are we stopping?”
Wyn shrugs, rubbing her shoulder. “Because for some reason Callie has turned into a statue and won’t move.”
We’re standing just a few feet inside the door almost in a line and Wyn is right; Callie, in the front, has stopped moving. The rest of us break away from our formation to go stand beside her.
“Callie, what’s up?” I ask, touching her elbow tentatively.
“Nothing,” she says, her eyes focused on something, her lips barely moving.
“Then why aren’t you moving?” Poe asks.
Callie mumbles something indecipherable and I follow her gaze to find myself staring at a guy.
At a gorgeous guy, actually.
For the first time since yesterday, my mind is thinking about something else. And that something else is this guy that Callie is staring at.
He’s got dark hair that’s kind of spiky and messy at the top, as if he has a serious habit of running his fingers through it. And dark-colored eyes.
Gosh, those eyes are so sparkly and uncanny. Like black gems.
He stands directly opposite to us, among a group of people. From what I can see, this guy seems to be at the center of it.
Everyone – mostly guys and a couple of girls – is somehow talking to him at the same time. Everyone is looking up at him at the same time, as well.
Probably because first, he’s taller than everyone in the group, and second, because he looks bored. Or maybe that’s his resting face, looking arrogantly bored by everything around him.
Well, not everything.
Because in a matter of seconds, his dark-colored eyes have fallen onto the one thing that does interest him.
My friend, Callie.
His smooth features change. They buckle and morph to show slight surprise before a frown appears between his brows.
He clenches his smooth jaw too – much smoother as opposed to his messy hair – with what I can only describe as disdain.
Confused, I look away from him and back to Callie, and when I find the same expression on her face, things suddenly click.
“Is he… the guy because of whom you’re at St. Mary’s?” I ask her, remembering the story she told us about how she ended up at St. Mary’s.
So one night, over dinner, they all shared their stories of how they ended up at St. Mary’s.
Wyn, who lives in a rich neighboring town called Wuthering Garden, was sent here by her parents because she had a fight with them about applying to art programs when the time came. And she got so angry that she drew graffiti on her dad’s car. Although, I can’t imagine Wyn ever being angry with her silver eyes and soft voice. She’s a pure artist. A girl who dreams.
Poe, who’s from Middlemarch, another neighboring town, was sent here by her guardian because she’d prank him and he got really tired of slipping on banana peels and finding frogs in the middle of his bed. I can definitely see Poe doing something like that. She’s a girl who loves trouble, and I say that with all the love in my own troublemaking heart.
Then came Callie’s turn.
“Well, my oldest brother sent me here. Conrad. I’ve got four older brothers by the way and we live in Bardstown. No parents. Anyway, he sent me here because I stole a guy’s car. And drove it into the lake,” she said.
When I asked her why, all she said was, “Because he lied to me.”
Then Wyn jumped in. “Don’t waste your breath. She’ll never tell the whole story. We’ve asked a million times.”
Poe nodded. “Yup. All we’ve ever gotten is a name, a very sexy name: Reed Jackson.”
So now at the bar, Callie stiffens at my question but jerks out a nod.
Poe is next to speak up. “He is Reed Jackson. Wow, I didn’t realize how…”
“How gorgeous he is?” says Wyn, picking up Poe’s trail.
“Exactly,” Poe exclaims. “Gorgeous.”
“That’s the word, yes,” I breathe out.
“Yeah. He’s gorgeous,” Callie says the first words since we all saw him, standing there acting like he owns the place.
Then she breaks the intense stare-down and looks at me. He, however, keeps the connection and friction in his gaze well and alive.
“And a liar and an asshole. So he’s basically a villain. A gorgeous villain,” she says with a tight smile. “Oh, and he’s here. Fantastic. So I’m gonna need a drink before I go over there and drown him in the lake. Fuck Will, the bartender, I’m stealing his whiskey.”
And then she marches away from us and toward the bar.
“What just happened?” Wyn asks.
“I think we