by Penny Reid
“Come on now, Scarlet. You know better,” murmuring to myself, I rolled my eyes and stiffened my spine. “It could be worse. It could be the first month of school.”
My crack of a smile widened, and I sighed, thankful it wasn’t the first month of school as I turned to the tricky zipper of my bag. I needed to be careful. If it was unzipped past a certain point, it wouldn’t re-zip and I’d go the rest of the day with my books and papers falling all over the place.
Plus, I’d have to find a new zipper to sew inside and that would be difficult. Blythe Tanner, who was usually my source for clothes and such items in return for help with can and glass recycling, wasn’t speaking to me ever since my dad threatened to disembowel her dad two months ago. Her father owned the junk yard and my father wanted to store stolen cars in his junk yard. Mr. Tanner—being not a criminal—refused.
A shiver raced down my spine and I promptly chased it—and thoughts of my father—away using a trick I’d picked up at ten years old: rephrase a situation as a scripted comedy TV show. Good old dad, always threatening disembowelments. What a character!
Yeah. I talked to myself a lot. I told myself a lot of jokes. I even had inside jokes . . . with myself. I guess folks needed to talk to someone, and it was mostly just me around for conversation. So, there you go.
Closing my eyes, I knelt on the ground and placed the bookbag carefully on the linoleum floor so I could gently tuck my food inside. With my eyes shut, sounds that were usually background noise sharpened and increased in volume. The rumble of students talking and eating became a roar, trays being set on tables, soda cans opening, laughter.
My stomach sunk, but only for half a second. Squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, I immediately demanded that my stomach turn itself around and return to my middle. I did not have time for sinking stomachs, especially not over something so silly.
Lunch would be over in forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes is no big deal. I’ll figure it out. Pretending to fiddle with the front pocket of my bag, just in case a teacher happened by, I debated my options.
The lunchroom was not a possibility. Two choices awaited me within: try to sit with the other Iron Wraiths kids, or try to sit with anyone else, because there would be no empty tables. Green Valley was bursting at the seams, too many kids and too few seats.
I couldn’t sit with the Iron Wraiths kids. They’d most likely let me, seeing as how my father was the Club president, but I couldn’t bring myself do it. Prince King would probably try to do something horrible to get my attention or make me angry, and then Carla Creavers would do something to get Prince’s attention—maybe flirt with Cletus Winston—and then there would be a fight and we’d all get detention.
But I couldn’t sit with anyone else. No one wanted to be my partner for class projects—ever—and I honestly didn’t blame them. Firstly, who would want their kids hanging out with one of the Wraiths kids? Especially not the president’s daughter. Secondly, I was under no delusions about the state of my clothes and appearance. Clothes and appearance in high school are everything, and my nickname since eighth grade had vacillated between Smelly Scarlet or Sweaty Scarlet. It didn’t take a genius to comprehend that none of the “normal” kids would want me sitting at their lunch table.
Another option was the hallway just off cafeteria, but I quickly dismissed this possibility. Principal Sylvester had forbidden students from the corridor during lunch since last month, after Cletus Winston and Prince King had gotten into a fist-fight. Now it was off limits and heavily patrolled.
A noise snagged my attention, the sound of a toilet flushing, and I turned my head toward it. A few seconds later, two girls exited the bathroom, deep in conversation. I lowered my eyes to my bookbag and redoubled my pretend-fiddling while they walked past, paying me no mind. As soon as their voices faded, I returned my attention to the girl’s bathroom door.
Of course!
With my lunch tucked safely back inside my backpack—and the zipper closed—I brought the bag to my shoulder and stood, my decision made easy by the obvious choice.
“What did one toilet say to the other?” I muttered to myself, walking toward the bathroom and answering in my head, You look flushed.
My lips curved at the joke and I chuckled. “You look flushed. That’s funny. Or maybe it could be, you look pooped. Or how about, you look pissed.” The last punchline had me laughing and shaking my head at myself again, muttering, “Good one, Scarlet. I should write that—”
I was so lost in my punchline options that I almost collided with the boy’s bathroom door as it unexpectedly opened, missing a door handle to the groin by jumping backwards and to the side. But my quick thinking meant that my shoulder and chest collided with the boy who was exiting the bathroom, which meant that I fell backwards on my ass.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As previously noted, this law applies to life, hopes, dreams, expectations, and masses traveling at varying velocities, especially when one of those masses is a huge boy, and the other mass is me.
