My Darling Arrow (St. Mary's Rebels 1)

I’m not wearing any lipstick either.

There’s no use wearing it if I can’t pout my lips at him and get punished for it.

Oh and tonight I’ve chosen to not dance as well.

So I’m sitting by the bar with Wyn, who has a sketchbook out, while Poe flirts with a guy at a nearby table and Callie is off somewhere.

With Reed Jackson.

He was already here when we all came in and since his dark eyes were pinned to the door, he spotted Callie right away. And since Callie already knew he was going to be here, she flirted with her bartender friend and danced with a few guys before disappearing.

As friends, we should be more worried about the fact that she completely vanished from sight.

But as friends, we also know that there’s something between her and him. Something crazy and volatile and well, epic.

And then there are her nightly outings, which only she and I know about, but still.

So we’re not as worried as we should be.

But anyway, my no-dancing-tonight rule breaks when Callie’s bartender friend, who I’ve come to know by sitting close to him for the past hour is a great Lana Del Rey lover like me, asks me to dance while on a break.

He doesn’t even give me the time to refuse him but picks me up and spins me around to the tune of one of the most depressing songs, which I happen to love, “Pretty When You Cry” by Lana.

Surprisingly, I laugh.

It’s the first time I’ve laughed all week, I think. I can’t believe I’m doing it to the song that I’ve most cried to while pining over the guy I love.

That’s how he finds me a few minutes later.

The guy I love, I mean.

Out of nowhere he’s here and he finds me laughing and dancing, swaying in the arms of another man.

For a moment, I think I’m imagining him, which can’t be so far-fetched because while I was dancing with Will, who’s burly and bearded, I was picturing him. My Arrow.

But then I get a good look at him.

He’s wearing a suit jacket – a wrinkled thing now, something that I know he only wears during his events with the team. Plus his hair looks messy too, messier than I’ve ever seen before. All the sun-struck strands have fallen into disarray.

Not to mention, he doesn’t have his baseball cap on, the one he usually wears to public places.

He looks so different than the usual and yet so familiar at the same time that I know he’s here.

He’s back from LA and somehow, he knew to find me at the bar. Well, it’s Friday and I have a habit of sneaking out. So it’s not really far-fetched.

But still.

He’s here.

I stop dancing as soon as the knowledge sinks in and the heaviness and chill of the past week lift from my body.

I’m warm now. And happy and…

I realize something is very wrong when he begins to move toward me.

Because while my lips are stretched into a wonder-filled smile and my eyes are wide with happiness, Arrow looks the exact opposite.

He appears tight and unforgiving.

His lips are pinched and his eyes are slitted. And instead of them being pinned on me, they’re glued on Will as he marches toward us with lunging, violent steps.

Holy fuck, I understand why.

Because I was dancing with him, with another man and because Arrow told me not to.

He told me to never let another man put his hands on me and I broke his rule, and now he looks like he’s going to kill that man.

Oh God.

I’m an idiot. He’s an idiot too because nothing was happening anyway and I have to go stop him before he does something crazy.

I break apart from Will, who looks at me with astonishment. But I don’t have the time to explain. I have to stop the bulldozer of a guy who’s very quickly coming upon us and who’s sitting out the season because he did something similar. And if his words from the night he took my virginity hold any truth to them, no one will be able to pull him off Will until Arrow actually murders him.

So I rush over to intercept him and we meet a few feet away from the bar counter.

I put both my hands on his stomach, palms wide open, and I swear it’s like stopping a giant boulder.

“Arrow, stop. No,” I tell him, hoping and praying he listens to me before anyone else gets wind of the fact that The Blond Arrow is among them and he’s very angry.

His jaw tics at my voice but he hasn’t looked away from Will.

I fist the gray-colored dress shirt he’s wearing. “Arrow. Please. He’s just a friend.”

At this, finally, he looks at me.

It feels like he does it in slow motion. His eyes shifting away from Will, his spiky eyelashes flicking down and his gaze, so dark and intense, coming to rest on me.