Page 3 of Tangled Up In You

“Kavanaugh—that’s an Irish surname. Must mean you’ve come here to reclaim your heritage as you Yanks like to do, yeah?”

Just as she was trying to figure out if he was teasing her, he winked.

She tried to think of something flirty to say back but nothing clever came to her. “No, not exactly.”

His eyes followed her hands as she toyed with the solitaire diamond pendant on her gold necklace.

“That looks very dear,” he said.

Her eyebrows came together as she tried to decipher what he meant by “dear.”

“Expensive,” he clarified. “It looks expensive.”

“Oh. It was a gift from my parents for my birthday.”

Leaning toward her, he lowered his voice. “I’m dying to know what a gorgeous girl such as yourself is doing in these parts.”

The compliment sent a thrill through her, but there was no way she would admit to him that real story of why she’d moved here. The truth being that after one too many bullying incidents from the circle of girls who used to be her very best friends, she’d come up with this as an escape plan.

Instead, she blurted out, “I just wanted something new. New experiences.”

That made him smile and she realized how it might have sounded. Like she was the eager new girl, ready for anything. Not exactly what she meant, and she scrambled to give him a different explanation, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

“I mean,” she started, “I told my parents that I’d like to visit Ireland and they thought it would be a good learning experience for me to come here for the school year.”

He squinted at her. “Is that how it is? You want something and your parents just—” He snapped his fingers. “Make it happen, do they?”

“Well, um, the thing is, my parents, they own a tech company. In Silicon Valley. That’s in northern California.”

“Yes, I’m not so backwards that I haven’t heard of Silicon Valley.”

She winced. She hadn’t meant to sound condescending. But that was clearly how he was taking it. She was nervous and not explaining this well at all. There was something about him that put her off-balance. She’d never felt like this around a boy before.

“Yes, of course, you have. Anyway, they’ve expanded their operations here. So, to them, it made perfect sense for me to take a year of studies abroad.”

He let out a low whistle. “Aye me.A year abroad.”

She wanted to respond, to downplay how she’d described herself and the whole situation but didn’t get the chance.

“So, you’re a rich girl slumming it with us Paddies, is that it?”

There was an edge in his voice now and she wasn’t sure what to say. That insane moment of connection they’d shared in the hallway was suddenly long gone.

“Paddy is another word for an Irishman,” he said with exaggerated patience. “It can be harmless or a put-down.” He sat back in his chair. “If you’ve come here thinking you’re better than us lot, go ahead and use Paddy as you like.”

Her heart sank. Not only was he not interested in her like she’d fleetingly hoped, but it also seemed like he was trying to pick a fight with her. Her first instinct was to retreat, keep her head down and hope the taunting would all go away. But that was exactly what she’d done back home when things got rough and it had only made her miserable.

“Actually,” she said, forcing herself to push back, “my parents having money just makes me lucky, not the entitled jerk you seem to think I am. I came here with an open mind. Because, unlike you, I’d never make assumptions or talk down to others.”

He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then pressed his lips together. He watched her in silence, brow furrowed. She held his stare. They weren’t sharing the same electric connection they’d had earlier in the hallway. This was more like him trying to figure her out. And her desperately trying to hold her ground.

“Oh, would you look at what you’ve done,” a girl to Sophie’s left said.

The girl’s chocolate-brown hair was cut into a severe, but cute, bob. Heavy makeup covered her eyes and multiple earrings filled her lobes. But her smile was genuine and it made her instantly trustworthy as far as Sophie was concerned.

“What did I do?” Sophie asked softly. She’d been so fixated on Gavin that she hadn’t even considered that anyone else was paying attention to their interaction. A blush of embarrassment heated her cheeks when she thought what she must have looked like to this girl. Like some outsider who was feeling a little too comfortable speaking up, probably.

“Only the impossible. You’ve shut up Gavin McManus. And rightly so. He was being a complete arse, so fair play to you.” She gave Sophie a round of applause and Gavin smiled sourly. “I’m Felicity, by the way. Look, class is about to start, but I want you to promise me we’ll have lunch together. You can tell me all about America, yeah?”

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