followed was football, and that was only because the twins had forced it down my throat almost since the moment they’d met me until I loved it almost as much as they did. Both of them had played it and watched it 24/7, ensuring that I would have a steady diet of it.
I hadn’t, nor would I ever, tell anyone how I’d spent every home game last season hovering outside the gates of the Rutherford Academy stadium...listening to the sounds of the game while I watched it on my cell phone, silently cheering Jackson on.
My heart throbbed painfully when I thought about the fact that the Dallas Cowboys had won the Superbowl last year, winning for the first time since 1997. They had been Caiden's favorite team and he, obviously, had missed it.
I took a deep breath.
"Well, I'm just going to get my schedule," I told him as I reached for my bag, as awareness of how close we were standing to each other hit me.
He rocked back on his heels, a little disappointment settling on his face. Maybe he realized I wasn't experiencing whatever connection he was.
"I could show you around?" he offered, once again shooting me that winsome grin.
"That's so nice, but I believe they've already assigned me someone to act as my class guide today. I really appreciate it though." I fought to sound earnest, while at the same time, beginning to push past him to get in the office. His face fell into a look of dismay.
He seemed to shake himself out of it though, and he started to back away, not taking his attention off of me and not bothering to look behind him to see if he was going to run into anyone. I had a feeling that things often went his way around here. He reminded me a little bit of Jackson, in that Jackson always put out that he had this outrageous confidence that everyone liked him and everyone would do as he said.
I was the only one who knew that was a lie.
"I'll be seeing you, Everly," he told me, and rather than sound like a goodbye, it sounded like a promise.
He would learn I wasn't the kind of girl you should make promises to.
I gave a half-hearted wave goodbye, and then I turned and finally made it into the Admissions' Office.
A stern-looking, grey-haired woman grimaced when she saw me approaching the counter. Looking down at my phone, I realized that Landry had cost me ten minutes that I didn't have.
Damn, I muttered to myself as I straightened my clothes and shot Ms. Grump a hopefully friendly smile.
She didn't seem impressed.
"Everly James," I announced politely. "Today's my first day."
"Class starts in ten minutes, Ms. James," she huffed with a shake of her head. "You would think you wouldn't want to be late on your first day," she continued as she began to type feverishly on her keyboard.
I didn't bother answering her that I'd tried to be early. Things just had a way of constantly going wrong in my life.
Ever heard of Murphy's Law? I was pretty sure that it should actually be called "Everly's Law" because I had never heard of someone having more bad luck than me.
"Do you have your license, Ms. James?" she asked loudly, and I realized that once again, I'd missed what someone said to me. I was really going to have to get myself together and pay attention. Unlike my old school, Rutherford Academy wasn't the kind of place where you could get away with spacing out and thinking about how much your life sucked.
That was probably a good thing for me.
I handed her my license, and she sniffed loudly as if my very presence offended her. Or maybe it was because unlike the rest of the student population here, who most likely housed their licenses in Louis Vuitton wallets...my wallet was something I had made myself using duct tape and safety pins. It had seemed cool when I'd made it. Or maybe that was just because Jackson used to have one just like it…
She held the license out to me with two fingers, most likely already envisioning how soon she could wash her hands. I took it back quickly, waiting quietly as she started to print out papers. Looking around the room, it was apparently I'd caught the attention of the entire office. Some of the employees were watching me unabashedly. It made me wish once again that I'd been able to start last week with the rest of the students. Even though I was new, I wouldn't have stood out so much.
Mom getting drunk and falling down a flight of stairs hadn't been in the cards.
But, again…not much in my life was.
"Here you go," the woman said sharply, handing me a black folder emblazoned with the Rutherford Academy crest in the center. "You'd better hurry. You have two minutes before the bell rings," she muttered, before turning her attention back to her computer like I didn't exist.
“Aren’t I supposed to have a student guide?” I asked, looking around to see if anyone looked like they were waiting for me.
“Get to class, Ms. James,” she said in a bored tone, completely ignoring me.
"Thanks," I responded, just barely succeeding in keeping the annoyance out of my voice.
I walked out the door, back into the hallway.
And suddenly, there he was.