“Jeez, this again? I swear, Piper, for someone who appears to be so organized, you’re a freaking mess.” Drew frowned as he picked up a stack of papers from the top portion of the locker that was mine.
And that brings us to number two problem with sharing a locker with Drew- he was always up in my business.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be right now?” I glared at him through the hair falling in my face from my messy bun.
Drew laughed and reached out to tuck the stray strands behind my ear, his warm skin reminding me of the number three problem with so much contact with Drew- too much contact with Drew.
My breath hitched in my throat as his fingers trailed down my cheek- the missing homework packet forgotten. All I could think about right then was how good his skin smelled and how much I wished I could throw myself in his arms and just hang out there all day.
It took some effort, but I finally remembered why I was annoyed with him. Turning away from his touch, I began digging through my bag in case I’d put the packet in there for some reason.
Drew cleared his throat. “I do have somewhere to be, but it’s the same place you have to be, so I was waiting.”
“Here it is!” Dang, I guess I did put it in my backpack. Ugh. “Okay, we ready to go then?”
Drew just shook his head. “I’ve been ready. Like I said, I was just waiting for you.”
“Oh, well, let’s go then.” I slammed his locker shut and started down the hall. Drew’s long legs kept pace with mine as we towered over most of the students in the hall.
“Hey, Drew,” Bri Foster, one of the cheerleaders, called out. She was surrounded by the rest of the cheer squad as they moved down the hall staring at him like a bunch of fangirls.
And that brought me to the worst of sharing a locker with Drew or being his friend in general- the groupies. I had to wonder how a guy who’d attended this school for less than two months had managed to have more admirers and be more popular than the reigning royalty class, but Drew had done it. He kept a low profile, though, spending most of his time with Luke and the rest of them, but it wasn’t like they weren’t popular because they were. It was interesting watching him. For all the attention he garnered, Drew remained aloof. I never saw him flirt with anyone, even when girls threw themselves at him. He kindly extricated himself from their tenacious grasps, going about his business like nothing happened.
I’d heard Grayson and A.J. teasing him about it relentlessly- letting him know how they’d handle that kind of attention. Even then, Drew just laughed and then ignored them. Maybe he really didn’t want a girlfriend and it wasn’t about me.
Drew, true to form, smiled politely at Bri and broke eye contact as quickly as possible.
“What is your deal, anyway, Thompson?” I asked, giving him a sidelong look.
Drew turned to me with raised eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
I nudged his arm with my shoulder. “You know what I mean. You could have any girl at this school- what’s with the monk routine?”
“Monk routine,” he laughed. “I don’t have a monk routine.”
“Yeah, you do. I’ve never seen you talk to any girls-”
“I talk to you all the time, Piper,” he interrupted.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
He grinned.
“You know what I mean. You never go out. You don’t date. You never go to parties with the guys,” I listed off.
“How do you know I don’t go out?” He opened the door to Mr. McGowan’s classroom and held it open with a flourish.
“Thanks.” I passed through the door and we walked together to our table at the back. We still had five minutes until the bell rang. “I know you don’t because Luke tells me you don’t.”
He smirked. “You and Luke talk about me?”
I backhanded his ridiculously firm stomach. “Yeah, we do. All the time. It’s Drew this and Drew that.”
“I knew it! Your brother’s infatuated with me.” He puffed out his chest and we both started laughing.
“The funny thing is you aren’t wrong,” I teased him. “But you still didn’t answer my question.”
Mr. McGowan chose that moment to walk in and pass out a pop quiz making it so Drew couldn’t answer. He shot me a fake apologetic look, but I was determined not to let him off the hook.
“You haven’t played basketball with me in a while,” Drew commented as we walked out of class and back toward his locker.
“Playing basketball with you is dangerous.” To my heart.
Drew scoffed. “Come on. You know you want to meet me tonight at our court.” He leaned in close over my shoulder, reaching for a book.
