Nattie: Ohh. I think I’d like to watch that. You know, for educational purposes.
QB: Hilarious, smart ass. You need a ride to school tomorrow?
Nattie: Nope. I’m catching a ride with Coop.
QB: You’re breaking my heart.
Nattie: I doubt that. See you tomorrow, QB. I’ll be the new girl.
Our lazy day also leaves me with a little time to worry about any of the ramifications of Friday night that I could possibly be walking into tomorrow. No one has seen or heard from Darby since the party.
Chloe tells me to stop worrying about it. She says he is a little bitch who got put down by a girl and two guys all in one night. Hopefully, she is right, and he will leave me alone, but it still makes me nervous.
Cooper and I decide that we are going to drive together to school in the morning, and I’ll take the car home in the afternoon. He says one of the guys will bring him home after practice.
As always, I start to cry at the scene between Spiderman and Iron Man at the end of the battle in Avengers Endgame.
Cooper laughs at me. “How many times have you seen this movie? Seriously. You know what’s going to happen, and you’re still crying.” He rolled his eyes at me. “I love you, sis. Your heart is too big.”
“Shut up. At least I have a heart, Dickhead.” I throw a pillow at his head.
Of course, that’s when my dad walks in. He clears his throat to get our attention, and we both look at our father’s massive presence. “Are you two ready for tomorrow? Need money? Anything?”
“Nope. We’re good. Chloe said you use your ID Card to buy lunch, and I checked, you already preloaded our accounts.”
Cooper looks at me, confused. “Really? Mine too?”
“Yes, Coop. I checked yours too. We’re both good. I printed out your schedule for you too. You are welcome,” I say exaggeratedly.
Cooper throws his arms dramatically around me. “Thank you, Nattie.” Then he starts to tickle me until I can’t breathe.
“Cooper, leave your sister alone.”
I stick my tongue out at him. “Yeah, Cooper, leave your sister alone.”
“Are the two of you eight or eighteen? Young lady, do you have your dance schedule for the week? Do you need anything?”
“No, thanks, Daddy. I think I’m good. I’m going over tomorrow after school for Annabelle to give me everything I need for the class that I will be teaching on Wednesdays. She’s the owner, and I’m going to be working with her individually for myself too.”
“Alright, you two. Make sure you call it a night soon. Love you, kids.” And then he’s gone.
That’s probably the most I’ve heard him speak all day. He has been hidden in the home office, doing whatever he does the day after game day. He always gives his players morning meetings that day and then afternoons off to rest and recoup, and he is always moody after a loss. Cooper and I are used to it. Today was a little worse because it looks like his quarterback is out for the season.
“For once, I agree with Dad, Coop. I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.” Standing up, I stretch my arms out above my head.
“It’s gonna be a good year, Nattie. I can feel it. Senior year, baby.” He pounds his chest like King Kong.
“Oh my God, Cooper. I think Murphy is starting to rub off on you.”
“Shut it, Nattie. It’s gonna be the best year yet. I know it.”
I keep walking and answer him without turning back. “I hope so.”
The next morning, I wake up at six to get in a run before I have to get ready for school. Since leaving California, I’ve been slacking on my eating habits, and I need to start to incorporate some of my old habits into my new life if I want my clothes to keep fitting. By seven, I’ve run three miles, showered, blow-dried my hair, and gotten dressed.
Not bad for under an hour.
The warning alarm I have set on my phone goes off, telling me I have five minutes left before we have to leave for school. I take stock of my appearance in my mirror. My hair is bouncy and wavy, my makeup is minimal, and my uniform isn’t the worst thing in the world. The shoes are not cute, but the rest isn’t too bad. I’m trying my brown shoes when Cooper knocks on the door.
“We need to get moving, Nattie. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.” I put the strap of my Burberry messenger bag over my shoulder and across my chest and nearly skipped down the stairs with excitement. I can’t remember the last time I looked forward to a school year this much.
