Broken Hill Havoc (Broken Hill High Series 5)

“When?”

“Right now.”

Brooke watches him for a moment before her eyes flick over to me, silently questioning if it’s ok for her to ditch me. I nod, hoping I’m doing the right thing. I mean, I don’t know a thing about this guy. “Alright,” she tells him. “But you better blow me the fuck away.”

I roll my eyes at the scene before me. I have no idea how she’s so damn confident when talking to guys. If that was me, I’d probably shit myself and start rocking in the corner.

The guy weaves his arm firmly around her waist and tugs on her, pulling her along beside him. Brooke looks back at me. “I’ll call you later.”

“K,” I murmur, giving her the ‘you better be safe or I’m going to kick your ass’ look. She nods and before I know it, Brooke and the footballer disappear out of sight.

I look at Jackson. “Do I need to be worried about her?”

“Nah,” he says. “That’s Lukas. She’s safe with him. He’s a bit intense but nothing Brooke can’t handle.”

“Oh, good,” I sigh, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “I was worried I made a mistake just now.”

“Nah, you’re good. He’ll take care of her. What are you doing now?” Jackson asks, stepping to the left to block the other guys’ view of me.

“I guess I’m going home,” I tell him. “Brooke and I were supposed to spend the afternoon together, but clearly, those plans just went to shit.”

“Alright. I’ll walk you to your car. I don’t want you walking around these douchebags by yourself,” he says, indicating with a nod of his head to the guy behind him. “Trust me, you don’t want to be left alone with that guy. I’ve seen him in action and it’s just one bad pick-up line after another. He’s relentless.”

“It couldn’t be any worse than the shit I used to get from you.”

“Come on,” he laughs making me realize just how far we’ve come over the past year. “You and I both know that was only to get under Nate’s skin.”

“Yeah,” I scoff. “Until we broke up.” Jackson rolls his eyes and offers me his arm. “Ok,” I laugh gratefully before looking back over my shoulder and giving the guy an encouraging smile. “Chin up. Maybe next time.”

And just like that, Jackson leads me away from the group of footballers all staring at my ass, making me realize that maybe Nate had a point to be concerned after all.

Oh well. With the change of plans, that gives me so much more time for Nate to make up for our missed opportunity before. Imagine all the things we could get up to.

Chapter 3

I sit cross-legged on my bed with my face buried deep into yet another textbook while my hundredth yawn in ten minutes pulls from deep within my body. This is getting ridiculous. I promised myself that I’d take Sunday off, but when I thought about all the work that was starting to build up, I couldn’t stop myself. I had no choice but to get some of this shit out of the way otherwise the next seven days are going to kill me.

I need to learn how to manage my time better. I don’t see other students with their heads constantly in textbooks like me. I mean, am I doing too much studying? I’m just trying to be perfectly prepared for each class. This is an opportunity I can’t afford to screw up.

This isn’t some stupid high school class that I can sleep my way through. This is college. College. I can’t be stuffing this up. These classes are preparing me for my future and I’ll be damned if I didn’t give it my absolute all. I mean, I don’t plan on failing my way through college only to not get into Harvard Law School at the end. I plan on killing it and having my Harvard application accepted in the blink of an eye.

“Tora, honey?” I hear mom calling out from the bottom of the stairs. “Can you come down here for a minute?”

I groan and search my bed for my bookmark before slipping it in between the pages of my textbook. I scoot myself off the edge of my bed and plant my feet on the ground, hating how my head begins to spin when I stand up too fast. I’d like to blame it on the fact that I’ve been studying so much lately, but if I was honest with myself, it’s probably more of the fact that I haven’t been eating so great. I’ve been eating only when I remember and it’s probably not the best way to retain the information I’m trying to read through.

I trudge down the stairs, wishing mom could leave this until later. I could really do with a nap and a painkiller before getting started on my English essay while not having a life. I mean, I kind of miss Nate. He only left a few hours ago but I’m not used to spending my Sundays without him. Usually, Sunday’s are dedicated to lounging around the house in each other’s arms and taking advantage of one another’s body, but not now. When I told Nate I needed to study this morning, hurt flashed behind his eyes before he said that he wanted to go into the shop because a new part came in yesterday.