Page 4 of A Little Bit Reckless
I wet my lips, refusing to give any more of my thoughts to that girl, and something inside me eased a little as I watched Dad. He didn’t look so angry as he glanced at the app. The tension across his eyebrows even eased.
Dad’s eyes flicked up. “You’re serious.”
“I am.” I nodded. I put my phone away. “I wanted to be proactive about the probation. I want to do better in school.”
I was going for an Emmy award with this acting at this point, but I held steadfast to my performance. I didn’t like lying to my dad, my parents, but this was culinary school we were talking about. As far as I was concerned, I had no choicebutto lie.
Dad rubbed his neck. “Fine. I’ll hold off on the extremes. I won’t cut you offfor now,” he said, and I released a breath. Dadpointed at me. “But I need you to fix this situation, Wells. You better take this tutoring thing seriously.”
“I will, sir.” And I would. I’d find a real tutor first thing. I’d do anything I had to in order to secure my future.
I finally released all the breath I had in my chest when my dad nodded. He left the room, but my mom stayed.
“I’m so glad you’re getting ahead of this and using Bow’s app,” she said, grinning. She squeezed my arm. “That’s amazing, honey. Really.”
My mom hugged me, and I was sure the hug had to do with the first thing she said. She was happy I was taking school seriously, but, as she squeezed so hard and wouldn’t let me go, something told me a lot of the hug had to do with thelastthing she said.
Gritting my teeth, I hugged my mom back. I let her relish in whatever win she believed was occurring here. She clearly thought, in some capacity, I had no problem utilizing Bow Reed’s services. I had no problem usingBowfor help. This was a win for my mother and I knew why.
My mom loved Bow, like all my friends’ moms did. They loved her because our families were close yes, but they also fell for Rainbow Reed’s bullshit. In fact, I was sure everyone in this fucking town thought that girl walked on water.
But I was the only one who lived the soul-crushing truth.
CHAPTER
TWO
Bow
My phone buzzed with a number I didn’t recognize. My heart in my throat, I sent it to voicemail, then added the number to my blocked caller list. I tried to ignore all the numbers that were already there. There were a lot, dozens.
“Excuse you.”
The rude guy who spoke clipped me, and I stumbled forward. I’d been walking while texting, dumb I knew, but he was rude and didn’t have to speak to me that way. I pocketed my phone. “Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention but didn’t go out of my way to run into you.”
It was an accident and this guy didn’t need to be a jerk about it.
He pivoted, as if to tell me off, but as soon as he made eye contact with me, his eyes flashed. He was a big guy and challenged the size of my brother, Thatcher, who was a huge football player. He lifted his hands. “Yeah, no.”
Shaking his head (aggressively), he backed away and almost ran into someone whilegetting awayfrom me. There was a lot of traffic coming out of the library. I was heading there myself.
“Tell Wells I don’t want no trouble,” the big guy mumbled, and, as soon as he said that, nearly everyone coming out of the library faced me.
They averted their eyes.
It was like I had an incurable disease after that. Everyone walked in the opposite direction and definitely made no eye contact.
God.
Used to that, I hugged my books. I shrunk into myself. Normally, people treating me like a social pariah made me sick, but currently, it worked to my advantage. I didn’t want to be acknowledged, seen.
Darting my head around, I weaved through all the traffic coming out of Pembroke University’s main library, then entered myself. This was the largest library out of several at my Ivy League, and I spent a lot of time there. It was easy to blend in and hide amongst all the shelves.
I was always hiding.
I didn’t feel like I had a choice right now, and I was well aware of the phone burning into my hip. It hit my thigh every time my pleated skirt moved.
Why won’t he stop calling?