Cooper is pouring coffee into two to-go mugs and hands me the sparkly purple one. “Ready to go?”
“Ready to go.”
21
Brady
I pull into the wet parking lot and take a deep breath.
First day of senior year.
The rain stopped late last night, bringing the temp down to a comfortable 80’, but the air still feels heavy and damp. Four days from today, we play our first game of the season, and I start my final year as starting quarterback for Kroydon Prep. Next year I’ll only be going to school twenty minutes from here, but the world will be different. I’m only alone with my thoughts for a minute before the rest of our crew shows up.
I watch Natalie and Cooper get out of his Jeep. Her hair is a bouncy golden halo around her face. Her jacket is unbuttoned and framing her gorgeous body. I get out of my Range Rover and grab my navy jacket and brown leather bag before making my way over to the crowd of our friends that is starting to gather in the parking lot.
Murphy pulls up with his sister Carys. She’s a sophomore this year and looks like a smaller, prettier female version of Murphy. I hear him tell her to stay away from guys and laugh.
Walking over to where Natalie is fixing her lipstick in the mirror, I don’t even care that I’m staring. I’ve been looking at these uniforms for years, but I’ve never seen a girl make one look sexier than she does without even knowing it. The whole naughty schoolgirl thing is a cliché when all the girls around you dress like this, but man, I’ve already got a fantasy going on involving her dressed in that uniform, bent over a desk.
I hear the warning bell sound just as Murphy declares, “Alrighty ladies and gentlemen, let’s make this year our bitch!”
Everyone laughs as we all head into the old brick building together. We are the kings of this school. When people see us, they move. Not gonna lie, it’s a good feeling. Nat and Chloe are walking past me when I grab Nattie’s hand. “Did you print out your schedule, pretty girl?” She spins around, her skirt swishing around her shapely thigh, and starts walking backward, so she faces me.
“I sure did, QB. Why? Are you gonna walk me to my classes? Ask me to go steady?”
She bounces on her toes and claps her hands.
“Do I get to wear your letterman jacket, QB?” She’s laughing at me because she has no idea how right those words are.
“Oh, so I’m getting Sassy Nattie this morning, huh? And what if I do want to walk you to your class and have you be my girl? Would that be so bad?”
“Nope. I don’t think that would be so bad.” She’s beaming at me in a way that makes me want to be the man responsible for making her smile every fucking day.
Cooper shoves me. “Fucking gross, man. I’m adding a new rule. No being a moron with cheesy lines when you’re hitting on my sister. Keep that shit away from me, asshole.”
Natalie’s cheeks go crimson red, but she doesn’t stop smiling. Instead, she pulls the schedule from the outside pocket of her messenger bag and hands it to me.
Scanning it, I can see we are grouped for homeroom. That goes alphabetically, Ryan and Sinclair. Then we have the first two classes of the day together, after that, she has an AP Calculus and is back with me for lunch.
I can work with this.
“Come on, Sinclairs. I’ll show the two of you, homeroom.” Everyone else goes their separate ways.
Cooper walks in first, then I let Nat go through the doorway ahead of me, with my hand on her ba
ck. I know how these fuckers are with new students. We don’t get them that often in this school, and they are never as gorgeous as Nat is. I’m not taking any chances with someone else getting ideas.
We take seats together toward the back of the homeroom and let the teacher go through her welcome back to school speech. Locker assignments are passed out, and morning announcements read before we are dismissed a few minutes early to give us a chance to test out our locker combos.
“Come on, Nat, I’ll help you with your locker.” Reaching up, I wrap a lock of her hair around my finger. Every guy in this school will know to stay the fuck away from her by the end of this day. I might not be able to tattoo MINE on Natalie’s forehead, but there are other ways to get the point across.
Cooper and Nat’s lockers are next to each other, so we all compare schedules. Cooper is in a study hall in the cafeteria for his first class, so if he wants it, he will be allowed to have a late arrival and not start his day until the second class of the day. Lucky bastard.
