I shouldn’t have come. Cutting a bitch was already on the menu because I was on edge about the move to England. Soren was just an easy excuse. I wasn’t Lenora’s savior. I wasn’t even her fucking friend. I cared about her ass a little less than I cared about Uncle Dean’s ingrown toenail. If anything, she was corrupted by soft living. Getting pushed around a little was just what the doctor ordered.
By me.
Not anyone else.
Only. Ever. Fucking. Me.
“Throw down at three o’clock!” someone hollered, cupping his mouth.
Knight and Hunter showed up behind me. Soren’s surfer friends rushed in, too, but they stood on the sidelines, too pussy to come at me or my crowd.
“It was a joke!” Soren cried, throwing his arms up defensively.
Arabella hurried to his rescue, blazing toward us in her nine-inch heels and planting a hand on his shoulder. The entire school gathered around us in a circle, glaring.
“Oh, come on, Spence. Since when do you get butthurt over harmless fun? All the rumors on the balloons are true, anyway.”
They weren’t.
Alice never sucked me off in front of her ex-boyfriend, Jason.
The Lemke twins gave Hunter crabs, not vice versa (file under shit I really need to throw into the recycling bin of my brain).
And Lenora Astalis was a lot of things. She was not a creeper, though.
Speaking of, Good Girl peeked out in the sea of faces staring back at us. She wore her hair up in a ponytail, her eyeliner extra thick today. Combat boots like mine, and black skinny jeans with a Stone Roses T-shirt. She looked only mildly interested in the scene, yanking her huge earbuds out of her ears and tucking her Discman into the waistband of her jeans.
Arabella followed my line of sight and plastered a poisonous smile on her pink lips.
“Creeper at three o’clock. What’s up, Good Girl? Is this a figment of my imagination, or did you suck Vaughn off and get a perfect ten, so now he’s your knight in Wal-Mart armor?”
Len’s eyes widened and sliced to mine. She thought I’d told people about our kiss. Maybe worse. Arabella called her Good Girl, but that was a fluke. Truth was, I hadn’t told anyone about her nickname or kissing her. Twice. I would erase both kisses from my memory if I could.
Lenora pretended to laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself. You don’t have brains, much less imagination, Arabella.”
“That’s not a denial.” Arabella popped her finger into her mouth, sucking suggestively.
“You want an official statement?” Len rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest. “Fine. I’d never kiss Vaughn Spencer, let alone do anything more with him. I’d rather die than touch him. Happy?”
A dispassionate smirk played on my lips. “Feeling’s mutual, Astalis.”
“Ouch, Spence. That means you defended her pasty ass for nothing. She doesn’t even want you,” Arabella taunted.
Anyone with half a brain could tell from a hundred-mile radius that she was trying to rile me up. That, in itself, didn’t bother me. It was Lenora’s words that pissed me off.
I’d never.
I’d rather die.
Fuck. You.
“Defend?” A smirk curled in the corner of my mouth. “I didn’t defend anyone. The mean-girl bullshit just gets old. And boring.”
“I-I’m not a girl,” Soren pointed out, stuttering.
I threw him a disinterested glance. “But you are a pussy.”
“Liars. Both of you.” Arabella stretched like a kitten, trying to be sexy.
Soren looked between me and Lenny. They were right. If I had a penny for every time I stood up for someone who’d been bullied at school, I wouldn’t be able to afford a fucking used piece of gum.
So why her? She was the only girl at school not to give me mad respect.
“Oh shit, man. I didn’t know she was your girlfriend.” Soren cupped his mouth, his eyes glittering.
He thought she was my weakness. My Achilles heel. He thought wrong.
“She is not my girlfriend.” I yawned.
But Lenora had the poker face of a tablecloth. She was scarlet red and had her fists curled beside her body. Everything about her screamed rattled.
“I hate him,” she said, losing her footing.
It was annoying, but not unwarranted. I took her internship, manipulated her dad, bled all over her bathroom, and threw garbage at her door. It was only a matter of time until she snapped.
“Why would I ever want to be with someone like him?” Lenora shook her head, oblivious to the audience around us. “I despise him in every single way. He is a monster. A cruel bully. A fuck-up.”
Monster.
Cruel bully.
Fuck-up.
I swallowed, but grinned, cocking my head at Arabella.
See? my humorless smile said. No love lost here.
“Hmm. Still unconvinced. Prove it.” Arabella jutted one hip out, pushing her breasts in my direction, even though we were standing a few feet apart.
“You act like I give a fuck what people think. That is very unbecoming for someone who is not a complete idiot. You know what the word unbecoming means, right, Arabella? And idiot? I’m sure you’re familiar with that word, too.”