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He’d been totally sweet about it—until the day she cranked up her nerve and declared her feelings for him.
He’d kissed her on the forehead and told her he wasn’t into girls. Then, presumably to soften the blow, he’d confessed that he was personally crushing on the football team’s starting center.
Unfortunately, the wrong guys had overheard him. Quinn never knew who did it, but someone had punched Adam in the back of his head when he was standing at his locker. Perfectly timed, Adam’s head had snapped forward, right into the metal plate that stuck out to hold a combination lock.
She’d heard that it had taken fourteen stitches to close the gash on his lip.
She hadn’t heard it from Adam—he never came back to school. She’d tried to reach out on Facebook, but his Wall was full of epithets.
And the next day, his account was deleted altogether.
Quinn kind of lost track of him until last year, when he’d shown up at the Y, saying his basement apartment was just too confining. He’d gotten his GED instead of returning to high school, and now, at nineteen, he was working two jobs while taking here-and-there classes at the local community college.
Gabriel had mocked her choice to be a cheerleader.
He’d said she belonged on the bottom of the pyramid with the sturdy girls.
“Hey. Hey.” Nick’s hands closed over hers, and she realized she was kneeling, fighting with the zipper on her bag, and she’d already started a tear in the nylon stitching.
His blue eyes were close, intent on her face. She had to be flushed; it felt like it was a thousand degrees in here.
“What happened?” he said carefully.
She squished her eyes shut and thought about her day. Jake. Her mom. Cheerleading.
She opened her eyes and caught her body in the edge of the mirror, the way the shorts were cutting into her stomach, creating a little roll there.
Crisco.
She wanted to punch the glass, to watch cracks form a disjointed spiderweb across her reflection. Her hand formed a fist.
But she didn’t swing it. Something worse happened.
She started crying.
CHAPTER 2
Nick knew what was expected when girls started crying: a hug, a minute or two of listening, a minute or two to offer some soothing words, and a wry smile followed by the suggestion that they find some chocolate. Or ice cream. Or both.
Much like the accounting, he could do it in his sleep.
But Quinn didn’t even let him get to the hug. She jerked her hands away from him and swiped the dampness from her eyes, then stood. “God. Next time I start to do that, smack me or something.”
“Sure. Sounds perfectly socially acceptable.” He paused. “You okay?”
She pulled her ponytail free and started to retie it. “I hate when they make me do that.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
“I was shooting for a more specific list of people.”
She turned away from him. “I don’t think the cheerleading thing is going to work out.”
“Did something happen?”
“Your brother was right.”
