I opened my mouth to protest and stopped, turning to take in the horrific scene behind me instead. “Is this...normal?”
Her chuckle was low and humorless. “Did you actually think we were going to sleep tonight?” She tapped the sleeping bag beneath my arm, and her tone turned saccharine sweet. “Aw, you did. How cute.”
I glared down at her. “Do you really think now is the best time to be making fun of me? We’re on the same team here, Max.”
She opened her mouth and clamped it shut. Probably because she knew I was right and didn’t want to admit it. She came to stand at my side, and we both took in the insanity before us.
“Okay,” she said with a note of determination worthy of an army general. “We just need to get them separated, and then—”
The room erupted into laughter and shrieks as one of the boys pulled his pants down to moon the girls. I could admit it. I snorted with amusement, but Max shouted for the boy to pull his pants up.
This was a mistake. Not because I wanted him to walk around with his pants down but because now we were the center of attention. Some sort of ancient instinct came alive as all those eyes landed on us.
Alarm bells were ringing as I saw friends leaning over to whisper to one another and sidelong looks exchanged. I turned to Max and lowered my voice. “Look, maybe we should just get them out of this room. Break them up.”
Her expression was grim and for the first time since ever she wasn’t laughing at me or glaring at me. “Good idea. They’re less powerful in smaller groups.”
“Exactly,” I said. Suddenly I was back in my own middle school. I had vivid memories flooding back to me of what it was like to be this age. The popularity contests, the struggle for power.
Sweat broke out on my forehead as I remembered the Lord of the Flies mentality that had ruled my own school. I had no doubt the vibe in this crowd was similar.
No wonder Cristian had looked at me like I was nuts. And that totally explained why that parent had sent me in here like some offering to a vicious pagan god.
Max and I were human sacrifices.
“So how do you want to do this?” she started.
I took a deep breath and pushed aside thoughts of slaughter and cannibalism. I officially needed to get a grip. The volume in the room seemed to be growing louder, if that was even possible, so I leaned forward to talk. “I say we—”
“Kiss her!” The shout was an obnoxious shout, and I looked over to see a gangly kid with his hands cupped around his mouth, his friends laughing hysterically as he shouted it again.
“Yeah, kiss her!” That one came from the gaggle of girls who’d been hanging out near the boys.
I let out a huff of exasperated laughter and turned back to Max. “Look, why don’t we—” I stopped short when my gaze landed on her face. Her beet-red cheeks and her pinched lips. “Are you blushing right now?”
It came out as an accusation, but seriously—I didn’t know Max was capable of blushing. This was definitely new. And kind of funny. But also…
A weird surge of protectiveness kicked in when the shouts grew even worse, no doubt in response to her very visible embarrassment. I whipped around and eyed the crowd for my target.
It might have been a while since I’d had to prove myself with a group like this, but I knew how to do it. Old habits and all that.
There he was. The gangly kid who’d shouted first. He was still at it, throwing out catcalls that were getting ruder by the second as he was egged on by his buddies.
I stepped in front of Max and lowered my voice. “You!”
My voice was low and loud. Years of being the captain of a basketball team had made me something of an expert on being an alpha dog. I stood tall, my head up high. “Think you’re funny?”
He gave a little snicker like he was too cool for life, but he shot his friends a nervous glance. I didn’t let my glare waver. That was when I realized who he was—the younger brother of one of my teammates. Another little pissant with a mouth bigger than his brain. Ellison, that was his last name. “You’re Troy’s brother, right?”
“Uh…” The kid scratched at the back of his head. “Yeah?”
“You don’t sound certain,” I said, my tone dry. That made a few of his buddies smirk and laugh, and Troy’s brother lost a little of his swagger. “Is Troy your brother or not?”
He glanced at his friends and then back at me.
Oh yeah, he was losing his power by the second, and we both knew it. I took a deep breath and crossed my arms over my chest. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. It might have been a while since I was a tween twerp, but it was all coming back to me.
Besides, the methods and tactics might have changed in high school, but my social life was still a battle for supremacy on a day-to-day basis.
“If Troy’s your brother, then I’m guessing you know who I am,” I said as I stalked toward him.
“Yeah,” he said. And then when I glared at him, “Uh, yes...sir?”
“That’s right. I’m the captain of the high school’s varsity team. A team you should all be so lucky to be playing for some day.” I eyed the Ellison kid with a sneer. “If you fill out and shape up.”
He and all his friends straightened, puffing their chests out as they aimed to look cool.
They failed.
I jerked my chin toward the edge of the gymnasium. “Give me three laps.”
“What for?” His voice rose, and he sounded every bit the child he was.
“For being rude to your superiors,” I said, nodding toward the doorway where Max still stood. “We’re here to keep you morons in line, so one more sign of rudeness toward me or Max, and you’re all running laps for the rest of the night. You got it?”
Silence.
My chest squeezed a bit with a flicker of nerves that I would never ever admit to and definitely never show. But I felt Max’s gaze on me, and I felt this dweeb weighing his options.