Walking down the hall, fist bumps, and greetings from guys I haven’t see much of this summer are coming my way. A few girls eye me with the new girl and don’t look happy about it all.
I don’t give a shit what they think.
I guide Nat into the Chemistry Lab and sit us down at a table across from Bash. This room has multiple lab tables with two stools on each side and a small stainless-steel sink at either end. While we wait for the teacher to come in, a junior girl with dark brown hair sits down next to Bash. She looks way too happy for this early in the morning and starts talking the second she sits down.
“Oh, my God! Sebastian!” His head whips up. “I can’t believe that you don’t already have someone sitting here. You know Professor Carpenter always makes your lab partner the person sitting next to you on the first day of class! Guess it’s fate!”
Sebastian looks like a deer in headlights. He raises his eyebrows so high they are touching his hairline. Bash has never been much of a talker in school, or anywhere else for that matter. This chick just hit his threshold for interaction for the day in the first thirty seconds. He looks at Nat and me as if there is something we can do to help him. Lucky for him, real help just walked in the door.
“Junior.”
The poor girl looks up at Tiffany with a who me? look to her face.
“Yes, honey you. Candace, right? I need you to move for me. Bash was saving my seat but didn’t want to be rude. Everyone already knows that I’m rude, so sorry, not sorry. Buh Bye!”
Candace is sitting there for a second stunned, until Tiffany clears her throat and pantomimes this poor girl getting up and moving on with her hands. She quickly gathers her stuff and practically runs to the back of the room, looking like she wants to cry. As soon as she vacates the seat, Tiffany sits down and looks at us as if she did not just ruin this poor junior’s first day of school.
“Oh, come on. Sebastian didn’t want some crazy fangirl sitting here. All the girls in the school are already scared of me, so I decided to use my powers for good instead of evil. Relax, Bash. She was right—Carpenter always makes you pair up for the semester with the person you sit with on day one, and you should the thanking me. I’m kinda a chemistry genius.” I guess Tiff doesn’t realize that Bash is a secret science nerd himself.
Bash is sitting there, just staring at Tiffany as Natalie giggles. “Tiff, seriously, you made her cry.”
“Yeah, well, it’s better to be the one in control than the one everyone is trying to torture. You’ve known me for years, guys. I’m a control freak, I own that. I say what everyone is thinking but too afraid to say, and I’m proud of that. But I’m not a mean girl. I just make sure that they fear me. Fear is a form of control, and if they fear me, they won’t hurt the people close to me.
“Besides, you guys might have put the word out to the guys in school that the events of the party last Friday night is a no-go topic, but the girls don’t care what you say and won’t back off just because you said so. Let them see Natalie sitting with me, and no girl will even whisper her name. Trust me.” Tiffany reaches out and grabs Natalie’s hand. “I’ve got your back, Natalie.”
“Thanks, Tiffany. You know you’re a little scary, right?”
Tiffany laughs. “I better be more than a little scary.”
It turns out the junior was right. Natalie and I get partnered up. So do Bash and Tiff. Our foursome will also be working together throughout the semester.
Our next class is European History. Right before the late bell rings, Darby slides into class and into the only available seat, which happens to be directly behind Natalie. His left eye is swollen, black, purple, and turning yellow along the bruise’s outer edges. The other eye is not as bruised but is still slightly purple, but much less pronounced. There is a split in his cheek that has started to heal, sitting on top of the remnants of swelling and a fading purple mark.
His nose looks slightly swollen but straight. He must have had it snapped back into place. It may be four days later, but he is looking worse now than he did Friday night. He leans back in his chair and is just staring into the back of Natalie’s head.
Leaning over to Nat, I whisper, “Do you wanna switch seats?”
Before she has a chance to answer me, Ms. Scarpa, one of my favorite teachers in this school, shuts me up. “Mr. Ryan, do you have something you need to share with the class?”
