Catch Twenty-Two

by James, Marie

  “He’s attending Westover Prep.”

  “What?” Her brow furrows in confusion, but I don’t know how to be any clearer than I have been.

  “And my parents just told me this morning that he’s going to be staying with us until his mom can find a place to live in town.”

  Piper looks just as shocked as I feel, but she doesn’t offer a solution.

  Before I can ask her what I should do, a chill rushes down my spine as the air shifts around us. I know exactly what it means, but it’s too soon. Mom said he was driving in today, but sure enough, when I turn around, I see Ezekiel Benson standing at the other end of the hallway. He’s the new kid in school, so how is he standing there looking like he’s belonged in these halls his entire life?

  Chapter 31

  Zeke

  For most people, walking into a brand-new school the first day of their senior year would cause stress or anxiety, but I’m too over it already for it to bother me. There was no talking my mom out of making this move, but to make matters worse, she’s not even in Colorado yet. Worse than that, she informed me that I’ll be staying with the Youngs, as in Frances Young’s parents.

  With Frankie.

  I’ll be living under the same roof as the girl who left me in Utah without so much as a see ya later.

  Mom didn’t give me a timetable, but from the conversation we had, it could be several weeks before she finds a place for us.

  A. Couple. Of. Weeks.

  Weeks.

  Weeks close enough to touch her. Weeks spending time in the same house, going to the same school.

  I’m going to go out of my damn mind.

  I got into Westover at two this morning, opting to get a few hours of sleep in my old truck before school. I refused to knock on their door in the middle of the night, no matter how badly I wanted to see her and press my nose into her delicately scented hair.

  Ignoring every other person in the hallway, my eyes float around until they land on Frankie. My memories didn’t do her justice at all. She’s so fucking gorgeous, her silky brown hair hanging in waves around her shoulders. The vibrant color of her shirt makes her gray eyes pop against her milky skin.

  I haven’t really looked at anyone else, but I still know she’s the prettiest girl in this school.

  “Look out!” someone yells, ripping my attention from the girl at the other end of the hall.

  On instinct, I lift my hands and catch a wayward football before it slams into some girl’s head. I toss it back to the idiot, using as much force as I can manage. He catches it in his gut with an oomph.

  “That was awesome!” someone praises, and when I look over, I see a cluster of girls in cheerleading uniforms smiling at me. They clap and smile like I’ve just scored a touchdown in a state championship game. Clearly, it doesn’t take much to impress these people.

  When my eyes find Frankie again, she doesn’t seem happy to see me. I guess she never anticipated that I’d show up on her turf after she left without so much as a goodbye.

  Here I am, pretty girl, and I’m not going anywhere.

  I glare at her, making sure she understands.

  Her lip twitches in annoyance, but the sight of her blinking eyes and the handful of freckles dotting her perfect nose makes me soften a little toward her.

  The entire drive here, I fought myself on how I wanted things to be when I got to Colorado. A part of me wanted to hate her, wanted to punish her for walking away and taking a part of me with her, but the biggest part of me, the part that pressed the gas pedal to its limits to get here faster, wanted to walk right up to her and kiss her pretty lips and demand that she be mine.

  Now that I’m in the moment, surrounded by new people with her glaring at me from across the hallway, I’m once again torn. Maybe giving in right away isn’t the best thing for us? Maybe we both need a little time to adjust to me being here?

  Before I can make up my mind, a warm hand slides down my chest. My eyes snap down to the intruder, finding a decently pretty girl with red-painted lips and a devious smile.

  “You saved my life,” she purrs.

  I want to snort and tell her to get lost, but one quick look back at Frankie is enough for me to keep the charade going. The gray-eyed girl down the hall is less than impressed with the girl standing in front of me with her hand on my chest like she owns me. It’s clear that these two aren’t friends, and I’m asshole enough to play that very angle for a little while. She hurt me when she left, and I think she deserves a little of that herself.

  Man does jealousy look good on Frankie.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell the girl as she steps even closer. “What’s your name?”

  “Bronwyn,” she coos, letting her finger slip between the buttons of my shirt to rake her fingernail over the skin of my chest.

  I feel nothing but the urge to push her away. If Frankie ever touched me like this, I know I’d be a steel pipe in my jeans looking for the first empty classroom.

  The air is charged around us with everyone standing around and watching. Several smaller groups are carrying on conversations, but most of the people are looking back and forth between this girl and the blond guy standing behind Frankie.

  Even though I’m just now noticing him doesn’t keep me from wanting to plow my fist into his face. Then a pretty blonde girl clasps his hand in hers, and my heart rate drops a little. Frankie isn’t with him. He has someone else.

  “That’s a pretty name,” I tell the girl without taking my eyes off Frankie. “I’m Zeke.”

  Bronwyn says something else, but I can’t seem to pull my attention from the girl at the end of the hall. I want her to storm over here and rip this girl from my chest and claim me for her own, but I know enough about Frankie to know that it will never happen. She’s nonconfrontational at best, and unless she’s cornered, she won’t say a word. She definitely won’t be aggressive with anyone while there are witnesses. She’s too shy for that.

  “Do you know Frank?” Bronwyn asks.

