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At his words, my head whips around and my smile fades. “Who told you that?”
“My mom goes to book club with Lane,” he replies smugly.
“As far as we’re aware, Scandal is a student here until the end of the school year and you will accept her into Dance Elite SP or you’ll both lose your places in dance class.”
“WHAT?” Presley yells, hands balling into fists by his sides. “Fuck you, Hammond. You need us.”
“Like I said… you’re both replaceable. With her… you’re not. Your choice or I give your spots in the end show to Michael and Glen and she goes with them instead.”
Now it’s my turn to grin smugly. “Looks like your future rests in my hands, boys.”
“Two guys, one girl… that’s so hot,” Alice mutters and we all shoot her a look. “Just saying.”
“Your new schedule,” Jefferson tells me as his printer churns to life and slowly spits out a new sheet of paper. He hands it to me and looks at the three of us. “Get over your hatred, guys—”
“Don’t get over your hatred,” Hammond puts in, cutting off the principal. “Stay hating each other, bottle that passion, throw it at each other in dance. This is going to be incredible. With my help, your dances will go down in history.”
“Somebody needs a Xanax,” Alice whispers in my ear making me snort.
As I fold up my new schedule and stuff it into my bag, the boys shoulder past me, almost knocking me over as they go. I grit my teeth and Alice calls them assholes.
“Dance is all about trust,” I say to Hammond. “If I injure myself so badly because of them and lose the only thing I have that keeps me alive, let that be on your conscience.”
Then I leave with Alice hot on my heels.
“This is going to be mental,” she says breathily and I hum my agreement.
“I need money,” I say at the dinner table. I loathe to ask them but I need new clothing for dance as is expected by the school.
They both look up from their food. “What for?” Stanley asks as Lane asks, “How much?”
“School supplies,” I reply, “a hundred dollars.”
“What could you possibly be buying for school that costs a hundred dollars?” Lane gasps.
Stanley, however, reaches into his wallet and pulls out a few twenty-dollar bills. “Trust,” he declares and slides the bills my way but keeps them trapped beneath his fingers on the table between us. “It’s everything.”
I nod, understanding that he’s giving me a chance here, despite my past, despite my treatment of them.
It’s no wonder Lane wants to place me elsewhere.
I pocket the money and move to the counter to grab Curlyfry’s leash that is hooked to the wall. I need to start pulling my weight around here before I lose it. I’ve only been here a week but already it’s better than anywhere else.
“It really is for school supplies,” I say to Lane. I could tell her that it’s for a new dance uniform but then they’d both get involved and I don’t want them involved in my life outside of this house. They don’t need to be. “Curlyfry, come on, let’s go walkies.”
The big dog comes bounding into the room so fast he collides with my body and knocks me back a step. As I hook his lead to his collar, he licks the side of my face.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” I utter, grabbing Curlyfry’s ball and stuffing it into the pocket of my jacket. “Come on, boy. Come on. Let’s go.”
I open the door and squeak when Curlyfry bounds forward, dragging me with him. It’s a good thing I can keep up and an even better thing that he is such a well-behaved dog because after a while I drop the lead and we just jog together, side by side.
I wasn’t expecting much when I showed up to school this morning. Meaning I wasn’t expecting Carter or Presley to turn up to the dance studio for practice.
I’ve spent the past twenty minutes warming up in the mirrors, doing my stretches, jumps, rolls, etc. It’s been great moving around such a large expanse of space. This is such a downer; I was hoping they’d quit and saddle me with nicer people. When the door opened, I expected to see Mr. Hammond but not the two guys trailing behind him with bitter looks on their faces.
“If you keep frowning like that, your pretty teen-boy faces will look forty before you’re twenty,” Hammond tells them and then smiles at me. “Ah, you’re here.”
I take a large swig of my water, aware that I’m already a bit sweaty, but at least I don’t smell. My hair is tied high above my head and I’m wearing form-fitting pants and a matching crop top, with a loose-fitting see-through thigh-length wife-beater over the top. I love modern gym clothes, they’re so comfy and sexy.
