After another glance to either side of the hallway, where he spotted his jock friends among the crowd, near enough to rumble on his behalf, Rich pinned his stare on me as if my friends weren’t even there.
“I’m not talking to any of you. This only concerns Joss.”
“Whatever concerns Joss concerns me,” Griffin said, his voice still deep, like building thunder moments away from booming into existence.
“I’m pretty sure Joss can take care of herself,” Rich insisted.
“Of course I can,” I snapped. “But I’m not interested. Not now, not ever.”
“Aw, come on.” Rich put a “how can you resist this?” look on his face, causing our audience to laugh on cue. “We’d have so much fun.”
“And we’dhave funbeating your ugly face in,” Griffin said. “You heard her. Now fuck off.”
I wouldn’t have thought violence did it for me until I heard it from Griffin’s beautiful lips.
Rich got up in Griffin’s face, his buddies moving in. “You don’t tell me to fuck off. I’m gonna tell you to fuck off.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Rich,” Layla grumbled with annoyance. “Just—”
“What’s going on here?” a teacher called out, and the crowd began to scatter.
While Mr. Lauderbeck walked toward us, the football coach’s eyes narrowed at the members of his team. Rich leaned in so that his cologne felt like an assault.
Eyes narrowed to slits, distorting his objectively handsome face into something truly ugly, he hissed at Griffin, “Tonight. At the crossroads. You and me. We’ll settle this then.”
The “crossroads” referenced an old farming route at the edge of town that was never used at nighttime, where locals met up to drag race.
Without hesitation, Griffin responded, “You’re on.”
Rich leaned back a few inches and smiled good-naturedly. “Great. I can wait till then to beat your ass.”
Then, without missing a beat, he spun to offer a blinding smile to the approaching teacher. “What’s up, Mr. Lauderbeck? What do you think of the upcoming game against Mountain Laurel? What are our odds?”
As Rich steered him away, and everyone else dispersed, I exchanged looks with my friends.
“Well, that didn’t go to plan,” Layla said.
“It sounds great to me,” Zoe piped up. I’d forgotten she was there. “I love watching you guys race. Hunt especially.” She paused, seemingly only to moon up at him.
Hunt swallowed a long-suffering sigh, but I didn’t think anyone other than the four of us would notice. Of all of us, he was actually managing to keep it together the best, even with Zoe draping herself all over him every chance she got.
“I’ll be there tonight for sure,” Zoe added.
I smiled tightly. “Great. Can’t fucking wait. Guys, ready to go train?”
“So fucking ready,” Brady snarled.
“Fuck yeah,” Griffin echoed.
Griffin and Brady looked ready to pulverize something Rich-Connely-shaped. And IknewI was ready. After blowing off steam with our new instructors, we were going to need to order new dummies.
26
Rinse and Repeat
My admiration of our instructors’ demanding, unwavering discipline had evaporated about forty-five minutes ago. In the open clearing next to the treehouse, sweat dripped down my face in annoying, tickling rivulets, and I couldn’t stop myself from glaring at Yolanda. I really, really wanted to stop. My anger seemed only to delight her.
“Vamos, vamos!” she barked at me. My appreciation for her pleasantly exotic accent had also vanished somewhere around the hour mark. “I don’t train quitters.”
