of death…
“You’re wrong, Ice Queen,” Brantley starts, his spit flying out of his mouth. Talk about disgustingly impassioned.
I reel back as he leans over his desk, staring at me with anger in his eyes. “One day, we’re going to find out how they do it, then we’ll expose them for the cowardly motherfuckers they are.”
“Hmm, someone’s a suspicious, sore loser.” I reach over and pat his arm. His anger shifts momentarily to lust.
I wink, playing the game. But I know it’s never going to happen.
“He might be right, Mia,” Dante steps in, glaring at his best friend. “I mean, there must be something they’re doing over there.”
Yeah, practicing and being better. Not to mention they have the star gods on their team.
“Most likely they have the game officials and the ref in their pockets. The Fitz brothers alone can afford to buy out every single family here in Palos Verdes.”
It’s like I’ve just been kicked in the stomach, and that causes a chain reaction. As soon as Brantley mentions their name, I feel my eyes widening as my heart starts pounding and I don’t know how or why, but I let out a little yelp, making the entire class turn to look at me.
“Sorry, I had a soda at lunch,” I murmur.
Lies. I didn’t eat a single thing today. Can’t afford the school lunches here anymore.
“You good, Mia?” Dante asks, looking all concerned for a moment. “You looked terrified.”
“Yeah, you looked like you’d just seen a ghost,” Brantley says, eyeing me.
“Maybe she does see ghosts,” Roxy butts in from the other side of the class. I know she’s looking for a rise out of me.
“You know what Roxy, I think I do, since I’m looking at your pale, cold, heartless self,” I counter, my words laced with a bit of heat that neither of us actually feel toward each other.
Everyone starts laughing and Roxy tilts her head, watching me.
“Aww, then that means I frighten you, doesn’t it?” she counters, her voice sultry and airy—a technique that’s only mastered correctly by the R.A.C.K. “Do I terrify you, Mia?”
“Hmm, maybe not today,” I counter with a smile that matches her real one. “Try next week though. Make sure to add more of that Joker pale make-up, will you.”
I’m totally bullshitting. Roxy Bishop is flawless, in all aspects of her life. She was beautiful, wealthy, poised and she has an ice box where God generally intended for a heart. Hell, I wouldn’t be shocked if her farts smell like daisies and lavenders.
But we weren’t enemies, even though these wide-eyed, trembling, video recording fools, think otherwise.
“Sure, I’ll come over later tonight and get it from your Joker stash,” she smiles. “We all know how you like the dangerous, sick-in the head, vicious types, Harley Quinn.”
My jaw almost drops to the floor because she’s not wrong.
Julian Fitzgerald wasn’t a boy, he was a manly man, about to graduate high school and everything he was just screamed of dark, bad boy vibes. And against all sound reasoning and my better judgement, I think about him all the damn time.
Without even trying, he managed to twist me up inside, messed with my head so that I’d spend hours of the night thinking about him when I should be taking care of my responsibilities. Not to mention, I was the coward who runs away each time I so much as hear a whisper of his name, especially when I knew I’d caused bad blood between him and his brother.
“Aww, look at us, Roxy.” I fake enthusiasm, snapping out of my funk. “It’s like you’re talking about yourself there.”
“Quiet, all of you,” Mrs. Henry, our English Lit teacher calls from the front without looking up. “This work isn’t going to do itself.”
Roxy winks my way and I shake my head back as I turn toward the board. Looks like we just supplied the school with a little weekend gossip.
“What is it with you girls and those jerks?” Brantley whispers behind me. “Every time someone mentions the damn Fitz brothers, you all go bat shit crazy, not to mention a bit stupid.”
“Careful, I don’t think they’d appreciate you calling them stupid,” I mutter over my shoulder. “Or crazy.”
Because they actually do go crazy when they see the Fitz brothers.
From the corner of my eye, I notice girls perking up in their seats, their interest heightened by the mere mention of a name that irritates me.
But then, that name warms me sometimes making my lips tingle when I notice Julian from