Page 84 of Cookout Carnage
‘Where did you learn how to do that?’
He shrugged. ‘Watched it on the telly. I had no idea if it would work. I was just trying to show off.’
He opened her locker, then pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. On the end was a tiny torch, less than the size of a finger. He shone it inside.
‘Tris, no!’
She pushed herself between him and the locker, trying to get him out of the way.
He looked down at her. The corner of his mouth turned up. She was now sandwiched between the locker and him. She swallowed.
‘So,’ he began, his voice low. ‘Who is LH?’
His body was pressed up against hers. She stared at his lips as they formed words. Her brain struggled to process what he was saying – it was too busy screaming at her to kiss him and kiss him NOW.
‘What?’ she asked breathily.
‘Well, Hot Sauce. There appears to be a heart scratched into the back of the locker, and inside are two sets of initials.’ His words were conversational but his voice dropped several registers. ‘I’m using my incredible powers of deduction to assume that SB stands for Sherilyn Boden, but the question remains, who is LH?’
Her heart thumped inside her chest. She couldn’t remember how to speak.
‘Was he the star quarterback? Class Valedictorian? The bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks?’
‘M-Lucas Hagen,’ she stammered.
‘Ahhh,’ he said, the warm exhale caressing her cheek. ‘We’re getting somewhere. And who, pray tell, was Mmm Lucas Hagen?’
Sherilyn’s mind was so caught up watching the movement of his mouth, she failed to pay attention to what hers was doing.
‘My math teacher.’
His eyes widened slightly behind his glasses, then he smiled.
‘Maths.’
‘Math.’
‘Mathsssssss,’ he replied, the ‘ssss’ a soft stroke across her skin.
‘Math,’ she said slowly, letting her tongue linger between her teeth before the ‘th’.
He stared at her lips hungrily, then reached to his side.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.
He held up a tiny penknife and flicked out the blade.
‘Fixing something.’
He leaned past her into the locker.
She pressed her face into his chest, feeling the heat, the movement of his muscles, hearing the sound of metal on metal. She breathed in deeply. He smelled exactly as she had imagined. Clean, crisp, masculine. Her arms had been hanging beside her but now she lifted them between them, holding onto the sides of his vest, her fingertips brushing under the edges. His heartbeat against her, his breathing deep and fast. He pulled back, pocketed the penknife and looked down at her. His cheeks flushed.
‘What was he like? Mr Hagen? Do I need to be jealous?’
She shook her head.
‘He had short brown hair,’ she whispered. ‘Blue eyes. Glasses.’
