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I knew because he looked at me.
He stared right at me, only the two of us in the hallway. He must have heard me, but as I got closer, he merely moved those green irises back to what he was doing. He continued to mess in his locker, and I chewed my lip.
“Hi,” I said, the simplest thing to say when I got beside him.
A thick arm accompanied the grapple of a book from the top shelf. “What’s up?”
The chill outside was less cold. I pushed arms around my front. “You’re back.”
“Seems that way.” More chill, and I wanted to shake him, get him to open up… do something, but he just continued to fool around with his stuff.
I forced out a harsh breath. “I think we should talk. About some of the things you said?” He said so many things, confusing things, and I just needed some damn answers. “Royal—”
A locker slammed, and I blanched, Royal tossing his book bag on his back. He pushed a hand into his pocket, that green stare pinned directly on me. Royal and I had a few tense exchanges, ones where he’d wanted me to stay out of his way. But even in the past, it hadn’t been this, though. He hadn’t looked completely over me and something I said to him.
That was his look now, the boy taking the steps to move closer to me. He wet his lips. “Conversat
ion?”
What the…
Thrown, I blinked wide. “Our conversation we had. You know… That last one?”
Again he passed it off, a fucking shoulder shrug this time. “Gotta go. You probably should too. Probably shouldn’t get into any more trouble around here. At least me.”
He left me with nothing more than that before passing me, and my heart squeezing, I backed into his locker. I didn’t watch him as he walked away from me, down the hallway and to his own classes. I couldn’t.
I was having a hard time standing.
He was really doing this, shutting me out, and closing my eyes, I opened them only to almost run into someone. I hadn’t expected Mira to be there, his girlfriend, Mira, let alone her death stare.
She gave that to me full on, her arms folded over her chest. Knowing I ran into her, I passed her a mumbled “sorry” before passing around her. With the fragile state I was currently in, I didn’t feel like dealing with her too.
“I hope you don’t think you’re just going to walk past me like that,” she said, causing me to stop. “You’ve been avoiding me like a little bitch, and I think you owe me the courtesy of at least a chat. Especially after getting my boyfriend suspended.”
My jaw working, I forced myself to face this asshole. She was so in the wrong here it wasn’t even funny. I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking…”
So quickly she got into my face, so fucking quick. In a flash, she had an acrylic fingernail pointed in my direction, and it look all I had not to rip her finger away and snap it in two. I stood there, my patience tested, but not for long if she didn’t back the hell up. “Mira, you seriously need to put some distance between us right now.”
“I need to put some distance?” She put her finger down only to prop hands on her hips. “You need to put some distance between you and Royal. What do you think is going on between you two, and why in the entire fuck is he getting into fights with you in the middle?”
“I don’t have time for this—”
She grabbed me. Like actually fucking grabbed me by the arm, and I swore to God I saw red. I swore to God it would be World War fucking three if she didn’t get her hand off me right now.
“I could end him, you know?” Paused me, though, the words seething from Mira’s ruby red lips. “I can and I will. I got something over on him, December. Something so terrible I wouldn’t hesitate to let come out if only to keep him away from you.”
I eyed her, my eyebrows narrowing. I started to question, but she let go of me.
“Stay away from my man,” she said and, with that, fluffed her hair out. She headed in the opposite direction.
What the fuck?
Twenty-One
December
So Mira had something on Royal, did she? Of course she did, and suddenly it all made sense. Suddenly, their relationship made sense. It’d seemed to come out of nowhere when it happened. I’d seen them together at my sister’s reception, something she’d definitely not been invited to attend, and the way it’d gone down had been so odd. He’d shut me out right after that, abandoned me and shipped me off to fucking Arizona, only for me to come back and him to tell me he needed her. Maybe he hadn’t needed her really.
