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She sucked in a staggering breath, her fists clenching in her lap. “Fuck. Off.”
Angel barked out a laugh. “I got your number, brat. When you’re uncomfortable, you revert to a raging bitch. But whatever. I’m not here for you. I’m here because Beck and Jonah are my cousins, and Thatcher is my friend. So yeah, I’m here for you, but notbecauseof you. It’s up to you to change that.” He flicked her ear and sat back.
Holy fuck. Trinity was fuming in the seat. For a few seconds, I thought I’d have to stop her from flying to the back and attempting to hand Angel his ass.
The rest of the ride was relatively peaceful, mainly because no one spoke. Trinity was quiet through the meeting, and every time I thought she’d snap at Angel for interfering with George, she gritted her teeth and looked at the table. The girl was clearly struggling. I’d have to ask her what it was about later.
All in all, it was a shit meeting. Not because of Angel, or Trinity, but because the court date had been pushed back again.
A happy future was so close to our grasping hands, but times like this where life liked to kill us with a thousand small cuts, it really messed with my headspace.
I wanted to hope, but sometimes, it felt so brittle, like the lightest blow would shatter it to pieces.
The rest of the week at school was both enticingly easy and devastatingly difficult. Rhys being the entire reason it was difficult. He refused to take me to school, which was fine, Beck liked to do that when he could anyway. There were no hallway meetups, no lunches spent together, not even in the dusty library where no one could see us.
Jonah had tried to assure him the only people who would even know we were there was the eighty-year-old librarian, who probably couldn’t see us that far in the corner anyway, and the two geeks who hated talking to people and spent more time with their noses in books than out of it. Which meant there was a good chance they wouldn’t recognize us either.
Rhys had completely blown Jonah off. He was acting like a paranoid user, watching the halls and scanning our surrounding areas like he expected photographers to jump out at any given moment.
“Hey,” Jonah caught up to me in the hallway as I pushed my way through the ripe, teenage crowd. I didn’t know what it was, but every high school I’d ever stepped foot in—though admittedly the number fit on one hand—smelled like the bottom of a puberty ridden boy’s gym bag.
“Hey,” I panted. “I’m trying to catch Rhys before he leaves the school.” I left my last class a few minutes early, but his last class was on the other side of the campus.
“He’s still avoiding you?” Jonah growled. “Rhys is avoiding me, and fine, whatever, but to avoid you? That’s ridiculous.”
"His heart’s in the right place.” There it was. History with Mr. Meenan. And there was my golden hockey star leaving. The top of his light blond head bobbing over the sea of students. “Hurry.”
We nearly bowled over a few freshmen to catch up to him, but we did it, right before he stepped foot outside the double doors.
“Rhys!” I caught his hand in mine and he immediately pulled it back, glanced outside, then pushed us into the closest classroom. Luckily, being so close to the entrance, it was already empty.
“What the hell are you two doing ambushing me?” Rhys ripped his hands through his hair, dropping his bag onto one of the desks.
“Hey, dude. Not cool. We know you’re worked up over your dad, but that’s not the way this should be going down. Didn’t you learn anything from Beck?” Jonah stepped up to Rhys.
My hockey star had a few inches and about thirty pounds on my school nerd, but from the way Jonah glared up at Rhys, you’d never know it.
“This is not the same. He was keeping secrets because he was afraid for himself.”Ouch. I flinched at Rhys’ words. Beck’s motivation wasn’t as simple as that, although it was indisputable that was part of it. “I’m trying to distance you all from this shit show that’s breaking free around my dad.” He tipped forward, towering over Jonah.
“No,” Jonah argued, shaking his head. “That’s not how this works.”
“What the hell do you know about how this works? You’ve barely stepped foot in the relationship.”
Jonah’s shoulders tensed. I expected Rhys to take his words back, but he didn’t. Afraid he’d end up saying something he couldn’t take back, I waded between them. Their chests were warm and their heartbeats steady under my palms.
“Stop. I didn’t want a fight. That wasn’t why I chased after you.” I glanced up at Rhys, hating the naked fear lingering in their light blue depths. And I couldn’t stand knowing that I’d added to it by cornering him. I gulped, dropping my gaze to my hand.
As suddenly as we were thrust in here, I was suddenly regretting my halfcocked plan formed from good intentions. I wanted to laugh at the thought. Because you know, the road to hell…
“Wasn’t it? Aren’t you following me to stage an intervention?” What started out as a heated accusation ended on a softer tone.
Jonah remained silent, allowing me to figure out what I wanted to say. That was fair, given I was the one who ran after him.
“I…was trying to catch you. Thatcher’s outside with our stuff,” I admitted quietly.
He groaned, roping his arms around my middle and pulling me into his chest. “What am I going to do with you, Astrid?”
“Love me?” I asked hopefully. My attempt to inject a little lightness into the situation didn’t quite meet its mark, but Rhys only squeezed me tighter. Movement behind me let me know Jonah was stepping back, but he didn’t leave the room.
