by C. R. Jane
I finally snap out of it and twirl around, almost tripping on a bag of trash that’s fallen open on the ground as I hurry away. I can hear the sound of the girls’ laughter as I run, and my face is ablaze with color even though there’s no one to witness what I just did. I don’t stop running until I get to the outside of the trailer. Peeking around the side of it, I see that the front drive is blissfully empty of any police. I walk around to the outside of my bedroom’s window. Lifting it up, I stick my head in and listen carefully to see if I hear Terry or David. It’s blissfully quiet. Terry and David are either asleep or they’ve been taken away by the police. Hopefully that’s not the case as I still need a place to live for two more years. Despite their horribleness, they have somehow been able to keep a roof over our heads for the most part. There’s only a couple of times when we had to sleep in our car until David could scrounge up enough money to get us somewhere. It’s not an experience I would like to experience again.
I climb into my room and shut the window, clicking the lock shut even though it’s so flimsy it won’t actually prevent anyone from coming into my room. Although being honest with myself, if any of those three guys had followed me to my trailer, I wouldn’t exactly be kicking them out of my room. Not that they would be interested in me when they had those girls to play with. I shake my head at my foolishness. I need to take a shower after my sprint through the humid, soupy South Carolina night, but I don’t know what waits for me beyond my bedroom door. I’ll just have to go to bed sweaty and hope to shower in the morning before school.
The last thought before I fall asleep is what it felt like when those pair of silver eyes watched me in the dark.
My alarm clock blares and jars me from a jumble of dreams. I turn it off and lay there for a second, trying to get my bearings. My brain finally wakes up enough to realize that I need to get ready for school or I’m going to be late for my first day. I grab my things and crack open the door. I creep down the hall to see if Terry or David are anywhere to be seen. The door of their room is open, and I peer through, feeling a mixture of relief and disgust when I see both of them sprawled out all over each other on their bed, beer cans littered on the carpet from the bender they must have had after the police left.
I hurry and shower, content that they are going to leave me alone for at least this morning. Once I’m finished, I look through the meager offering of clothes I have in my closet. I pull out a pleated black skirt and a white blouse that I picked up at a second hand store the week before. I’m not sure what kids wear here, but at my other school the students were always dressing nicely. I can always grunge up tomorrow if I find that it isn’t the case here.
There’s no money for lunch and I know that I’ll have to suck it up and fill out the form for free student lunch if I don’t want to have to starve for the rest of the year. It’s bad enough that I’m going to have to start school in the middle of the fall semester, but having the other students stare and make fun of the fact that I’m on the free lunch program will I’m sure be the icing on the cake.
I walk out the door after realizing how late it has gotten and how long it is going to take me to walk to school. I walk along the main road that runs past the trailer park since I haven’t figured out any back roads to get to the school yet. I’ve just about made it to the school when a shiny, white convertible comes racing past me, flicking me with pieces of mud from the storm the day before. I stare in disgust at my now brown speckled white blouse and curse my luck and my life. I start to jog despite the risk of getting sweaty in hopes that I can wipe myself off before the bell rings.
As I walk through the parking lot, I pass the white sports car that ruined my day. I can’t help but admire it, it’s easily the most expensive car that I’ve ever seen, like something out of a movie. Looking around the parking lot, I realize that it’s full of expensive looking cars. How in the world did a trailer park end up being in the same school district as the kids who can afford a parking lot full of Mercedes?
The driver of the white convertible gets out. All I can see is a mess of black hair until he turns around and I see that it’s one of the guys from last night. He stares at me intensely for a second with those silver eyes, but I’m quicker this morning at coming to my senses than I was last night, and I finish walking into the school.
I’m lucky that most of the mud came out of my top, but now there are slightly see through splotches all over my white blouse from where I rubbed wet paper towels on it to get the mud off. Trying to remedy the situation, I pull my thick brunette hair to the front of my body. I’m just finishing up when the door of the bathroom swings open. Continuing my luck for the day, two of the girls from the night before walk in laughing loudly with each other. They are both wearing cheerleading uniforms today that actually manage to show almost as much of their bodies as their outfits the night before did. They pass by me disinterestedly, and I let out a sigh of relief. At least they didn’t see me watching them make out with their boyfriends or it was too dark for them to recognize me. I hurry and make my escape once they walk into their stalls.
I just manage to grab my schedule from the front office and find my class right as the bell is ringing. As I walk into my first class, History, I can feel the eyes of everyone in the room upon me. It doesn’t help that the teacher stops on my name during roll and has me stand up and say my name and a fun fact about me. Standing up, I don’t make eye contact with anyone. After introducing myself, I’m at a loss for what to say. I live in a trailer park? I call my parents by their first names because their perpetually strung out?
“One fact about you now,” the teacher says gently, finally sensing that I’m not the type of student that loves getting up in the front of the class.
I blurt out the first stupid thing that comes to my mind. “There’s nothing interesting about me.”
