“Check out the hot, blond surfer boy sitting in the front row,” she whispers, nodding her head in his direction. Oh, wow. He is hot. Lean body, longish blond hair, and a really cute face. I’d go there. Or I would have once.
Sophia giggles loudly, catching surfer boy’s attention. He turns around and smiles at me. I smile back, fully aware that Eli is glowering at me. He looks angry and I feel a sense of satisfaction. What does he expect when he tells me that we’re over?
“Yeah, he’s cute all right.” I giggle at Sophia. She glances at Eli and smiles gleefully.
“Oh, he’s so annoyed,” she whispers.
I stare straight ahead with a smirk on my lips.
“Sophia, Jill. Both of you have detention.”
“For what?” I sputter. For smiling at another guy?
“For talking during class,” he responds, his voice cool. “Anyone else want to join them?” he asks, scanning the room. Everyone sits up a little straighter, eyes wide. Eli never behaves this way, so naturally everybody is shocked. I scowl at him. For someone scared of drawing attention to our relationship, he’s acting like a nut.
The rest of the class goes by without any more hiccups. Eli ignores me, and I ignore him. Leaving class, Sophia and I are at the door when Eli’s voice cuts through the noise of students talking.
“Don’t forget detention this afternoon, Sophia and Jill.”
I don’t even turn around. I ignore his comment and walk right out the door. Fuck him.
Sophia catches up to me as I open my locker to change my books for Chemistry next period. “What was all that about?” Sophia asks me, wide-eyed.
“Beats me. We got in trouble for talking.” I wave her off like it’s nothing. I’d rather not talk about it right now.
“It’s more than that, Jill. I know there’s more going on with you two than you tell me. Have you guys had a fight?” I was hoping she didn’t realize my boyfriend, or ex, now—was Eli, but it wasn’t hard for her to guess.
“We had a disagreement over something. It’s all good.” I slam my locker door. “C’mon, let’s get a drink before the next class.”
Chapter Nineteen
Eli
It’s unbelievably fucking hard to teach a class with Jill sitting less than twenty feet away from me.
And for her to check out a guy in the room—well, that just made me livid. What’s worse is I had to pretend indifference and ignore her when all I wanted to do was go all caveman on her and lug her over my shoulder and back into my cave.
Maybe I shouldn’t have given her and her friend detention, but I just snapped. I’m trying not to draw attention to us, but I’ve done a complete one-eighty on how I act around her. I need to be careful, or it isn’t going to take much for someone to figure out what’s going on.
Jill walks into the room, narrowing her eyes at me, Sophia on her tail.
“We’re here to report for detention,” Jill says, tossing her backpack onto a desk.
I watch her as she sinks into a seat. “Get out your homework and work on that for the next hour,” I order. I position myself at my desk with a stack of papers and begin grading, refusing to look at her.
I can see from the corner of my eye that she keeps looking up at me. I’ve been grading the same question on the same paper for ten minutes now. She’s distracting me, and all I want to do is grab her and pull her into one of the cleaner’s closets to apologize and hug her. It’s taking all my strength not to let them go now.
Walking out of the school to the parking lot, I unlock the door of my car. I’ve never been so glad for a day to be over. All my patience has gone out the window. However, I have one more stop before I can officially end my day. I need to see Dad.
“Excuse me, Mr. Anderson?”
I turn around, plastering a fake smile on my face. “Samantha. How can I help you?”
“Any chance you’d be able to give me a ride home?” She blinks at me and wets her lips, her fingers toying with the hem of her skirt, which has been rolled shorter than normal. Hell fucking no. When will these young girls get the fucking message?
How different is she from Jill? Jill is just a more brilliant version of Samantha, but in reality they’re the same age. If it were Jill that came up to me asking for a lift home, I don’t think I’d be able to turn her down.
“Sorry, Samantha, we both know I’m unable to offer you a ride home. Can I call your mother or someone for you instead?” I ask politely.