Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,36

looked a little bit like Omi and was curled completely into a tight ball, knees under his chin. Only his dark eyes and eyebrows and short dark hair were visible above them. He looked a little bit younger than everyone else and a little less muscular, but still athletic.

“Are you the football people? Peter said we might be meeting up with you?” Wendy guessed.

Omi’s expression immediately changed, her face shuttering closed like a slammed door.

“Is she one of Peter’s friends?” Omi asked in quite literally the prettiest voice Wendy had ever heard.

“Don’t call them that,” Curly said quickly. “Peter only does because no one can stop him.”

Tinkerbelle shook her head at Omi and put a gentle hand on Omi’s knee. “No, she’s not Peter’s friend. Peter kidnapped her from her house, and now she’s coming with us to the party.”

Omi frowned harder. “You should go home,” she said firmly to Wendy.

“She can’t,” Tinkerbelle said with a sigh. “Peter has been looking at her with that face that means he’s focused on her and will be until something more interesting comes along. If she runs without reason…”

The silence on the bus was deafening until the Russian boy tapped the unlit cigarette he was holding against the seat in front of him and glanced at the girls. “He hunts you down,” he said with a crisp nod before turning back to the window.

“What? Seriously?” Wendy asked. They had to be joking.

Omi stared at her blankly, clearly not kidding at all.

“How much does she know?” Omi asked Tinkerbelle, her brown eyes not leaving Wendy’s face.

“Nothing important,” Tinkerbelle replied. “Enough to follow instructions.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” Omi said, and it sounded like a promise.

She reached a hand over to Wendy. “I’m Ominotago; only Tinkerbelle is allowed to call me Omi.”

Wendy shook her hand lightly.

Ominotago pointed over at the boy who looked like her. “This is Waatese, my little brother. He’s a sophomore.”

“Nice to meet you,” Wendy said. Waatese buried his face deeper into his arms until Wendy could only see tufts of his hair.

“Fyodor is the one pretending he’s not scared,” Ominotago said, pointing at the boy with the Russian accent.

Fyodor raised a hand in a combination of a wave and a dismissal. “Your hair,” he said to Wendy, with a smile tucked in the corner of his mouth. “Beautiful.”

Wendy thought about the fried curly mess, which, after all this running, must be sticking straight out from her head. “Uh. Thanks,” she said, not believing him at all.

“He flirts with everyone; don’t pay attention to him,” Ominotago said tersely.

“I’m Minsu,” the slightly shaken Asian American boy said from across the bus, giving Wendy a peace sign with the hand currently wrapped around his crying friend. “And this is Charles. Give him a minute.”

Charles covered his face with both hands and continued crying.

Ominotago gazed at him fondly. “He’s one of our linebackers.”

Curly reached across the seats and smacked Charles comfortingly on the back.

“Yo, don’t hit him. He doesn’t like to be hit,” Minsu said sternly.

Curly immediately shifted to a firm squeeze before leaning back into his seat. Wendy stared out the front of the bus window blankly for nearly a mile. Curly typed into an old phone while Tinkerbelle and Ominotago sweetly whispered to each other. The rest of the boys sat in complete silence, like they were riding home after an extremely tense day of school.

Wendy looked over at Curly and thought about what Prentis had said. She wondered which of these people Curly had a crush on. He wasn’t acting sheepish like he’d been at the dinner table, so it was extremely hard to tell.

Wendy glanced over at the blond, Fyodor. He could be an option if Wendy stretched her imagination a bit. Ominotago had said Fyodor was a flirt, but she didn’t say it was just with girls.

Waatese, Ominotago’s brother, seemed a bit young for Curly, but Wendy wasn’t sure how old Curly was, either, so that wasn’t a guarantee.

Minsu, who was still comforting Charles, was a maybe. But he had just snapped at Curly, and Curly didn’t react at all the way someone would if their crush snapped at them. He’d hardly reacted at all.

Charles was adorable, and so far he was Wendy’s best guess. Charles was clearly emotional, but probably the most physically impressive of the entire group. She was surprised he hadn’t just ripped the zip ties off with sheer force. He looked like he could give Nibs some tips, and Nibs was no slouch in the biceps