Page 43 of The Perfect Catch

I ground my teeth together and focused on keeping my hands at my sides. Students filed past us, some stopping to watch the scene unfold.

“I’m thinking I could take her somewhere a bit more intimate,” he said, grinning. The next words out of his mouth had my skin crawling, lewd comments about what he’d do to her.

Before I could restrain myself, my fist flew up and slammed into his jaw, sending his head snapping back.

His hand raised to touch the spot where I’d hit him, and his devilish smile returned. “Just wait, Stratton. You’ll be expelled before the day is through.”

Instead of fighting me like I thought he would, he turned and walked down the hall toward the principal’s office. So much for graduating with my friends here at Rosemont.

Chapter 33

Kate

Buzz was all I could interpret when I walked into my eighth-period class. I’d been delayed getting back from lunch as I had to run an errand for Ms. Shiels, and the hallways had already been cleared when I walked into the building.

I took a seat next to Melissa, one of my student body officers, and whispered, “What’s going on?”

She turned to me, her eyes raised to her hairline. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?” I glanced around the room, trying to piece it all together.

It had been a rough weekend as it was, with the whole Dax thing going down. My chest still hurt much more than it should have with us hanging out for less than three weeks. But I still liked the boy, liked the fact that he was my Mystery Kisser. But I didn’t know how to approach the subject again. He was already mad about the Trent Jacobs date night, so how was I going to get past that betrayal?

“There was a fight,” Melissa began.

“Dax and Trent,” the blond-haired sophomore girl in front of Melissa chirped in.

Jeff, behind me, piped up. “It was epic. Dax threw a punch like you wouldn’t believe. I was sure Trent was going to have some kind of neck issues after that one.”

My mind swirled with all the information, and I couldn’t figure out my own emotions. Dax hit Trent again? That meant he was in big trouble. Like, bigger than just the normal. Would Mr. McKee expel him? A pit formed in my stomach, and I wanted to find him and make sure he was okay.

“Why did he hit him?” I asked.

The group went silent for several moments before Melissa looked at me and said, “Because of you.”

“What? Dax is mad at me for a lot of things right now.” I was trying to see which side was rooting for me. Knowing Trent’s awful sense of humor, I was hoping it was Dax who had punched him in defense of me for something.

“Because Trent was saying some pretty awful stuff about you, demeaning stuff, like you were just a trophy on his arm and what he would do to you and stuff like that. Dax tried to hold back but ended up landing a punch to Trent’s right cheek.” Melissa bobbed her head. She must have seen the whole thing.

“I can’t wait to see how that black eye turns out,” Jeff said, a giddy laugh coming from him.

As much as I disliked Trent, that seemed a bit harsh. “That’s not something we should be happy about.”

Jeff shrugged, and the teacher stood at the front of the class, ready to instruct us on science. My brain spun, and as each moment passed, I got more and more excited that Dax had actually punched someone for me. For me, Kate Adams. I had a lot of people who liked me and helped me with things, but I’d never had someone go to such lengths to defend me.

My hand shot into the air, and I waved it around, trying to get my teacher’s attention.

“Yes, Ms. Adams?” he said, his voice sounding ornery since I’d interrupted his lecture.

“May I use the hall pass?” It was about the only way the guy would let me leave. If I said I had to go rescue the guy I had a major crush on, I’d definitely get turned down for that one.

“I really have to go, sir,” I said, giving him a grimace.

“You were already late to this class.”

“Please, please?”

When he shook his head, the scariest thing I’d done in a while was stand up and dash out the door.

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