Love You Better (Better Love 1)

“Let me see your schedule,” I say to Ivy, and she quirks a brow at me but hands it over. “Rivenbark.” I roll her last name off my tongue, accentuating the v and the k sounds. “I’m a Pierce. That’s why our banks are close.” I study her schedule some more. “You’re in English with me.” I grin over at her and she gives me a small smile.

“Cool. It will be nice to know someone.”

“You don’t have any classes with anyone from your middle school?”

“Oh, no. I’m not from here.”

Oh. That makes sense why she would be sitting alone at the assembly, then.

“Where’d you come from?” I ask her, genuinely interested, and she laughs a little.

“Bowen? It’s about two hours south of here.”

“Never heard of it. But that sucks having to move right before high school,” I say, and she shrugs.

“It is what it is.”

“Well, don’t worry Ivy Rivenbark,” I say loudly, tossing my arm over her shoulders as we round the corner into locker bank nine, “I’ll help you settle in and be your first friend.”

She looks up at me, a warm smile slowly stretching over her face, making a dimple pop on her left cheek and her blue eyes—very blue eyes, like Gatorade blue—shine through her glasses, and something weird pinches in my gut.

“Thanks, Kelley Pierce,” she says through her toothy smile. “I could use a friend.”

All day, I wait impatiently for English with Ivy. I keep looking for her in the halls but haven’t seen her yet. Every time I see a blonde ponytail, my gut does that weird pinching thing again, but it’s never her. Eyes are never blue enough or dimples aren’t deep enough or the facial expression doesn’t contain enough determination. Nope. None ‘em are enough to be Ivy Rivenbark.

When fifth period finally rolls around, I hustle into the classroom and put my stuff on one of the two-seater tables near the front. I drop my notebook onto the chair next to me, and then I watch the door.

“’Sup, Kap,” Sam Benning calls out to me when he walks in the room. “How was summer?”

“Good, man. Travel soccer and we went to Wisconsin Dells for a week,” I reply, but I don’t take my eyes off the door. When I don’t ask Sam about his own summer, he mumbles something and tries to sit next to me.

“Seat’s saved, Sam.”

“Oh sweet, is Preston in this class, too,” he asks about my best friend.

“Nah. It’s for someone else,” I tell him, and just as I’m about to tell him that I’m helping out a new student, I see a flash of blonde hair walk through the classroom door, and Sam Benning is forgotten.

“Ivy!” I practically shout, jumping up from my chair and waving at her. She startles and flushes, and I immediately feel like a jerk for embarrassing her, but then her lips turn up in a small smile that erases my self-doubt and she walks toward me.

“Kelley,” she says with a playful grin that makes her dimple

pop, clutching her books to her chest.

“Ivy,” I grin back. Is it weird that I like that she’s using my real name? “As your first friend at Morgan County High,” I take my books off the chair next to me and pull it out for her, “I saved you a seat. First friends are always table buddies.”

She raises her eyebrows at me. “They are?”

“Yeah, here they are. I don’t know how you guys did it in Boatin—”

“—Bowen.”

“Yeah, Bowen, but here at Morgan, we are always table buddies with our first friends. It’s in the handbook. Were you paying attention this morning at the assembly?” I tease.

Ivy laughs and rolls her eyes, but she sits down in the seat next to me and I’m hit with the same zing of triumph I felt when I scored the winning goal in the final soccer game this summer at camp. What the hell is that about?

The teacher tells us all to settle down. Her name is Mrs. Jolie, and I think she’s probably like eighty or something but she’s real cool. She comes to all the home sports games and dyes her hair a different color every year for homecoming. I lean over and whisper this to Ivy and she giggles, putting her hand up to her mouth to try and hide it.

Zing. Triumph again.