  “Frank?”

  “Yeah.” She points to the girl I can’t take my eyes off of. “We call her Frank because she has no tits and looks like a boy.”

  I should open my mouth and argue with her, letting her know that Frances Young is one hundred percent woman, and that I know this from very personal experience, but I don’t. Frankie cringes when Bronwyn turns her attention to her even though she’s too far away to hear what the girl is telling me. Hatred and pain flash in her eyes and I hate the sight of it, but at the same time, I’m grateful that she feels anything for me at all.

  Talking to her right now with a crowd of people around us is the very last thing I want to do. I look down at the smiling girl in front of me, and the way her breasts are nearly spilling out of her cheerleading uniform doesn’t go unnoticed. Of course she’d be the type of girl to make fun of what she considers a failure for someone else. There are girls like her everywhere, even in uptight, upper-class Westover.

  “No, babe.” I sling my arm around Bronwyn’s shoulder. “I don’t know Frank.”

  I turn around and walk away with a girl I don’t even know to prevent myself from having to have a conversation that may leave me crushed.

  “That was an awesome catch,” a guy says as he walks up, tossing the football I threw at him from hand to hand. “I’m Lincoln. My friends call me Linc.”

  I shake his hand when he offers it, but I can still feel Frankie’s eyes on my back until we turn the corner down another hallway.

  “Zeke,” I offer, hating myself for being in this position right now.

  “Do you play football, Zeke?” Linc asks as I pull my arm from Bronwyn’s shoulder. She doesn’t go far, keeping her body right up against mine as I pull my class schedule from my pocket.

  “If you don’t,” she interjects, “you should. That was an awesome catch and throw back there.”

  “Do you play?” Linc asks again before I can answer. “You can join the team. We don’t have tryouts or anyt
hing.”

  I’m considering lying to them. Football was my main focus last year at school, and Mom was adamant about getting us out of Utah so I could have a normal life, one that wasn’t filled with working all day every day, but the idea no longer thrills me as much as it did before Dad got sick.

  “I have athletics last period,” I tell him after looking at my schedule. “I guess I can talk to the coach then.”

  “Awesome.” Linc claps me on the back before walking away.

  “We have first and second periods together,” Bronwyn says as she looks down at the schedule in my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you where the classroom is.”

  Even though I want to break away from her and go back to Frankie, I allow this new girl to guide me down several hallways until we’re standing in the doorway of my first class.

  I’ve only been here fifteen minutes, and I already hate everything about Westover Prep.

  Well, not exactly everything.

  Chapter 32

  Frankie

  “Who was that?” Piper hisses the second Zeke and Bronwyn disappear down the hall together. “Was that Zeke?”

  I can only nod my affirmation because surely that did not just happen.

  “He can seriously throw a ball,” Dalton mutters.

  Piper smacks him in the chest, but she keeps her attention on me.

  “Did that really just happen?” I ask out loud because my brain is struggling to process the information.

  “I’m so confused,” Piper whispers. “Do you ever plan on telling me what happened with that boy?”

  “I don’t—”

  Piper steps in front of me and presses her fingers to my lips to shut me up. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you’re standing in the hall with tears in your eyes, and if I don’t know what happened, how can I help you?”

  I nod, squeezing my eyes closed for a brief moment and praying the threatening tears stay away until I’m home this afternoon and can cry in peace.

  “Not at school though,” I argue.

  Piper nods, giving me a moment’s reprieve, but I know come final bell, I’ll be spilling my guts and reliving every awful thing Zeke did and said to me this summer.

  “We’re already late,” Piper says as she takes my hand. “Let’s get to class.”

  Dalton splits off from us after a quick peck to Piper’s lips, and dread fills my gut as we make our way to homeroom. Westover is a small school, so there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll have at least one, if not more, classes with Zeke.

  I huff a humorless laugh as I enter the classroom right behind my best friend. I honestly thought all of my problems were going to be at home with him right there every second, but it seems he’s bound and determined to torture me every waking moment at school as well.

  Zeke is in the far back corner with Bronwyn turned around in her seat smiling at him like he’s the best thing that has ever walked into her life. He’s surrounded by the football guys, talking and laughing like he’s known these people since kindergarten.

  His eyes catch mine for the briefest of moments before I can find a seat. There isn’t an ounce of knowing in his eyes when they meet mine. There aren’t memories of the summer we spent together or the night in the barn. There’s no hatred or anger right now, even though those things were clear on his face in the hallway. Nothing fills his features. He’s cold and indifferent, and that seems to hurt more than anything.

  Piper chats with me until the teacher demands our attention at the front of the classroom, but even as she passes out our syllabus, I know that today and every day after will be the longest of my life.

  Thankfully, Piper and I have the same schedule, and somehow I lucked out and don’t have Zeke in the next three classes. It doesn’t keep my eyes from searching for him in the halls when we transition, and the knife he stabbed me with when he left me alone in the barn turns a little each time I see him walking with Bronwyn.

  By lunchtime, he’s become the hot new thing at Westover Prep, and everyone, girls and guys alike, swarm around him. We don’t get many new students here, and from the looks of it, it’ll be awhile before the novelty wears off of him.

