Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 2)

Even knowing that Brody was in the same room as her, didn’t make her feel any better. He came in, filled his tray with food, passed all of his friends, and sat at a table by himself facing Mina. His posture and furrowed brows betrayed that he was in no mood to be friendly.

Nan noticed his brooding and made a comment on it to Mina. “What is wrong with Captain Popular today?”

Brody picked up his fork and stared at Mina, ignoring all conversation directed his way from his friends. T.J. tried to talk to him, but Brody brushed him off. Savannah even tried to catch his eye, but nothing she did could hold a flame to the angry glare he kept directing toward Nan and Mina.

Mina more than anyone understood what Brody was probably thinking. But she never expected to be the recipient of his indifference, and it totally discomforted her. She squirmed, fidgeted, and found it impossible to even open up her milk carton, while he looked at her. Her nerves made it impossible for her to eat, and if he didn’t stop it she was going to go hungry.

Nan noticed. “Brody Carmichael!” she hissed out loud. “Where are your manners? You should know better than to upset someone who is in a very delicate state right now.” Nan had taken on a thick southern accent while she reprimanded Brody.

Brody was completely taken aback by Nan’s abruptness.

Mina grabbed the edge of Nan’s striped shirt and pulled hard, trying to get her attention.

Nan picked up Mina’s food and put it on her own lunch tray and headed out the lunchroom doors. Mina followed behind slowly, being careful to not look around or behind her at the open mouthed Brody.

“Nan, wait up,” Mina hissed, when she entered the hallway and couldn’t find her friend.

“Over here!” Nan called out, as she poked her head out of the unlocked biology classroom.

Mina entered the class and sat on the stool at one of the lab stations while Nan redistributed their lunch. She was angry, and kept squishing and damaging their food as she tried to separate their lunches. Mina ended up with two broken cookies, a crushed bag of chips, and a very shaken up carton of two percent milk.

“The nerve of him!” Nan fumed. “Doesn’t he realize how lucky we are to have you here? There was no reason whatsoever for him to glare at us like that.” She tried to pull the wrapper off of her straw and stab it into her own carton of milk before she realized she had Mina’s chocolate milk.

Deftly Mina switched their milk cartons back as Nan continued her rant. “I mean, for goodness sake, Mina! Your face could have ended up on a milk carton if you weren’t found!” Nan held up the carton an inch from her face.

“Nan,” Mina soothed. “It’s fine. Brody’s only angry because we had an argument. I think he is just confused. He actually came to the hospital and visited me.”

When Nan’s eyes went wide in disbelief and her mouth dropped open to comment on Brody personally coming to see her, Mina quickly changed the subject. “And besides, they don’t put kids’ faces on milk cartons anymore.”

Nan’s blonde eyebrows furrowed in speculation, and she began to scrutinize her own milk carton. “Are you sure, I thought I saw it in a movie somewhere.”

Mina laughed out loud, “I’m sure, if anything, it would have been an amber alert.”

“Oh,” she said somewhat dejectedly. “I would have liked to see your face on a milk carton.”

“Nan Taylor!” Mina guffawed and shook her head. “What is wrong with you?”

Nan’s face lit up with a mischievous grin. “That’s what you get for not telling me about Brody! You don’t think you can avoid the question that easily. How come you didn’t tell me that the prince of hotness visited you in the hospital? Where was I, by the way?”

Mina fumbled a bit. “I think you were out looking for a magazine.”

“But I’m your best friend. Don’t you think you should have told me? It’s not like I would have teased you about it--much.” She did a beautiful pout, and Mina couldn’t help but apologize to Nan.

“I’m sorry; I was surprised and caught off guard.”

“It’s because you like him, I know.” Nan sighed and leaned her head on her hand. “He has almost as many hot points as Valdemar. Well, I think they are tied, for hot points. On a one to ten, they are a definite twelve.”

Mina took a bite of her cookie. “But the scale only goes to ten?” she mumbled through the crumbs.

“Not with hot points,” Nan explained. “You get an extra bonus point for being rich, and one for being a celebrity. And since that covers both of them that would make them a twelve.”

“Well, that doesn’t do us much good, since we are not a twelve.”

Nan began to pick all of the M&M’s off of her cookie and popped them into her mouth one by one. “Nonsense. We rank high in cute points.”

Mina raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “Cute points?”