“Drew-” I wished he didn’t make me breathless. It was a dead giveaway to how much he affected me.
“Come on. We never finished our game of PIG.” His chin rested on my shoulder as he dug around in his part of the locker.
Without thinking, I leaned back into his chest. His left hand settled on my hip.
“Say, 10?”
I nodded, knowing my voice wouldn’t work if I tried to speak.
Without warning, Drew slammed the locker shut making me jump. I threw him a dirty look and he grinned, unrepentant.
“See you tonight, Piper,” he called over his shoulder.
Drew
At 10:05 I knew something was wrong. At 10:15 I called Luke.
Chapter 21
Piper
I’d agreed to teach the next intro to pottery class on Saturday mornings, but Mrs. Kelly sometimes asked me to fill in at the Art Center on random evenings when she had something else going on. It was an easy paycheck, all I had to do was open the doors and make sure the different classrooms ran smoothly. Mostly, I sat at the front desk and greeted people as they came in. Tonight, the independent study art class from the high school was coming in at eight and would be there until nine and I would close up at nine-thirty after the last of the sewing ladies packed up. And then I planned to go to the park to meet Drew at ten.
Just thinking about meeting Drew made butterflies flutter in my stomach. I wondered what his plan was? Just to play basketball? It was never just about basketball with us. I hated the hope that bloomed in my chest whenever Drew was around and he made me forget all the jerks at our school who treated me like dirt. Drew never looked at me like I was anything less than beautiful. He tried to hide it, in the name of ‘just friends’, but there were times I wondered how my skin wasn’t burned by the heat in his eyes when he looked at me.
At seven-fifty a bright yellow school bus pulled up in front of the Art Center. Ms. Schultz, a short, gray-haired woman, stepped off the bus with a clipboard clutched tightly to her chest. She stood sentinel as students lumbered down the steps and pooled in front of the Art Center doors. I saw several faces I recognized and many that I didn’t. I wasn’t surprised. The Independent students were usually seniors.
Ms. Schultz opened the door, letting in students.
“Quickly, so we can close the door,” she called out as she made her way to the desk where I sat.
“Hello, Piper, Mrs. Kelly said you’d be here.” I’d never taken art but Ms. Schultz had been my homeroom teacher freshman year.
“Hi, Ms. Schultz. Do you need anything from me or do you know where everything is?” I knew the class was basically just taking a tour of the center trying to encourage students to sign up for classes and increase interest in art as well as the Center itself.
Ms. Schultz waved her hand. “No, we do this every semester, so I know just what to do. Thank you, Piper.” She turned to her students who stood behind her talking softly to each other.
Ms. Schultz clapped her hands to get their attention. “Okay, please remember the rules we discussed on the way over here. Look but don’t touch. A lot of the projects you will see are in progress and we don’t want to ruin anyone’s work.” With that she began walking down one of the halls, explaining about the different classrooms and the different mediums taught at the Center.
<
br /> “Hey, Sasquatch, whatcha doing here?”
Shrinking back, I watched with horror as Jack Fawcett leaned casually against front desk, allowing the rest of the class to leave without him.
“I work here, Jack. Don’t you need to go with them?” I gestured toward the disappearing group.
He scoffed. “I’d much rather talk to you.” His grin was disturbing.
“Well, I’m sorry because I’m busy.” Suddenly. With what I wasn’t sure, but I’d come up with something. “You probably better catch up.”
“I know you secretly like me, Sasquatch.” Jack leaned over the desk and I leaned as far back as the wall behind me would allow.
“Why would you think that, Jack? Because of the warm fuzzies I get when you call me names?” He wasn’t even attractive. I knew Jack Fawcett was popular with the football groupies. And I supposed he was good looking with his dark curly hair and chocolate brown eyes, but the sinister look in his eyes kind of killed any positives he might have going for him.
