Broken Hill Hurt (Broken Hill High 3)

Brooke grins. “You’re on. Twenty says she tries to fuck Tyson by the end of the week.”

I reach out and shake her hand. “Twenty says she does ‘an Elle’ and tries to do them at the same time.”

“Hey,” Elle demands, pretending to look offended.

“You going to deny it?” I tease.

She rolls her eyes and quickly glances around. “Don’t knock it till you tried it.”

“Ewwww,” I groan as Brooke raises a curious eyebrow. “You two are such skanks.”

“Don’t give me that innocent bullshit,” Elle says as I watch Jesse across the cafeteria storming his way through the door with a desperate urgency that has me straightening in my seat. “You were with Nate Fucking Ryder for months. You can’t tell me that a guy like that didn’t want to get a bit… nasty in the bedroom.”

My face flushes but I can’t take my eyes off Jess. Especially as he drops down beside Nate and starts hauling something out of his bag. “I am so not talking about this with you guys.”

Brooke gasps as her eyes widen. “Tell me,” she begs. “What did you do?”

Nate’s eyes flick up to mine for the quickest moment, but the second he sees me already looking, he turns straight back to Jess, telling me this is something important, and there’s only one thing that could be so important to have Jesse storming in here, desperate to show Nate whatever he’s got hiding in his bag. The fire.

I push up to my feet as I grin down at Brooke and Elle. “You whores can get lost. I’m not spilling anything.”

They call after me to get my ass back there, but I’m on a mission. I need to know what he’s got in his bag. I practically barge people out of my way as I watch Nate and Jesse focused on a whispered conversation. They both get up and head for the door but I’m right behind them, neither of them in the right mind to even notice me here.

I slow and wait until they push out the doors before I call them out. “Hey,” I demand, making them both spin around with wide eyes. I’m sure if this is about the fire, they were going to try their hardest to keep it from me. “What’s going on?”

Jesse blanches as Nate’s eyes take me in. I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night. It’s only been looks from afar and they’re killing me. I haven’t had a chance to call Jesse out for sending his brother either, but when I do, he better watch out. But now is not the time.

“Nothing,” Nate says. “Go back and eat your lunch.”

“I did eat my lunch,” I tell him with narrowed eyes as I turn on Jesse. “What’s in the bag?”

His eyes widen a fraction. He’s not beyond lying but to me, he wouldn’t and besides, I can see right through him. Nate cuts off whatever he was still trying to come up with and softens his eyes, trying to pull one over on me. “Really,” he says softly. “It’s nothing.”

I step into him and he can’t help but lift his hand to my waist. “Nate, are you forgetting that I’m madly in love with you?” I ask, looking up with an impatient raised eyebrow while secretly loving being so close to him, despite how pissed off I am with him. “That means that you can bullshit everyone else except for me.”

“Tora,” he groans. “Please, just stay out of this one.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. It’s about the fire, isn’t it?” He doesn’t say, but it’s clear in his eyes. I turn to Jess. “What’s in the bag?”

Jesse’s eyes flick up to Nate for a brief moment before he drops down and starts pulling something out. “It’s the jacket.”

My eyes widen as he hands it over. “You mean, the one the person used to ‘try’ and put out the fire?”

“The very one,” he confirms.

“How the hell did you get this?” I ask as Nate drops his hand to give me room to hold the jacket and look it over. “It’s a girl’s jacket,” I gasp.

“Yeah,” Jess says, skipping over my question on how he got it in the first place. “That’s what I was just telling Nate.”

“Shit, I could have sworn it was a guy who did it,” I sigh as I look back to Nate. I mean, all this time I’ve been studying every move of all the guys around me. At one stage I would have said it was Jackson, but he’s more of a fist kind of guy. Actually, come to think of it; a fire is more of a girl thing to do. You know, that way she has something doing the dirty work for her. “Apart from me, which girls have you fucked over lately?”

“Me?” he gasps. “What about you?”