Broken Hill Hurt (Broken Hill High 3)

“Ok,” I grin. “Same goes for you. I’m sure there’s a lot of tramps here, dying to bag themselves a Ryder brother.”

“In that case, I better let them know where I am.”

“Shut up,” I laugh, pushing him away.

He leaves me with my girls and it’s not long before we find ourselves getting up to mischief, especially when we see Maxen arrive with a girl on his arm. I expect Brooke to break down and want to leave, but instead, she surprises the shit out of me and we put a plan in place.

“Alright, ladies,” she says putting her hand in the center of our circle. “You all know your jobs?”

“Got it,” I say, putting my hand in the center, on top of hers.

The girls do the same and on three, we break.

I laugh like a hyena as I duck down and dart out of the middle of the dancers. I run around the tables of food and drinks, knowing there’ll be a box or bucket hiding around here somewhere. I spy Brooke out the corner of my eye and burst out laughing.

Nate catches my eye next and with one look from him he knows we’re up to something, but I’m too excited to stop. I throw every ounce of my concentration back into searching for my boxes and find two little tubs filled with ice that aren’t actually being used.

Perfect. My grin rips across my face so big that it’s nearly to the point of pain.

I grab the two tubs and go to tip the ice out when I think better of it. I’ll definitely keep the ice. I hurry down to the water’s edge and go to start filling the bucket with water when Brooke’s laugh cuts me off. “Wait,” she cackles. “I’ve got something better.”

She produces two big bottles of red soda and I burst out laughing as she cracks them open and starts filling the tubs. I mean, this is going to be incredible.

A few minutes later, we meet the girls at our rendezvous spot and look over what we’ve all managed to come up with. Elle holds a bag of crusty old leaves and has practically mulched them into tiny little pieces. Courtney managed to find some baby powder, though, I have absolutely no idea how she found that here, and Brylee must have raided an old bird’s nest in the woods as she’s found a whole bunch of dirty feathers. “I hope you’re going to wash your hands after touching that,” I grunt with a grin.

“Well, duh,” she grunts, rolling her eyes.

“Right,” Brooke says, too eager for our bullshit banter. “So, this is how it’s going to happen.”

Precisely three minutes later, we all look over our shoulders and double check that Maxen is still with his date and we make our move.

We split up so he doesn’t see us coming and I walk right by Nate and Jesse who look at me with deep curiosity, but I don’t dare stop. Brooke needs this as bad as I want to be a part of it.

We surround Max at all angles and the idiot doesn’t even look up to notice us here. “NOW,” Brooke yells.

In the blink of an eye, Brooke and I throw our icy red soda all over Maxen from either side, making sure to drench him from head to toe. He gasps out in shock as the girl shrieks. Before Max has a second to even figure out what the hell is going on, Elle and Brylee come in with the leaves and feathers which magically stick to the red soda that’s busy soaking into his white shirt.

As soon as they step out of the way, Courtney faces him front on. “This is for cheating on my girl,” she scolds him before raising the baby powder and letting him have it.

I fall to my knees in uncontrollable laughter with Brooke by my side. My stomach hurts and protests but I can’t stop. “He,” gasp, “looks like,” gasp, “a red snowman,” Brooke howls.

“I know,” I laugh, wrapping my arms around my stomach.

I can’t stop watching him. The guy is furious but he doesn’t dare come and face the wrath of Brooke, especially with the eye of every person at this party on him. Instead, he pulls his keys, wallet, and phone out of his pocket, slams them into Tyson’s chest and rips his shirt off over his head before stalking towards the water and washing off the sticky red and white mess.

“How humiliating,” I grunt beside Brooke. “Washing off in front of everyone here.”

“Yep,” Brooke agrees, but when I look across at her, the fun has gone from her eyes and I realize that she hates herself for hurting him like this. After all, she’s still in love with the guy, but deep down, she knows she needed it to help her move on.