“Don’t be so sensitive, Piper. You know I’m just kidding around.” He flashed me his signature smile, the one that had all those groupies falling at his feet.
“Right.” I wasn’t buying it. Not one bit. “Well, as fun as this is, I really do have to work now.” I rose from my seat behind the desk and skirted around it. I would take a few minutes to check on all of the classes, make myself visible to the different instructors. Something about Jack was making me nervous.
“I’m gonna prove it to you. I really am a good guy, Piper.” He almost looked sincere. Almost.
“Okay, Jack. I think Ms. Schultz is down that hall now.” I pointed to my left as I headed right. It was official, Jack Fawcett gave me the heebie jeebies.
An hour later, the art class boarded the school bus. Ms. Schultz stood at the door and checked off each name as they climbed the steps. Jack hung back, looking at all of the postings on the door to the Art Center and boarding the bus last. At the last minute, he glanced over his shoulder and made eye contact through the large glass window at the front of the Center. His grin caused shivers to run up my spine- and not the good kind.
I was never so glad to see a school bus leave the Art Center. For the next half hour, I went from room to room and made sure lights were turned off and supplies put away. Promptly at nine-thirty, I followed the last of the sewing ladies out the door and locked it behind us.
“Have a good night, Mrs. Harmon,” I called, waving to the lady who taught the sewing class as she got into her car. She waved and I unlocked the Jeep. I knew she would wait until I started it before she would leave the parking lot, so I hurried to put the key in the ignition.
Dang!
My phone! I patted my pockets and dug through my bag. Nothing. I glanced up just in time to see Mrs. Harmon pull out of the parking lot. I’d have to go back in to get it. There was no way I was going to leave it in there. Mrs. Kelly could be trusted but I had no guarantee she would be the first person to find it.
Sighing, I got out of the Jeep. I’d just quickly go back in and get my phone. I unlocked the door and hurried to disarm the alarm. My phone was sitting on the front desk. I grabbed it and then went through the process of setting the alarm and locking the door before making my way back to the Jeep.
And that’s when it happened.
“Hey, get off me!” I screamed as hands reached from every direction and something was stuffed in my mouth as a cloth of some kind was thrown over my head.
“Man, that was too easy,” a muffled male voice laughed next to my ear.
“Hurry up! Get her in the car,” a different voice said.
Hands and arms circled my body as I thrashed, trying to get away. I bucked in the air as they held me suspended, supporting me under my arms while keeping hold of my legs and feet. I kicked and my foot connected with one of them.
“Shit! She kicked me.” I felt a blow in my stomach. I couldn’t even curl my body against the pain because of how they were holding me. One of them lost their hold on my arm. I lashed out, scratching. I felt his skin under my fingernails.
“Ouch. You bitch!”
I felt a kick in my side and screamed around the cloth in my mouth.
“Stop it! Just get her in the car.”
Doors opened and hands pushed and pulled until I was sprawled on the floor of a vehicle. I couldn’t see through the sack over my head, but my hands came in contact with the rough fabric of the floor as well as worn upholstery on two seats. Bodies filled the space around me as fear threatened to choke me faster than the cloth in my mouth.
“Give me her hands.” Hands reached from either side of me and brought my hands in front.
The sound of duct tape being pulled from the roll screeched. Someone wrapped the tape several times around my wrists as tears rolled down my face.
“Dude, can you believe it? We actually did it! We caught Sasquatch!” The vehicle filled with laughter and the sound of high fives.
Sasquatch?
My heartrate relaxed just a little. If these guys were calling me Sasquatch then chances were, I knew them and this was just a prank. A sick, sick prank. But what could they really do to me without fear of being caught? My mind considered all the possibilities and fear won out against calm.
“Don’t drive too fast,” an urgent voice said. “We can’t afford to get pulled over.”
“Right.”
We all shifted forward as the driver hit the brakes.
“Dumbass! Just drive normal!” the voice shouted.
