Somethin' About That Boy

“Maybe he won’t know.” He laughed as he started to walk the bike away from the curb.

Once it was steady, he began accelerating down the length of my street.

Old Mrs. Quincy scowled at us as we drove past her walking her dog.

The dog jumped and barked, as per his usual, and Mrs. Quincy scowled even harder, raising her fist as if that was going to do something.

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as we rode.

Sadly, just as quickly as it started, it ended, leaving us at the back of the parking lot at the school.

Titus got out of his truck a couple parking spaces down and stared at the two of us.

I ignored him and looked at all the other seniors that were staring.

I sighed.

“Are you sure about this, Ban?” I asked softly.

His hand met the heated skin of my neck, squeezing lightly before dropping his hand again. “It’ll be fine.”

I rolled my eyes and half-ass listened to Titus talking to him about the game today.

The volleyball game that he and all of the football team were going to.

Blue was just going to love that!

“What time is it?” Banner asked curiously, catching up to me and tugging my hand free of my pocket to thread his fingers through mine.

“Right after practice,” Titus answered. “Coach usually ends it a bit early so we can go. He understands the need for us to show our support.”

I snorted and turned to say something to the two of them just as an old Chevy pickup whipped into the parking spot I was cutting across, nearly hitting me head-on.

I gasped just as Banner pulled me back into his chest.

Heart pounding, I looked up over the hood of the truck to the person driving, unsurprised to see Vance sitting in the driver’s seat laughing.

The motherfucker.

Banner tugged me to the side and around the truck, offering Vance a withering glare as we moved.

“He could’ve fucking parked anywhere,” Titus muttered.

Slone caught up to us, as did Abbott.

“I don’t understand why he followed you,” Titus grumbled.

“Hey!”

I looked to the side to see Tempy running toward us.

She skipped and hopped over a few mud puddles, but missed the last one that splashed water all over her brand-new shoes.

“New shoes?” I asked curiously.

“Yes,” she sighed. “I needed some new ones last week, but Mom couldn’t afford them. Now I’m going to have to run in these tomorrow, and it’s going to suck.”

I winced.

Running in new shoes wasn’t something that I would want to do. Especially on our longest course of the year.

It was really going to suck for her.

“Maybe it’ll slow you down enough that I can catch you.”

Slone snorted, causing me to look at him with an eyebrow raise.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re not gonna catch her,” he said. “It takes a lot for us guys to catch her.”

He had a point.

And before I could say that, he walked off, joining Graham and Tatum at the front doors of the school.

Tempy watched him go, and I touched her arm to bring her attention back to me.

Her eyes flashed and she smiled at me, looking lost for a few moments.

“Sorry,” she said. “Head’s in the clouds.”

Yeah, right.

Her head wasn’t in the clouds. Her head was filled with Slone.

Big difference.

Banner caught my hand and started to lead me inside right behind Tempy, and I saw the reason why when I looked over my shoulder upon hearing a commotion and saw Vance pushing his way through the crowd of students to catch up to us.

Banner didn’t let him get a chance to get close, though.

Because instead of stopping and chatting with the rest of his friends, he hauled me straight to our first class.

When we got seated, he took my backpack from my shoulders and unpacked his bag from mine, grinning when he saw a pink pencil in the bottom of my bag and stole it. Right along with a plastic bracelet that had silver glitter floating inside of it.

Like one of those bracelets you won at an arcade.

In fact, it had been won at an arcade. Last year sometime during our junior trip to the aquarium.

I saw it every day. I just didn’t have the time or inclination to clean out my backpack.

“This is cute,” he said, trying to fit it onto his wrist.

I snorted. “It is… absolutely adorable on you. You should wear it for always.”

He sat down in his seat and worked the bracelet over his big hand, moving it in such small increments that I was worried it’d get stuck or break.

It didn’t do either and eventually made its way over his big ass hand and onto his big ass wrist.

“You’re never going to get that back off,” I teased.

He winked at me, holding it up for me to inspect.

“I can have it on in football,” he said. “It can’t dangle. That’s the only rule.”