Page 12 of Make Me Mean It

CHAPTER FOUR

CONNOR

Iswipe my thumb across the screen, smearing the rain instead of clearing it, and read Marcus’s message again even though I already know every word. Maybe I’m hoping I missed something the first four times. An apology. An explanation. Anything that makes being stranded out here in the pouring rain make sense.

Marcus

Sorry got caught up. theo said he can grab you

I stare at the name.

Theo.

Right. Because apparently being abandoned in the rain wasn’t already bad enough.

I stare at Marcus’s message until another drop of rain hits the screen and sends water streaking through his name. The urge to throw the phone straight into the road is almost enough to win out, but I shove it into my pocket instead.

A new phone would cost several hundred pounds.

Marcus isn’t worth several hundred pounds.

The rain comes down harder, soaking straight through my t-shirt until the fabric clings cold against my skin. Water slips beneath the collar and runs down my spine, and whatever patience I had left goes with it.

“Asshole,” I curse, jerking my backpack higher on my shoulder.

I’m going to kill him.

Not actually, obviously, but there’s a very real possibility I’m going to smack him around the back of the head the next time I see him. He knew I needed picking up. We agreed he would pick me up. There was a time, a place and an entire conversation dedicated to making sure this exact situation didn’t happen, yet somehow I’m still walking home in the pouring rain because apparently plans mean nothing to my brother.

I duck my head and start down the road, trainers already soaked through enough that every step makes an unpleasant squelch against the pavement. My shirt clings cold against my back, wet hair falling into my eyes faster than I can shove it away. I hitch my bag higher, trying to ease the strap cutting into my shoulder, but that only shifts the ache further down my back.

An engine roars somewhere behind me, growing louder fast enough that I turn just as a motorbike cuts through the water beside me and swings into the curb.

Rainwater sprays up around my ankles, splashing halfway up my jeans, and I jerk back with a hand raised against the worst of it.

As though I could possibly get any wetter.

I shove my soaked hair out of my eyes and turn to find Theo sitting astride the bike beside me, one boot planted against the wet pavement while the engine rumbles beneath him.

I recognise the bike. Hard not to when I’ve seen it parked outside campus often enough, sleek and black and obnoxiously nice, usually with Theo leaning against it looking far too pleased with himself.

He somehow manages to look even more irritating sitting on it.

Theo pulls his helmet off one-handed, shaking damp hair away from his forehead. Rain has caught in his lashes and is running down the side of his face, disappearing beneath the collar of his black t-shirt, and I realise I’m staring only when his mouth starts to curve.

“Hop on, princess,” he calls over the growl of the engine.

Any gratitude I might have scraped together dies on the spot.

“Do you even know my name?” I call back, and the moment Theo’s mouth curves, I wish I’d kept mine shut.

I walked straight into that one.

His helmet hangs loosely from his fingers while he leans forward against the handlebars, apparently in no hurry despite the rain pouring down around us.

“I do,” he says easily.

“Bullshit.”