I tried to recognize the voices, but they were all muffled and I had to assume they were all wearing masks over their faces. I tried to think through all of my options but came up with nothing.
The drive took forever. The guys didn’t talk much other than to keep congratulating each other and bark out instructions. Finally, the vehicle slowed and the tires crunched on gravel. I expected them to stop but they didn’t. This must be one long drive or they were taking me down a dirt road. I tried to think of where we could be but there were a million dirt roads in Indiana, they could literally be taking me anywhere.
I wondered what time it was. I was supposed to meet Drew at the park at ten. Mom never stayed awake much passed nine-thirty and I’d already told Luke I would be going somewhere after work. I was sure he assumed I was going to hang out with Dannika. I should have told him the truth.
What would Drew do when I didn’t show up? Would he be mad? Worried? Would he try to find me? Call?
Finally, the vehicle stopped.
“Get her out and take her downstairs,” the voice that had been shouting out instructions said. Hands pulled again until I was lifted out of the confining space in the vehicle. I used the extra space to let them know what I thought about what they were doing to me, kicking and bucking and flailing.
“Shit. I can’t hold her!” Some hands lost their grip and I thought they would drop me.
“Stop!” The loud voice was accompanied by a jarring hit to the side of my head.
Groaning, I fell limp in their hold.
“There. Now get her inside.”
Chapter 22
Drew
“What the hell, man!” Luke barreled onto the court at 10:20 ready for a fight. I didn’t even stop him when he came at me fists flying. He got in two good hits before I fought back, breaking the skin under his eye.
“Where is she,” he screamed.
“Dude, that’s what I’m telling you. She never showed. She was supposed to be here at ten.” My voice shook as I explained.
“Why was she meeting you? I thought she was going to Dannika’s.” He was already dialing before he finished talking. “Danni? Yeah, is Piper there? Are you sure? I don’t know. I’ll call you back.”
He disconnected the call, his panicked eyes meeting mine. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know, man. She had to work, right? Maybe something happened at work and she had to stay late.”
Luke shook his head. “She would have calle
d somebody. She would have told me. Does she have your number?”
I nodded. I’d given it to her a long time ago. We texted every now and then but not much. “I’ve called her fifty times. You sure she’s not at home.” I was willing to admit she could have blown me off.
“No. I checked when you called. Do you think she lost her phone?” Apparently, we were working together now and that suited me just fine.
I shook my head. I had no idea. “Wait, do you have that family GPS app on your phone?” We had one. I disabled mine from time to time to piss off my dad. But I used it all the time to see where Kittie was.
“Yes!” Luke pushed some buttons on his phone. “Come on. Come on,” he murmured under his breath. “Oh, God. Call 9-1-1.”
“What?” I thought I knew fear the last few minutes, but those words made me nauseous with fear and worry for Piper.
“Just do it! Can we take your car?” He was already running toward it.
I slid into the driver’s seat, dialing 9-1-1 as I started the ignition. “Here you talk to them.” I passed him my phone and he put it to his ear as he pointed which direction I needed to drive.
“Yeah, my sister’s in trouble...she didn’t come home from work...I tracked her on her phone...I know she’s in trouble because she would never voluntarily go to this place!” Luke shouted into the phone. He turned to me. “Take a left and head out of town...No, not you. I’m driving to her location...Look, the address is two-twenty-two east four-eighty-nine south. The house belongs to a family named Fawcett and this guy has had it out for my sister since third grade. Please, just send somebody to check it out.” And with that he disconnected the call.
“She’s with Fawcett,” I growled, my hands tightening on the steering wheel until they ached.
“Did you see that thing in the news,” Luke asked. “Those football guys in California or something? They abduct these girls and beat them up and,” he paused. “And other things. I’d bet my life that’s what this is.” Luke turned to face me. “Can’t you drive any faster?”
Dating: One on One: Eastridge Heights Basketball Book 1 Page 14