Very Bad Things (Briarwood Academy 1)

After a few minutes, Leo came striding down the hall with his eyes locked on mine the entire way. I deliberately scowled at him and then pointedly looked at Tiffani. He did not have the right to pull his eye whammy on me when she was right here. No way.

Tiffani squealed when she spotted Leo and ran up to meet him. She threw her T-Rex arms around him and squeaked out, “Leo! I’ve missed you, darling!”

He disentangled himself. “What’s up? Everything okay with the food order?” he asked her. I wanted to think he seemed annoyed at her, but that was debunked when she asked him if they could go upstairs and be alone, and he agreed.

Ten minutes later, she came back down without Leo. She stopped in front of us, opened her purse, and took out a compact and a tube of lipstick. Sebastian and I watched as she carefully applied it and then puckered her lips at herself, wiping the excess away with her fingers. She snapped it shut, dropped it back into her purse, and looked over at us slyly. “I don’t know why I even bother wearing makeup around Leo.” She shrugged and walked out the door.

We watched her the entire way, both of us deep in thought.

“She’s smarter than I thought,” I said.

Sebastian nodded. “Yep, that whole scene was orchestrated for your benefit. She thinks you’re a threat, always has.”

“Not anymore.”

“She’s a naturally territorial person,” he mused.

“Yeah, she reminds me those meerkats you see at the zoo. You know, they’re kinda small, excitable, and self-absorbed in hierarchy. That’s her, an evil little meerkat.”

Sebastian exploded in laughter. “Nora, you’re a nut.”

I agreed.

“What animal am I?” he asked, wrapping his arm around me as we headed to band practice.

“Still working on it, my friend. Keeps me up at night thinking about it.”

“I’m not that hard. Hell, I’m a guy. Aren’t we all open-books?”

I stopped and pointed my finger at him. “Sebastian Tyler Tate, you are not fooling me one minute with your happy-go-lucky, couldn’t-give-a-shit-about-anything attitude.” I poked him in the chest. “You got some deep stuff in there and one day somebody’s gonna come along and wham! steal your heart.”

“I seem to remember saying almost the same thing to you at Emma’s party,” he chuckled.

“And that’s why I love you. You’re always looking out for me,” I teased.

He wiggled his brows at me. “Wanna go get in the cleaning closet?”

I punched him in the arm, and he laughed, following me into the music room.

Later, when Leo came down to join us, he looked disheveled and preoccupied, and I tormented myself by wondering if they’d ended up in his bedroom again. I did my best to ignore him. He did the same.

After talking a little about the upcoming gym opening, he handed me some sheet music he’d picked out for the band to play. It was songs he and Sebastian already knew, so most of our practice would be for Teddy and Vixen. We separated so Sebastian and Leo could work through the music with Vixen while I played the pieces for Teddy.

The first song was ColdPlay’s hit “Clocks,” and I played it for Teddy while he hummed along. The second song was Five for Fighting’s haunting piano tune “100 Years,” and Teddy watched me steadily, his eyes on my fingers, his head cocked in a pronounced way. After a few times of playing them both, he said he was ready, so I listened as he played them back. Not perfect, yet it was beautiful.

“Can I hug you, Teddy?” I was feeling needy.

He flapped his arms a little. “I like to be touched by people I know.”

I leaned over and hugged him tightly.

When I pulled away, he said, “Are you happy?”

I thought about it, and discovered that, yeah, maybe I would be soon. “Some. Why?”

He stared at nothing over my shoulder. “The first time I saw you, you looked sad. Did I make you sad?”

I reached out and took his hand and squeezed. “No, Teddy, you did not, but I was unhappy that day. You know, I didn’t have many friends when I met you, so meeting you was special.”

“I’m your friend,” he said, in his sing-song way.

I smiled. “Yeah, and I’m glad you are.”

He nodded. “Okay, let’s play more music.”

The rambunctious “Great Balls of Fire” was our last song to practice, and when Teddy heard what it was, he became the most animated I’d ever seen. I played it while he paced around the piano, staring at the keys the entire time. When I got to the chorus, he suddenly belted out singing, and I grinned widely. I felt eyes on me and glanced over at Leo. He’d stopped playing his guitar and was sitting there, watching us with a small smile on his lips. I continued playing, beating on the keys with a passion that was born from the ache in my heart, knowing Leo would never belong to me.

When the song was over, Teddy wanted to tell me the details he found fascinating, and because I could appreciate his fixation, I listened.

He said, “It was first recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957,” he informed me. “And in 1986 it was used in the movie Top Gun when Anthony Edwards played it on piano and then he and Tom Cruise sang together. Anthony Edwards dies in that movie. I like Tom Cruise.”

I smiled and agreed. Then, I sat and watched him play it back for me.

By six o’clock we had finished, and all of us complained of being hungry. Since it was Friday night, Sebastian and I made plans to hang out at Gilligan’s, a nightspot that played live music, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but always served a mean hamburger.