“Are you—” the boy started, taking a hasty step in my direction, but then stopped speaking and moving just as suddenly.
I froze, a renewed spike of dread in my chest, fighting to keep the grimace from my face, and not just because my tailbone was going to be sore for several days as a result of my graceless fall. I didn’t need to look up to know this boy who’d accidentally knocked me down was none other than the star quarterback of the Green Valley football team, every girl’s fantasy boyfriend, and my secret crush since forever, Billy Winston.
Oh, also? He hated me.
So . . .
“Scarlet,” he said, and then released an annoyed huff, his voice flat. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on his feet, waiting for him to leave.
But he didn’t. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he was about to leave, but he didn’t.
“Here,” he said gruffly, his tone laced with impatience as he reached out a hand. “Let me help you up.”
Instinctively, I tucked my chin to my chest and sat frozen, heat climbing up my neck and cheeks.
Just leave, I wanted to say. Just freaking go!
A moment passed and eventually his hand dropped. Another moment passed and I heard him exhale a sigh. Without another word, he walked around me, and I listened as his footsteps carried him away, until the sound was swallowed by cheerful cafeteria chatter.
Then and only then did I allow myself to breathe, but I would not allow myself to think about what had just happened.
“No. Nothing happened,” I said. “Nothing happened. I tripped and I fell. He was never here. Nothing happened.”
Almost believing my new version of events, I pushed all those pesky, achy feelings into a dark corner and decided to tell myself another joke.
Still sitting on the floor, I whispered, “What has four wheels and flies? . . . A garbage truck.”
It was one of my favorites and usually made me laugh, or at least smile. But not today.
** END SNEAK PEEK **
Pre-Order Beard With Me Coming September 2019
Other books by Penny Reid
Knitting in the City Series
(Contemporary Romantic Comedy)
Neanderthal Seeks Human: A Smart Romance (#1)
Neanderthal Marries Human: A Smarter Romance (#1.5)
Friends without Benefits: An Unrequited Romance (#2)
Love Hacked: A Reluctant Romance (#3)
Beauty and the Mustache: A Philosophical Romance (#4)
Ninja at First Sight (#4.75)
Happily Ever Ninja: A Married Romance (#5)
Dating-ish: A Humanoid Romance (#6)
Marriage of Inconvenience: (#7)
Neanderthal Seeks Extra Yarns (#8)
Knitting in the City Coloring Book (#9)
* * *
Winston Brothers Series
(Contemporary Romantic Comedy, spinoff of Beauty and the Mustache
)
Beauty and the Mustache (#0.5)
Truth or Beard (#1)
Grin and Beard It (#2)
Beard Science (#3)
Beard in Mind (#4)
Dr. Strange Beard (#5)
Beard with Me (#5.5, coming 2019)
Beard Necessities (#6, coming 2019)
* * *
Hypothesis Series
(New Adult Romantic Comedy)
Elements of Chemistry: ATTRACTION, HEAT, and CAPTURE (#1)
Laws of Physics: MOTION, SPACE, and TIME (#2)
Fundamentals of Biology: STRUCTURE, EVOLUTION, and GROWTH (#3, coming 2021)
* * *
Irish Players (Rugby) Series – by L.H. Cosway and Penny Reid
(Contemporary Sports Romance)
The Hooker and the Hermit (#1)
The Pixie and the Player (#2)
The Cad and the Co-ed (#3)
The Varlet and the Voyeur (#4)
* * *
Dear Professor Series
(New Adult Romantic Comedy)
Kissing Tolstoy (#1)
Kissing Galileo (#2, read for FREE in Penny’s newsletter 2018-2019)
* * *
Ideal Man Series
(Contemporary Romance Series of Jane Austen Re-Tellings)
Pride and Dad Jokes (#1, coming 2019)
Man Buns and Sensibility (#2, TBD)
Sense and Manscaping (#3, TBD)
Persuasion and Man Hands (#4, TBD)
Mantuary Abbey (#5, TBD)
Mancave Park (#6, TBD)
Emmanuel (#7, TBD)