Broken Hill Hearts (Broken Hill High 4)

I wriggle over so I can watch what she’s doing and manage to see the perfect, curvy outline of the balls. “Brooke,” I groan.

She looks back and realizes that I can see, prompting her to cover her work as though I’m about to start cheating off of her. “Tsk, tsk,” she grins. “No looking.”

I roll my eyes and relax into the grass. There’s nothing I can do. I just have to come to terms with the hairy ball sack that’s going to take residence on my arm. “Are you nearly done?” I ask as she begins to crush me with her weight.

“Jesus,” she groans. “Have a little patience.”

“Patience isn’t a quality I possess.”

“Clearly,” she grunts before adjusting herself and looking down at her handiwork. “There. All done.”

She hoists herself off me and pulls me up behind her so we sit back in our original places, overlooking the football field and giving me a chance to look down at the ball sack. Only, it’s not a ball sack. I grin as I take it in. The outline of the balls I thought I had seen was actually the ‘oo’ within her name. “You wrote your name,” I sigh in relief.

“Well, duh,” she laughs. “I couldn’t let you walk around with a hairy ball sack on your arm for that long. Your mom would have had the shits, and can you imagine if Jesse saw that? He’d have a detailed drawing of a vag on your arm in no time.”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “He’d even color it in too.”

“That kid,” she says, shaking her head at the thought. “You know, I’m surprised you’re still here. I thought Watkins would have given you a pass for today after everything that happened this morning.”

“Yeah, I-”

Elle cuts me off as she peers around Brooke. “I’m still pissed you knew all about Ashley and didn’t tell us.”

“Me too,” Brylee adds.

Courtney scoffs. “Count me in.”

“Come on, guys. It’s not exactly something I wanted to go and tell the world about. Nate had his plan to destroy her and if she caught wind that we knew, she would have bolted out of here like her ass was on fire. We had no choice but to keep it on the down low.”

“I get that,” Elle says. “But I really would have liked to kick her ass myself.”

“Me too,” Brylee says, repeating herself.

Court grins, needing to add her two cents. “Me three.”

I roll my eyes and go to defend myself a little more when feedback from the microphone screeches through the whole school, making people everywhere stop what they’re doing and cover their ears as we search out the source of the noise.

I mean, it could only be Watkins who would be using the microphone, especially on a day like today and besides, the bell for first break is about to go so I’m sure he has come to remind us that we all have to return to class afterward.

My eyes scan across the field where I expect to find Watkins, but I can’t see him anywhere. Murmurs start to fill the school as students try to work out what the hell is going on.

Nate’s voice comes through the speaks, singing the opening lyrics of ‘Can’t take my eyes off of you’ and my stomach drops.

“Oh, no, no, no,” I groan as I start searching through the school for the familiar bad boy.

“What the hell?” Brooke gasps beside me, pointing out the top row of the grandstand to where Nate sits, leaning forward and resting his elbows against his knees as he sings into the microphone.

He smirks as our eyes meet and the embarrassment instantly floods me. “I’m going to kill him,” I murmur. “I can’t believe he’s actually doing it.”

The students start pointing him out and it’s not long before he has the attention of the whole school. He gets up from his seat and starts winding his way down the grandstand.

Elle stands to get a better view. “Is he recreating that scene from ‘Ten Things I Hate About You’?”

“Yeah,” I laugh as the rest of us girls stand with her.

“Oh, dear God,” Brylee laughs.

We all follow her gaze to find the marching band making their way down to the field and not long after, they join in with Nate to make this the best moment of my life, despite the raging embarrassment pulsing through me.

“Holy shit,” Jesse’s familiar voice say from beside me. “You’ve turned my brother into a fucking pussy.”

“Who cares about that,” I laugh. “I’m just impressed he learned all the words.”

Jesse goes to curse out his brother a little more and I ignore him, choosing to watch the show instead.

His song wraps up and he grins like a fool as he walks forward. Brooks scoffs as she watches him but she can’t remove the smile from her face. “Now all that’s left for you to do is flash the teacher who puts him on detention for this shit.”