Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,60

were trying to pass along to us so it was a total snooze-fest that I was forced to endure every day. But I’d take that over staying home with Jillian any day.

I also had college to think about. For some stupid reason I’d applied to some West Coast schools even though I had already decided that I would go to Virginia Tech like Angie and Caleb had done. Since they would be graduating in the spring I wouldn’t have them there with me, but at least I would be closer to home. Still I’d applied to UCLA and several more and gotten in to all of them.

Now?

I was still determined to go to Virginia Tech, but…

But.

There was that but and I didn’t understand it. I tried telling myself it was because I wanted to wait and see where Lucy was going to end up. Tried to tell myself I enjoyed the SoCal weather. Those were all weak excuses when I really looked at them, but I tried not to look at them often. Lucy and I would be close friends no matter where we ended up going to college at, and I was more of a four seasons person than the kind of weather I was faced with in Southern California.

If I was honest with myself—and I really didn’t want to be right then—I knew I wanted a West Coast school because of Jace. Having been forced to see him so often, listen to him talk to Harris and Lucy and countless other people, I knew that he wanted to call L.A. home. Even if it was only for part of the year.

If I was honest with myself, I would admit that after hearing him say that the first time, I’d applied to three different schools all within a few hours’ drive.

If I were honest with myself.

But I didn’t want to be honest with myself, so I kept telling Carter I was going to Virginia Tech in the fall every time I talked to him about it. It was what I told Angie when she questioned me about what dorm I wanted to live in. It was what I told Caleb when he even recommended one of the schools I’d just gotten the acceptance letter to because of their music department.

All three of them had made the right comments, laughed with me about it, but we all knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. Especially them. They knew me too well. Knew that I wanted to stay in SoCal, but I didn’t think they realized why. I hadn’t talked about Jace to any of them, although I was sure Caleb knew since he talked to Cash every so often. They—the three people who loved me for me and didn’t hold that love hostage for the things I could give them—knew that I had something important there and they didn’t need to know anything else.

They just wanted me to be happy.

I wasn’t happy, though.

I was anything but.

Lucy put her hand to her lips for the thousandth time that day and I had to bite back my bitch mode. She was so happy she practically glowed with it, but I was miserable. I wouldn’t take it out on her, however. She didn’t deserve that.

But if she gave me the damn bug that was going around school because she couldn’t keep her hands away from her damn mouth for two seconds and caught whatever it was, then I was seriously going to tit-punch her.

“You know there is some kind of epic bug going around at the moment, right?” I muttered as we exited the school that Friday afternoon.

I felt like I was walking to my doom, knowing that it was the last day before winter break and I would be stuck in the same house with Jillian for an indefinite time. I wanted the next day not to be Saturday. Couldn’t there be school for a few more days? I really wouldn’t mind going on Saturday and Sunday in that moment.

“Hm?” Lucy murmured, still off in her own little world as she skimmed her fingers over her bottom lip for the hundredth time in less than an hour.

“Lucy, there is a seriously bad bug going around this school,” I told her in a cooler tone than I normally would have used with her. “At least a third of the student body is out with it. And yet you have done nothing but touch your mouth. All. Day.” I tapped my fingers to the back of