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“I am, I promise. The ice helped the pain, I stopped bleeding, and I didn’t crack a tooth. It’s like my lucky day or something.”
I slid my laptop into my bag. When I looked up, two maintenance workers had entered the classroom and were talking to Professor Seavers. My heart stuttered at the sight of Lachlan in his uniform. I’d never been a uniform girl until him. Or maybe I was simply a Lachlan girl.
I had a crush on my lovah. It was so bad.
Lachlan traversed the stairs in seconds, displeasure pinching his brow. “Are you hurt?”
“Hello, you.” I grinned up at my towering man. “I’m just fine.”
Sal cleared his throat. “She knocked her chin into the table. She was bleeding.”
I slapped his arm. “Snitches get stitches.”
His mouth pulled down. “So do women whose classmates think it's funny to mess with their chairs.”
Lachlan pulled me to my feet, raking his gaze over me. When he landed on my bandage, he practically vibrated. “What. Happened?” His jaw was clenched in anger, but he touched me with nothing but gentleness, cupping my cheeks and running his thumb over my chin.
“Like the little snitch said, my classmates messed with my chair. Bam! Down I went.” I pressed my palms to his rapidly rising and falling chest, dropping my tone to soothing. “You won’t have to worry, Lachlan. There are cameras in here. They won’t be my classmates for long.”
“How can you tell me not to worry?” he bit out. “Someone deliberately hurt you.”
“I think humiliation was more the goal.” I rose on my toes, kissing his chin. “Don’t be mad. I’m fine. I’m just going to go home and bond with a bag of frozen veggies.”
He jerked back, staring at me like I had three heads. “I’m not finding this funny.” He tugged me into his side, his arm banding around my shoulders. “I’ll drive you home.”
“You’re working,” I protested. “I can walk.”
“If you argue with me, I’ll sling you over my shoulder. I don’t want to do that with you injured, but I will if you think for another second you’re not going with me.”
He hadn’t calmed since seeing me injured. His body had turned into one taut muscle, poised for war. Under my hand, his heart thundered like a thousand horses stampeding across an open plain.
I leaned into him, nuzzling my nose into his shoulder. “Okay, you can drive me.” It didn’t cost me anything to give him that, and it smoothed one of the angry lines slashing his forehead.
He said a few words to his coworker, I waved goodbye to Sal, and a few minutes later, he tucked me into his truck. As soon as he climbed in beside me, he yanked me into his lap and tipped my face back so he could kiss my chin.
With a heaving sigh, he brought his forehead to mine.
“We got a call to replace a broken chair. I knew it was your class. I was just hoping I’d catch you before you left so I could feel you up in a dark corner. Instead, I walk in and see you like this. It felt like I’d been hit by a truck out of nowhere. You might think I overreacted, but it physically pains me to see you hurt. I fucking hate it.”
Weaving my fingers in the sides of his hair, I held him steady. “Listen to me, Lachlan. I’m pissed those idiots got one over on me. My pride is definitely injured, and my chin is sore. I’m not afraid, though. My injuries aren’t permanent. I’m okay.”
He pulled back, reading my face for the truth. After a minute or two, he exhaled, shaking his head. “You’re really unbothered, aren’t you? You’re being actively bullied, and you don’t give a shit. How is that?”
“I would have to care about those people to be bothered. I like Sal. I’d be disappointed if Sal turned on me. The rest? It’s pretty much par for the course for that set.They’rebothered that they can’t get to me. I refuse to be bullied.”
“You can refuse all you want, but hurting you is crossing so many lines, Elena.”
“And they’ll be punished. What use is it for me to cry about it? I’ll go on with my life while they’re bogged down by trivialities that mean nothing in the real world.”
He stared at me like I was an alien, and maybe I was to him. We’d led extremely different lives, whether he wanted to believe it or not. He might have grown up privileged, but I had a feeling he’d always been kind and easygoing. Lachlan had never boiled with rage over someone having something he wanted. He’d never dug his nails into his palms so hard it drew blood because a teacher complimented his best friend’s English paper but not his. He’d never slashed tires or exposed naked pics or pushed a random girl in a pool for being too hot.
Lachlan would never understand what it was to waste away in the mire of jealousy and petty grudges. I was intimate with the muck, which was why I knew letting the Pi Sig boys fester in the excrement of their broken dreams was the worst punishment I could inflict.
“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you,” Lachlan admitted.
“Join the club. I don’t know what to do with myself a lot of the time.”
His lips touched mine. “Let me take you home.”