Giving her my best kiss ass smile, I answer her. “I was just asking Natalie if she would like to switch seats with me, Ms. Scarpa.”
“While it is very nice of you to be concerned about her seating assignment, the late bell already rang. Translation, these are your seats for the rest of the semester. Now class, please open your laptops and pull up the syllabus to discuss. The sign-in sheet is already going around the room. Make sure that you are signing in next to your name so that your absence does not get reported to the principal’s office.”
I spend most of the class paying more attention to Darby than I do to anything Ms. Scarpa says. When he leans forward and taps Nat on the shoulder to hand her the sign-in sheet, he whispers something in her ear, and if it wasn’t for her looking directly at me and shaking her head no, I might have killed him then and there.
When the bell announcing the end of class rings, we all get up. Darby ducks out right away.
Grasping Nat’s wrist, I pull her back for a minute. “What did that asshole say to you?”
“He just said he was glad to see I was okay. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. The whole thing was strange.”
We walk over to her locker, and she stacks her books. When she turns around looking slightly frustrated, I pull her in and kiss her forehead. “Don’t let him bother you. If he says anything, you tell me right away. Okay?”
She leans her head against my chest.
I hold my hands on her hips and inhale her scent, staying like that until the warning bell rings.
Looking up at me, Nat straightens her spine. “Okay. I refuse to let him ruin the first day of school. I’ll see you at lunch.” She walks away. Her skirt swishing behind her.
I’m still leaning against the locker when Murphy stops in front of me. “What’cha looking at, QB?” He turns his head and sees Natalie walking away. “Oh, man. I do hate to see her leave, but I sure do like to watch her go.” The fucker laughs at himself.
“Bro. You should see your face, QB. I’m just kidding. Fucking relax. Come on. We’ve got gym next, and we need to get moving if we are getting to the other side of campus on time. You know coach gets pissed if we are late for his class.”
22
Natalie
Today flew by. I am already at my locker, gathering my things when Brady and Cooper walk up together. “And, how was your first day of school, Coop? Was it everything you hoped it would be?”
“Shut up.” He’s laughing as he says it. Putting his hands over his heart, Cooper acts like he is swooning. “It was everything I wished for and so much more, little sister.” That makes a
ll three of us laugh as I shove him away.
“Little sister, my ass. I am three minutes older, drama queen.” I have to refrain from actually stomping my foot right now. “Have fun at practice, boys. I’ve got to go get changed and head to dance.” I put my bag back across my chest.
“Okay. See you later, Nat.” He sprints down the hall to Tiffany’s locker.
Shutting my locker, I stand there for a second, waiting for Brady make a move.
Walk away.
Say anything.
Do something.
Leaning his shoulder against the locker, he quietly asks, “How was your day, pretty girl? Was it everything you wished for?”
I lean back against my locker and raise my eyes to his, looking up at him through my lashes. Moments like these, I thank my mother for the long lashes I was blessed with and bat them at Brady, hoping I look flirty and not like I have something stuck in my eye.
“You know, I think it was. I had this super-hot football player walk me to my classes. My new best friend was in lunch and French with me. My locker opens. And I don’t completely hate my uniform. All in all, I’d have to say it was a good day.”
“You look fucking incredible in this uniform Nat.”
I can feel the heat of my blush start at my chest and move up my face.
“So, tell me more about this super-hot football player.”
“I would, QB, but I wouldn’t want you to get jealous.”
Brady reaches up and pulls me forward with the lapels of my uniform jacket. For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me, but he just tugs me toward him so that I’m standing in-between his legs and looks at me like he wants to say something.
After a minute of waiting, I give up. “I’ve got to go.” It comes out one step above a whisper. “I have to go to dance this afternoon. I’ll be with the owner of the ballet studio I am going to be working at, and I have to run home and change first.”
“Tell me, do you wear a little pink tutu when you teach?”
All In (The Kings of Kroydon Hills Book 1) Page 12