Priceless (Forbidden Men 8)

He didn’t know.

No one had told him about me.

He hadn’t been writing his heart out to me these past few days and treating me like a normal, regular girl from the kindness of his heart. He’d been doing it because he actually thought I was a normal, regular girl.

I swallowed, and the muscles in my stomach not only tightened this time, but they wound themselves together in complicated little snaking knots. Like Chinese button knots.

I felt like a cheater, as if I’d tricked him into befriending me by not telling him about my condition. But honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to me. Everyone else had always been so eager to tell newcomers about me that I’d never had to explain it to anyone myself. So naturally, I assumed his brother or someone had already filled him in on the whole cerebral palsy, wheelchair, seizures, speech impediment thing.

He was going to be so mad when he learned the truth. No one here wanted to befriend the cerebral palsy girl. What had I been thinking to even hope that Brandt Gamble might?

I was about to wheel away and escape down the hall when I saw him bite his lower lip and glance around him again, as if he was looking for something. And it struck me he was. He was looking for me because I’d promised to meet him.

A ten-second debate took up residence in my head. Approach him like I’d been planning to do before I’d seen him step from the office, or run away like the coward I was. I really—really—wanted to flee. I hated seeing revulsion on people’s faces when they looked at me, and I had a feeling an expression of disgust coming from him would break me.

All my life, I’d thought of myself as some kind of lower life form. My mother treated me as if I were an idiot. She probably had no idea I could actually form rational thoughts and feel feelings all on my own. And Mason...I loved my big brother to death, but he was too concerned about being protective and making sure everyone treated me with respect to realize how trapped I was in my own skin.

It wasn’t until Reese came along and saw me inside my shell of a body that I began to realize I didn’t have to let my limitations actually limit me. I had just as much right to be alive as anyone else on earth. I didn’t have to be ashamed of...well, myself.

Then again, I’d only known Reese a little over eight months now, not all that much time for her to really strengthen my ego. So when I found myself in a situation I wasn’t sure how to handle, I reverted back to my old pitiful-Sarah self, feeling unworthy compared to every other human on the planet.

But Brandt kept hovering there, waiting for me to show. I couldn’t let him down. Plus, I had no idea what I’d tell him when he logged onto Facebook later and demanded to know why I’d flaked out on him.

Beginning to look lost and abandoned, he backed closer to the wall of the hall and tightened the strap of his book bag higher on his shoulder. Unable to let him experience another moment of uncertainty, I motored my wheelchair across the traffic of streaming students and started toward him.

Determined to do this, I plowed forward with maybe a bit too much speed. When he noticed my harried approach, his eyes flared and he stumbled backward to get out of my path. But I turned, following him before braking so fast that the wheels of my chair screeched out a high-pitched whine against the tile floor.

“Uh...” Brandt glanced around him as if seeking instruction as to the proper etiquette when one was accosted by a girl in a wheelchair before he veered his confused gaze back to me.

He had blue eyes, a dark, piercing navy that made the nerves in my stomach shudder madly and my palms turn clammy and gross. I stared up at them a second longer, overwhelmed as he gaped at me, before turning my attention to the computer on my lap. My fingers twitched as they hovered over the keyboard, and I contemplated what to say.

Hi, I’m Sarah?

No, too lame.

Nice black eye.

Ack. That was worse.

Needing to say something—anything—I poked out Welcome to Ellamore Middle School only to erase it and merely say Hey Brandt. Then I looked up at him expectantly. I was so nervous how he’d respond I could hear my heartbeat pound through my ears. What if he laughed at my pathetic-ness, walked away, and never talked to me on Facebook again?

He blinked, his confusion only growing, and I wondered if I should’ve actually spoken the greeting. But I hated talking, so I avoided verbal communication whenever possible.

Finally, Brandt dropped his gaze to the screen of my laptop. His eyebrows bunched with shock. “You—” Then he tilted his head to the side as he reread the message. Blue eyes flashed back to my face. “Wait. How did you know my name?”

This was where I was supposed to confess I was Sarah, the girl he’d been dishing his entire life story to online these past few days.

But for some reason, I just couldn’t do it yet, so I typed I’m psychic instead.

He blinked at the two words and those expressive eyebrows of his arched, disappearing up under his shaggy bangs. When he lifted his attention from my tablet to my face, I wrote, Or maybe it’s written on your shirt.

After reading the next line, he immediately checked out the front of his shirt.

I laughed, making him spear me with a surprised glance. So I finally gave in and wrote, Or maybe because I’m Sarah. Then I bit my lip and waited for the fallout.

But that explanation seemed to confuse him more than all the others.

“Huh?” he said, frowning.