Page 48 of The Reluctant Hero

“I thought you moved out,” I turn to the woman and cringe. “I'm sorry. I don’t know your name either.”

“It’s South,” her boyfriend says quickly.

“South,” I nod and offer my hand to her. “I’m Amanda. I’ve missed you, actually. The hallway used to be so peaceful with you around.”

She raises a brow and shakes my hand. Everyone is watching as if it’s a miracle.

“You knew I was here.”

I look at her, confused. “Yeah. We passed each other in the halls sometimes. You were in your underwear once. It kind of left an impression.”

“Who else saw?” Her boyfriend asks darkly.

“Nobody,” I snap back angrily. “It’s her body, and she can do what she wants with it, you neanderthal.”

He slowly lifts his sunglasses to give me a look of frosted death. I sigh in exasperation. “That look may work on her, but I give no fucks.”

South walks to him and strokes a hand over his cheek. His attention snaps to her, and some tension leaks out of him as their eyes meet.

“Your ex is a problem,” she says to me without taking her attention off the guy. The way they look at each other is cute and creepy at the same time.

“Duh,” I mutter as I glance at the window again. The alarm has cut off, leaving everything eerily quiet.

“You could have sex with Jake or Cade. They would make it very obvious.”

My attention snaps to her in disbelief. Everyone else has paused to look at her as if she’s lost her mind.

They might go for it if they were blindfolded. I wince at the thought and shake my head.

“I don’t want anything to do with those two. The only thing they have going for them is looking good. But not good enough to overlook their shitty, judgmental personalities. And they’ve had sex with every one of my so-called friends. The giant schlong stories gave me nightmares. Hard pass.”

Well, let’s just share everything. I sigh and rub a weary hand over my face.

“So-called friends?” South turns to face me and leans back against her boyfriend. He wraps his arms around her and eyes me in confusion. “Why?”

“One of them slept with Loser. Maybe all of them, I don’t know,” I gesture vaguely to the broken drawer and bite my inner cheek to keep myself from getting emotional.

“I find it interesting that Ace mentioned you being his girl to the class and your ex comes for a visit. Don’t you?”

“Ace?” I ask in confusion. “Who’s that?”

The scruffy guy clears his throat with a dark glare. “It’s me. And neither Jake or Cade get to fuckin’ touch you until they apologize and beg for forgiveness.”

I tilt my head to take him in. “Uh, we don’t know each other. At all. The only thing I understand about you is that you have a foot fetish, pay chicks to get pedicures, and have octopus arms. None of these things are in my wheelhouse of comfort.”

He barks a laugh that seems to surprise him and everyone else. “The pedicure was to relax, darlin’. My Mom swore by it. Your feet obviously hurt.”

My brows furrow because that’s actually sweet. His mom loves pedicures, so of course, all women do. The whole thing is still weird, though.

“That’s really sweet, but you can’t just go around claiming people.”

“Why not?” South asks without inflection.

“Because if the person isn’t interested, they might wonder when the white van full of candy and books is going to pick them up,” I deadpan back. “Stranger danger? Hello? I thought you watched murder docs.”

“Ace won’t hurt you,” she says dismissively. “Neither would any of the rest of that group. They aren’t the type.”

My eyes narrow on her, relaxing back on her boyfriend. “Why should I trust you? You’re stranger danger too.”

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