Page 32 of Lines

“I’m not really into sports.” The warning bell rings. “We should really hurry up if we don’t want to be late to the homeroom again.”

Turning on the balls of my feet, my nose touches Derek’s hard chest.

“Again?” I grumble, more for my sake than for his. There is no need to tell him anything because I know he won’t listen to a thing I say. At least, even if only subconsciously, I was expecting him to be there, so I didn’t full on crash into him.

“You should really look where you walk, little one.”

His patronizing tone irritates the hell out of me.

Swinging my long hair over my shoulders I tilt my head back to get a better look at his face.

“If you weren’t...” Once I see his face, I gasp. My hand covers my open mouth. The words that only a few seconds ago were at the tip of my tongue, now hang in the air. Forgotten. “What happened to you?”

His left cheek is swollen. The skin is dark purple and shiny. It’s big and ugly and it most likely hurts like hell. I know my cheek hurts, and I’m only looking at him.

“Ohh...” His eyes look over my head. I can feel them exchange a look over me like I’m blind or too dumb to notice. “Accident.”

“Accident?”

I turn my eyes to Max, then return them to Derek. They just smile like nothing’s wrong. Accident. Rough practice. My ass. They don’t actually expect me to believe that?

“Yeah, accident.”

Yeah, right... I guess they do.

“Come on,” Derek’s hand lands on the small of my back and pushes me forward. “We’ll be late for class.”

I sigh, giving up. At least for now. I’ll figure out what happened later.

We walk through the hallways in silence.

People part to let us through. The two of them like Gods who part the sea.

“You know,” Derek starts, his eyes focused in front of him. “We should start working on this project.”

“I guess we should.”

“Want me to come to your house after practice tomorrow?”

That makes me stop in my tracks, but he doesn’t let me stay behind. His big, warm hand just presses closer to the small of my back and pushes me forward.

He wants to come to my house? I didn’t plan to meet him at my house, with my family present. However, it makes more sense if he comes to my house rather than meeting somewhere else. The main being that I’m home, and he’ll be out in the first place. It makes much more sense for him to come to me than the other way around.

“Okay, whatever.”

I just hope I don’t regret it.

But then it hits me ... only yesterday I decided to stay away, and now here we are. His hands are on my body and we have plans to meet later.

Well, shit.

So much for staying away.

* * *

The doorbell rings, the sound of it louder than ever before. I would know because I've been living here since forever. But never in my seventeen years has it been this loud before.

Butterflies start fluttering in my belly, and I jump of off my bed where I’m trying to concentrate on reading a book, but there is no way Jane Austen can hold my attention for more than a few sentences, no matter how good of a writer she is and how charming Mr. Darcy can be. And then I have to reread them just in case my wandering mind didn't connect all dots right. My mind's been going through all this stuff since yesterday morning when you-know-who approached me. He’s the only thing I can think about.

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