There’s a shocked silence after I sit down and even the teacher looks taken aback. I feel like an utter and complete lunatic. What a way to start off my time at a new school. I’m sure everyone thinks I’m a complete freak now. I keep my head down, not wanting to see the disgusted looks on my new classmates’ faces. The teacher luckily recovers quickly from my comment and starts to launch into a lecture about the Revolutionary War. I tune out a bit since my old school covered the Revolutionary War a month ago. It’s warm in the room and a little stuffy. I find myself falling asleep as the teacher drones on until the door to the classroom opens up about halfway through class and everyone in the room seems to sit up a little straighter in their desks, their eyes locked on the door and the gorgeous guy that just walked through it.
“Well, Mr. Carroway, thank you for deciding to grace us with your presence,” says the teacher in a voice that’s trying to come across annoyed, but instead sounds bemused as if she can’t quite help herself.
“You know I would never miss your class,” says a deep male voice, laced with seduction. It’s the kind of voice that says he knows how to give a girl a good time. Or at least it’s how I would imagine that kind of voice sounds.
I look up, my cheeks blazing just from the sound of his voice, and I see him. Boy, do I see him. The gorgeous creature that just walked through the door oozes masculinity, the kind you don’t see in boys my age. The faint scruff on his chin and cheeks, the longish, wavy, carelessly unkempt blonde hair, the incredible blue and expressiveness of his eyes rimmed in long dark lashes, a firm jaw line-he’s the whole package and I realize suddenly that he was one of the boys from the night before. I duck my head back down, hoping that he won’t see me, but not before I notice his pouty lips that look like they were made for kissing.
I hear footsteps walking closer to me and then past me, and then the sound of him sitting in the desk right behind me. I can feel his eyes on the back of my head, and I find myself suddenly wondering if the back of my head is attractive, which is crazy since I’ve never once worried about that before. Not sure how it suddenly became the only thing I can think about.
The class
settles down although I can see that none of them are able to keep their eyes from straying to the seat behind me every few minutes. It’s like they are compelled to keep him in their sights. Which I don’t exactly blame them for. I’ve found myself wishing that he was sitting somewhere that I could see him instead of behind me. I can feel his warm breath lightly blowing on the back of my neck and I wonder why he’s leaning so close to me.
A few minutes pass and the teacher resumes her lecture. I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder. I flinch, not knowing what I should do. When I don’t turn immediately around, I feel the tap again. I turn my head to look at him.
“Hi,” he says, as if we aren’t in the middle of class. He gives me an expectant look like I’m supposed to be answering him back. There’s recognition in his eyes as he looks over my face. It’s like he’s memorizing every freckle.
“Hi,” I whisper back, and then start to turn back around since I’m expecting the teacher to say something any minute now.
“Did you see something you liked last night, pretty girl?” he whispers, his rough, deep voice sending chills down my spine...the good kind of chills. The comment annoys me since I don’t like to be played with, so I turn all the way back around in my seat in a huff. I’m shocked when I feel him take some strands of my hair and start to play with them. Who does this guy think he is? I lean forward, trying to give him a hint, but he ignores me and keeps playing with my hair.
When the bell finally rings and the teacher stops lecturing, I realize that I’ve let this stranger play with my hair for over an hour. I turn around to look at the offender, but I find that he’s already gathered his books and is walking by me, winking at me as he passes by. He leaves the room without saying anything to me, leaving a mess of sighs and yearning girls behind him.
“Isn’t he perfect?” comes a giggling, dreamy sounding voice. I look to the right of me and see a cheerful looking auburn-haired cheerleader standing next to me. She’s not the redhead from the night before thank goodness. I give her a questioning look, wondering why she’s talking to me.
“You’re new here, right?” she asks. “That was quite the interesting fact you gave about yourself,” she says with a giggle. When I still don’t say anything, she starts to look unsure of herself. I sigh to myself. Might as well be friendly.
“Yes, I just moved here,” I tell her finally, and her shoulders relax as I finally answer her. She walks beside me as I exit the classroom.
“I bet you didn’t have boys like that where you came from,” she says, gesturing to where the blonde-haired god is getting something out of his locker, surrounded by a crowd of admirers. As if he heard her, he looks straight at us, giving me a smirk like he’s seen me undressed.
“Oh my gosh,” the cheerleader next to me squeals. “He likes you!”
“Sorry, what’s your name?” I ask, confused why this girl is still walking next to me. She blushes at my question.
“Whoops, guess I forgot that. My name is Amberlie,” she says. “I’m on the cheerleading team,” she tells me as if I’m blind and somehow missed the fact that she’s wearing her uniform.
“Never would have guessed,” I say dryly and then flinch at the embarrassed look on her face. I’m not sure why I’m being so rude to the first person in a while that has actually been nice to me.
“I’m sorry. I’m no good at this,” I tell her.
“Good at what?” she asks, tilting her head as she examines me.
“Being a friend,” I answer, and a smile lights up her face.
“Good thing I’m really good at it,” she says, linking her arm through mine and walking with me down the hall to my next class while she gossips about random people standing in the hallway. She happens to have calculus, my next class, with me, and we sit down in desks next to each other. Looking around, I’m disappointed that the guy from my first class doesn’t seem to be in this one. Although considering that he didn’t show up for history until it was half way over, there’s still a chance he could be in the class.