Right now, all the power rested with this one gangly kid, and he seemed to know it. All of his teammates and the girls were eyeing him, waiting to see what he’d do. Would he laugh in my face and tell me to suck it?
Or would he tuck his tail and run the laps, handing me the alpha dog medal as he went.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. My heart kept time in the short tense silence that seemed to last an eternity.
When he broke away from his friends, I held my breath. But then he burst into a slow jog and headed toward the sidelines to do his laps.
I’d won.
I felt a hand on my shoulder as Max came to stand beside me. “Not bad, Luven. Maybe you won’t be as useless as I thought.”
I gave a snort of amusement because her voice lacked heat. “A simple thank you would have sufficed.”
Now it was her turn to scoff, and I shifted to face her as the kids went back to their groups and talked amongst themselves. “Look, I might have won this round, but they’re not going to suddenly fall in line,” I said. “They’re going to test us at every turn.”
She heaved a sigh. “I know.”
I stuck a hand in her direction. “Truce?”
She eyed my hand like I was hiding a knife up my sleeve. “Just for tonight?”
“Of course.”
She sighed as she took my hand in hers and gave it a firm shake. “Then we have a truce.”
Five
Max
I couldn’t believe that I was actually on Team Alex.
Only for tonight, obviously, but it was still weird. For the last hour I’d actually been talking to him civilly, and he’d been surprisingly serious about creating and implementing a game plan to keep these little monsters occupied.
I’d spent the last three years becoming well versed with all the reasons no one should ever rely on, care about, or even speak to Alex Luvens.
And now look at me.
“You heard Alex,” I said to a snotty little brunette who looked like she was vying for the role of mean girl in my group of catty littl
e tweens. I jabbed a finger toward the cafeteria. “It’s movie time, or…” I nodded toward the auditorium where a group of girls had spread out their sleeping bags. “You can go join the others.”
No one actually believed the girls in the auditorium were going to sleep. But whatever. As long as they didn’t start a fire or kill anyone, they could do whatever they wanted in there.
Alex came out of the cafeteria doors as the mean girl wannabe and her crew rushed in. I didn’t miss the way the young girls ogled him. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. You’d think he was a freakin’ Hollywood star by the way they whispered and giggled every time he talked to them.
“How’s it going in there?” I asked.
He nodded, raking a hand through his hair and looking uncharacteristically frazzled. “Good. I think.” He winced a bit. “I put the movie on, but a group of them wanted to play that game, so…”
The parents had left behind a stack of games and some of them had insisted on bringing in one that seemed to be like a PG version of Cards Against Humanity. “That’s fine,” I said. “Just as long as they’re contained.”
“Right,” he said. “Contained.”
That was our one and only goal at the moment. Keep them contained, where we could see them and where they couldn’t get into too much trouble.
It was a good plan. And the good news was we only had… I pulled out my phone to check the time. Only five hours to go.
Before I could slip my phone back into my pocket, my attention was snagged once again by the text message from my dad from earlier.
If I would just open it and read it, the message would clear from my home screen. But what I could read from the preview message was enough for me to know that I didn’t want to read the whole thing.
Dad: Sorry I missed you this time. Maybe next week you’ll….
And then it cut off. I’d have to open it to read the rest. But I didn’t need to read the rest to know that it would be a guilt trip, plain and simple. A nice one maybe, but still a guilt trip.
I shoved the phone into my pocket with a huff. As if he had any right to make me feel guilty.
“Everything all right?” Alex asked, his brows arched high as he watched me.
I looked away, swallowing down this wave of emotions that I’d been trying to outrun for days now. “Yeah. Great. Everything is just great.”
The sound of a door slamming open down the hallway had us both turning to stare at a redheaded girl walking our way. I turned to Alex with a frown. “I thought they were all accounted for.” He shrugged, and I turned back to the girl. “You’re supposed to be in the auditorium or the cafeteria.”
She nodded, and her eyes were wide with concern. My heart softened a little at the sight. This was not a girl out to cause mischief. I could recognize a fellow goody-two-shoes anywhere. With those freckles, the too-skinny frame...she was a little nerd in the making.
I liked this one.
She was slightly out of breath when she reached us. What this girl was doing on a basketball team was anyone’s guess. Either she hadn’t figured herself out yet, or she had highly involved parents who were pushing her to try something new. I tugged on my braid. My mom had stopped trying to push me into athletics a long time ago. “Everything all right?” I asked her, unwittingly repeating Alex’s question.
“My friend,” she said, pointing toward the bathrooms. “She’s upset.”
I exchanged a wary look with Alex before heading toward the bathroom. I opened it enough to find a blonde with her head tucked into her arms, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
The redhead had followed me, with Alex bringing up the rear, leaning over my shoulder to catch a peek.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked the redhead quietly.
The redhead let out a world-weary sigh. “Britney likes Jason. But Jason told Eleanor that—”
“Okay, I think we get it,” I said, my shoulders slumping with relief. Boy problems. Not a big deal then. I turned back to check on the others.