  “You didn’t tell me he was positively gorgeous,” Piper whispers as she slides her tray across the lunch table before slipping in beside me. I didn’t bother to grab anything to eat. My stomach has been twisting since I woke up this morning, and discovering Zeke in my school has only made things worse.

  “I’m pretty sure I did,” I tell her, keeping my eyes down because it’s just too hard to watch everyone crowd around him like he’s going to do a magic trick or something.

  “Absolutely gorge—,” she mutters, halting her words mid-syllable as Dalton begins to walk toward us.

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  I turn my head, focusing on the empty table beside me as they kiss each other hello.

  “Will this ever get any less weird?” I mumble as Dalton takes a seat across from us.

  Piper nudges me playfully with her shoulder, but I can’t even gather a smile to offer back.

  “Maybe you should just go talk to him,” Dalton offers, and I can’t help but narrow my eyes at him.

  “I can accept that you’re different now and dating my best friend, but please excuse me if I don’t take relationship advice from you.”

  He shrugs, unbothered by my pissy words as he opens his carton of milk.

  “Plus, she’d have to get in line.”

  I don’t bother looking in Zeke’s direction at Piper’s words. I know what it looks like in that corner of the cafeteria. He’s being mobbed by the cheerleaders wanting to stake their claim and the football guys begging him to be on their team. Apparently, catching and throwing a ball is all it takes to become an overnight sensation around here.

  “I have him in English. He seems like a nice guy,” Dalton adds around a bite of macaroni and cheese as he shrugs his shoulders.

  Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose, but it does nothing for the headache threatening to invade my already crappy day.

  “He needs to be warned about that vampire, though.”

  My eyes snap up to Dalton. “What do you know about Bronwyn? I thought you don’t remember anyone.”

  “I don’t,” Dalton assures me. “I’ve just seen how she acts. We spent quite a bit of time at the snow cone stand this summer, and I had a party at my house before I knew to stay away from them. It didn’t go very well.”

  Dalton reaches across the table to squeeze Piper’s hand in reassurance.

  “Seems you have a lot to tell me, too.” I raise an eyebrow at my best friend. She never mentioned any further issues since the accident. Other than fighting what was growing between her and Dalton, she’s been pretty positive about everything recently. If the teasing and hateful behavior has continued, she hasn’t mentioned it.

  My mouth snaps shut when a few other people join us at our table. They greet everyone, and even though I recognize them and know a few of their names, I’m struck speechless when Dalton and Piper pick up conversations with them like they’ve been good friends since the beginning of time.

  They draw me in to their conversations, but I’m only half paying attention. I can feel Zeke’s eyes on me, but every time I look up, he’s focused on his conversation with those around him.

  Maybe I’m making it up. Maybe I just want him to look my direction, to acknowledge me somehow.

  “He is gorgeous,” Piper says when she catches me looking in Zeke’s direction.

  “Piper,” Dalton warns. His jealousy is clear, and it makes me smile—the first genuine smile I’ve managed all day. “I’ll spank your ass right here in front of everyone.”

  My jaw snaps closed as Piper giggles. My best friend doesn’t giggle. What in the world is going on? I look over at Dalton, ready to claw his eyes out, but his threat isn’t filled with malice I realize when I see the heat in his eyes.

  One of the other girls at the table clears her throat. “Do you
guys need a moment alone?”

  A slow smile spreads across Dalton’s face, and my friend winks at him—a promise for later—and things go back to normal. Well, as normal as they can be with the guy I gave everything to a mere twenty feet away and treating me like I never existed.

  Chapter 33

  Zeke

  I scrape a hand over my face, grunting when my duffel bag slips off my shoulder and catches in the crook of my arm. I should turn around and leave. Today at school was miserable, and now I’m standing on Frankie’s front porch like an idiot too afraid to knock and come face-to-face with her.

  “Sleeping in my truck wasn’t so ba—”

  I snap my mouth shut when the front door swings open.

  A tall, slender man with the same color hair as Frankie looks down at me, clearly unimpressed with me standing on his front porch.

  “Hi. Mr. Young?” I stretch my hand out. “I’m Ezekiel Benson. My mom—”

  “I know who you are,” he interrupts, turning to go back inside without reaching for my hand.

  At least he leaves the door open for me. From the way he looked down at me like I’m something he’d prefer to scrape off the bottom of his shoe, I wouldn’t be surprised if he slammed the door in my face and refused to let me inside.

  I swallow thickly, ready to apologize for everything I said to Frankie this summer since it’s clear she must’ve told her parents about how I treated her. I never considered she’d out me to her parents when she never breathed a word of it to Mrs. Jacobson, but maybe she’s close to her parents.

  “Come on in, Ezekiel. Let’s go over some ground rules.”

  I slide the strap of my bag off my shoulder and leave it near the front door. There’s no sense in carrying it in further on the off chance he makes me leave soon.

  “Zeke, please,” I offer as I follow him into the kitchen.

  Mr. Young takes a can of soda from the fridge and grabs a bag of chips off the counter before placing them down in front of me. I don’t bother reaching for either because I don’t deserve the man’s hospitality, even if it seems forced.