Leaning over, I finally ask the question I’ve been dying to know since I saw him. “Who was that guy?” I ask Amberlie, who is now painting her nails a bright red as we talk.
She looks up and grins, her face somehow managing to be even more animated than it already was.
“You mean that yummy sex god in History?” she asks with a smirk. I roll my eyes but nod at her description.
“That was Jesse Carroway. One of ‘The Three’,” she says with a sigh, her eyes going dreamy as she says his name. She says “the three” as if it’s an official title.
“One of the three?” I ask, thinking of the other two guys from last night.
She’s about to answer me when the teacher walks in. This teacher has a severe looking face and an aura about her that says she doesn’t put up with nonsense. Seeing as how the room went silent and Amberlie has quickly put away her nail polish, I figure it’s not a good time to ask any more questions. The class drags on and I can tell by the end that it’s going to be the class I like least of all. Watching paint dry would probably be more interesting than what the teacher just put us through. When the bell finally rings, the whole class lets out a sigh of relief and hurries out of the classroom all at once. Amberlie starts chattering about something the moment she is able and I’m trying to listen, but I’m distracted by another of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen making his way down the hall. The hordes of students part down the middle as he walks through them. He has a haughty look on his face like no one around him is good enough to hold his attention.
And maybe no one is good enough. The guy walking down the hall is . . . Holy snickerdoodle. I swallow the breath stuck in my throat. Broad, powerful shoulders taper to a narrow waist and long legs. He towers over most of the students he passes. His light brownish-blonde hair is tousled in a carefree way that’s impossible to mimic. An etched jaw and sparkling green eyes make the package even more delectable.
“You don’t get used to it,” Amberlie says, letting out another one of the wistful sighs that I’m beginning to expect from her. We watch as the green-eyed stunner is joined by the sex god that I now know goes by Jesse. “It’s a miracle the two of them don’t burn the building down with their hotness,” she says, and I completely agree. They definitely did not make guys who looked like that back in Ohio where I lived before.
“What’s his name?” I find myself whispering, unable to talk loudly through the lust that’s building inside of me.
“Jensen Reid,” she says in that same dreamy tone that she used when she talked about Jesse.
“And what’s the name of the third one?” I ask, sure that it’s the guy that gave me wet dreams from last night.
“Tanner Crosby,” she says. “I really never could choose between any of them. I want them all.”
I laugh at her pronouncement, not disagreeing with her. I have to force myself not to go down my imagination’s road of what exactly having all of them would entail.
I watch the guys as they meet up with the girls I recognize from the night before. Jensen’s cold eyes soften as soon as he narrows his focus on his girl. He caresses the girl’s cheek, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his full mouth. He bends to the girl’s ear, whispering until a flush races across her chest. Her hand lands on his neck, holding him in place. The scene is intimate and almost too indecent to watch, yet I can’t look away. I inexplicably want that to be me that’s holding his attention. He waits while she says something only he can hear, finally dragging his gaze to someone down the hallway. His eyes brush by me and he freezes. There’s a look in his eyes that’s hard to decipher. It’s hot and sinfully intrusive. He takes his time looking me up and down, the girl standing right by him, begging for attention, now an afterthought. He says something to Jesse that has the whole group looking over at me. Not wanting to catch the brunt of their attention any longer I hurry away, only to run into what feels like a boulder.
“Uumph,” I groan as I start t
o fall to the ground from the impact. A strong pair of arms catch me right before I land. I look up so I can see the face of whoever just saved me, and I immediately want the ground to swallow me up into oblivion. It’s the silver-eyed, perfect specimen from the night before-the one who caught me ogling him while he made out with his girl.
“Tanner Crosby,” I whisper, and then immediately want to knock myself out. He’s totally going to think I’m a stalker now.
The smile that breaks on his face is easy, surprising me, and if his wide eyes are an indication, it appears to catch him off-guard as well.
“Princess, you keep calling me by my full name and I’m going to get a god complex. Like a god, I change lives, but it’s just Tanner. Or sir, if you’re so inclined. Now how about dinner?”
I blink rapidly at him. So off guard that I don’t know what to say. I open my mouth but instead of words coming out, it flops like a fish.
“Torturing the new girl?” comes a voice that makes me want to be even farther in the ground. I look up into Jesse’s amused face, his blue eyes searing into me. I realize at that moment that Tanner is still holding me, and I wrench myself out of his grasp, my skin tingling where he was touching me. Jensen decides to make an appearance at that moment, and I find myself standing in the middle of them. There’s a faint buzzing sound in my ears as I feel the weight of their stares on me. It makes me feel somehow small, but at the same time empowered to have their attention.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” asks Jensen. Hearing his voice for the first time, I’m struck with how smooth it is. It’s much more charming than I would have guessed since out of the three of them, he has a somewhat menacing air about him. Studying him while he waits for an answer, I notice his brilliant white teeth and full lips, the light stubble that covers his angular jaw. I find myself leaning towards him like a crazed lunatic. I notice that his eyes aren’t the green I originally thought, but green with a dark ring of brown in the center. What does me in is the single dimple that appears on his right cheek when he smiles suddenly.