These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

Until Callie shocks me with her question. “Hey, what’s up?”

I blink. “What?”

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure? You were staring pretty hard at something.”

God.

Yikes.

I duck my head and tuck a stupid wayward strand behind my ear. “Uh, no. I was just… thinking about something.”

She gets concerned then. “About what? You know, you’ve been pretty quiet these days. Is something going on, Wyn? You can tell me, you know that, right? I mean, you have to know that. I love you.”

Oh God.

She noticed.

And here I thought I was being smart. I was being all slick and secretive about things.

Somehow I gather enough sense to smile and make up a bullshit reason. “I know. It’s just I’m stressing about art school applications. It’s the end of February now and I haven’t heard anything back. So I don’t know if they liked my sketches or not.”

What a wretched lie.

Not that I haven’t thought about it, about getting acceptance letters. But it’s still early to hear anything back and besides, that thought is not even remotely on my radar right now.

But she buys it.

And that makes it even more of a wretched lie. That she completely buys my concern and proceeds to make me feel better about it. Not only her, both Poe and Salem come to console me. I know they’re doing it for Callie, to make her feel included in this web of lies that I’ve created.

So when Callie leaves for the day, I breathe a sigh of relief.

I also take one last look at him.

He’s still here of course, standing at the same spot, and Helen’s right next to him, laughing and chatting. As are the rest of the faculty members. Only he’s focusing on them now instead of me and I don’t know why but that hurts even more.

I mean, he couldn’t very well stand there and stare at me, right?

A student.

So I should probably stop this urge to cry.

As I walk down the steps, I should probably stop seeing that hand, her hand, on his chest in the back of my mind or obsessing over what he’s doing here when supposedly he should be at Bardstown High.

They work together. Of course they’re going to be close to each other.

Of course.

“Bronwyn.”

I come to a jerking halt as he calls my name. From somewhere behind me. My friends come to a jerking halt as well.

In fact one of them holds my hand.

I look up to find it’s Salem.

Her golden eyes hold a hint of sadness but her smile is encouraging. I know she saw it too, him with her. And given that she’s gone through something similar with Arrow, she is lending me her support.

Poe’s support comes in the form of a whisper. “Chin up, buttercup.” She scrunches up her nose. “Or something like that. I was trying to be supportive without being inappropriate. But anyway, go get him. We’ll wait for you in your room.”

Just then we hear him come closer.

Before he addresses me, or rather my back. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

My heart begins to thud, and when Salem squeezes my hand one last time, ready to let me go, I hesitate for a second. I grow fearful for some reason. Even though I’ve wanted to see him, be with him since the moment he dropped me off back home on Friday.

But my friend gets that too.

She squeezes my hand again and whispers, “You can do this. Trust me.”

I let her go then.

Because she’s right. I can do this. Whatever this is.

I can be brave.

Breathing deeply, getting all my emotions under control so I look serene, I turn around to face him. And grow weak in the knees right away.

Because he’s got the same look in his eyes that he did before.

Only he’s much closer now and so the effect is more potent.

It’s thicker and heavier.

This possessiveness in his eyes.

“Hi,” I say softly.

His jaw clenches for a second — much more tightly than usual — when I greet him before he says, “You okay?”

For some reason his deep voice hits me differently today.

It hits me with much more force and I swallow, nodding. “Yes.”

“You got to school okay this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve gone on a visitation weekend,” I tell him to put him at ease, because his ‘good’ didn’t sound so convincing.

His jaw moves again. “And this isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to ask that question.”

I clench my thighs then and blurt out, “I went to see you this morning. In your office. It was locked though.”

His features ripple with an unknown emotion. “I’m not going to be here this week.”

Jerking out a nod, I say, “Yes, Callie told me. You’re helping out at Bardstown High.”

His chest moves with a breath and he shakes his head in disgust as he says, “The new coach apparently pulled his knee. While standing on the field. Fucking incompetent asshole. And they called me in as a favor. Instead of asking someone else on the faculty to take over. Now I have to waste my time on a team that’s never winning another game because their new coach does his job as well as he stands.”