“You can’t just leave her in there,” Alex said, hurrying along at my side, fretting like a grandma.
“Why not? She’s fine, just melodramatic.”
We reached the doors of the cafeteria where a shriek of laughter from inside made us both cringe. I placed a hand on the cool metal of the door handle, bracing myself for whatever insanity was taking place inside.
“Still, we can’t just leave her,” Alex said. His tone was so different than I’d ever heard that I paused to glance over at him.
Sure enough, Alex actually looked...concerned. His stupidly handsome features were tight, and his full lips were straight. For once, there was no charming smile on his face.
Another scream of laughter came from the cafeteria, and we both winced. “I’m more concerned with what’s going on in here.” I pulled open the doors and took in the scene before me. A movie neglected. A circle of kids, but no card game in sight. “What are they doing?”
“Haven’t you ever played Spin the Bottle before?” I felt Alex’s stare on the side of my face.
I hated that stare. His stare was the reason my cheeks felt hot, not the fact that I hadn’t played the popular kissing game. How could I have played Spin the Bottle when I’d never gone to any parties?
I wasn’t the party type now, and I never had been. But, of course, Alex probably knew that.
I waited for his mocking laughter, but he just moved forward. “I’ll break it up.”
“No.” I placed a hand on his arm, and he froze. I did too.
My senses were instantly overloaded. All at once, I realized that though we’d known each other for years and had been hanging out in the same circle as Avery’s friends for months...I’d never touched him before.
I knew this because I would have remembered. The solidness of his muscles, the heat from his skin that seemed to burn through his long-sleeved T-shirt. The scent of soap and laundry detergent and something else that I couldn’t place…
He arched a brow as he waited for me to continue. My heart was racing too fast, probably because I didn’t particularly want to do either of the tasks in front of me. These kids still made me a little nervous en masse like this, but there was no way I wanted to go deal with a crying girl, either.
I straightened my shoulders. I was an editor-in-chief, dang it. I could handle managing a group of people, even if they were the age that I’d despised. I licked my lips and dropped my hand from his arm, pointing down the hallway toward the bathrooms. “You take the weepy chick. I’ll break up the fun in here.”
He eyed me oddly. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I waited for him to complain about having to deal with a crying girl, but he just shrugged good-naturedly and turned back, leaving me with the horde of beasts.
I took a deep breath and clapped my hands together loudly. “Okay, you little pervs,” I shouted over the laughter. “Everybody back to their original positions. Girls to the left. Boys on the right. Let’s go, let’s go!”
I couldn’t deny a little surge of power as I watched them burst into action. Sadly enough, I also knew I couldn’t take credit for any control I might have gained in the power struggle that was this night. Alex had laid down the law back there in the gym earlier, and now we just had to maintain this upper hand for… I glanced up at the wall clock overhead. Yup, still about five to go, give or take a minute.
I really needed to stop looking at the clock, or this night would feel interminably long.
When the kids were back in their original seats and at least pretending to be watching the movie, I headed back down the hall to check on Alex and the other girls, pausing by the auditorium to make sure no one was screaming bloody murder. It was quiet in there—maybe too quiet—but I let it go and headed to the bathroom door, which was propped open slightly.
I peeked in and stopped short at the sight of Alex with his arm around the blonde who was sniffling against his chest. The redhead sat on his other side, biting her lip as she
watched her friend with clear concern.
I pulled back out of sight as Alex spoke softly to the girl still crying. “I’m telling you, Lottie. This guy doesn’t deserve your tears.”
Her voice was too soft for me to make out much other than a high weepy whimper and more sniffles.
“I promise,” he said, his tone so grave it made my stomach do a weird backflip. “He’s selfish. Most guys are.”
“Even you?” That was the redhead talking, and I bit my lip to hold back a laugh as I waited for his answer.
“Especially me.”
The laughter died in my throat because there was something in his tone, something so serious that it bordered on sad. Resignation, maybe.
It wasn’t possible to laugh at that tone of voice.
“Here,” he said. I heard some movement from inside. “Here’s a tissue.”
My heart twisted in my chest at the gentleness in his voice. This was...new. I hadn’t even known Alex could sound like that. I’d never heard him be anything but cocky and arrogant.
“You don’t seem selfish,” the sniffling girl said.
His laughter was low and surprisingly sweet. “Yeah, well, don’t be fooled. But…that’s why I steer clear of nice girls like you. This Jason guy should know better.”
The conversation continued—lots of Lottie sticking up for this Jason kid, from what I could tell. I wasn’t paying attention, because my brain was playing his words on a loop. That’s why I steer clear of nice girls like you.
Like Avery.
He hadn’t said that, but if he was serious about knowing himself well enough to stay away from anyone sweet and kind, well then, maybe…
With a jolt, my perspective of the last three years shifted. This new view of Avery’s obsession, of Alex’s casual disinterest. It flipped upside down so suddenly I felt off balance.
Sleepover with the Enemy (How to Catch a Crush Book 5) Page 5