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I turned and walked out, trying to keep my head high though my insides were quivering with a toxic mixture of fear and anger.
“Wait,” Seth called out as I was about to cross the road. He was standing on his sidewalk with Paxon behind him. The rest of the guys were peeking through the door with various degrees of shock and surprise, but they remained in the safety of Seth’s house.
“What?” I asked, waiting for a car to drive by.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For Bryan.”
I shook my head. “No.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he didn’t even seem to know what to do with my response. I gritted my teeth and shook my head, needing to get my point across.
“No. It isn’t you who should be apologizing, but him.” I pointed toward the door where I knew he was hiding. “I won’t take anything less. I may not be part of your little clique, but that doesn’t give anyone, especially him, the right to try to push me around or belittle me. I don’t need that shit in my life. If he really means it, he can apologize to me in person. If not…” I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It was nice meeting everyone, for the most part. I wish you luck with your online classes and work, and the rest of them with their senior year.”
I ran across the road and walked back to my house, feeling their eyes on me. My heart pounded at the confrontation, adrenaline spiking through me. A bark echoed through the quiet neighborhood, and I knew it was Bebe right away. He sounded so sad, but I refused to look back.
Their complication was not something I wanted in my life. I didn’t need them. They were a tight group, the kind that stood at each other’s back no matter what, and I didn’t want to be tossed into that mess or have all of them blatantly standing against me.
Chapter Seven
~Bryan’s POV~
Toby smacked me for what felt like the hundredth time since dinner last night.
“Shit.” I covered my head in a bad attempt to protect myself. He aimed for my shoulder instead. “Stop it already.”
“No, you fucked up, Bryan. You fucked up. Everything was going great until you opened your fucking mouth.”
I rolled my eyes, unwilling to allow myself to feel bad for what I said. I spoke my mind, said the truth. If she couldn’t handle it, then that was her problem.
Parking took longer than it should have as I had to find a place closer to the road. Our school had way too many students. None of us had noticed Cadence until the weekend, and yet, she had gone to the same school with us for years.
I tried to rack my brain for a memory of her. It felt like I may have had some classes with her, but I couldn’t be sure. My life was busy enough dealing with my parents and hanging out with my friends. I didn’t really allow myself to open up to anyone else in school. If anyone were to know who she was, I would have thought it’d be Toby since they were both into music and he was sociable. Or Paxon. Paxon knew everyone and was friendly too.
Toby moved to hit me again, and I sent him a glare. “Don’t you dare.”
He stopped and glared at me before getting out of the car and stomping away. He was reacting strongly to Cadence, and he barely knew the girl. She’d managed to leave an impression on my friends.
Including me, even though I didn’t want to admit it. She put me on edge. My instincts rang around her, and they only did that with deceitful people. I had years of my parents to hone that skill and it hadn’t failed me yet. She wanted something, and I was going to make sure she didn’t drag my friends—family really—into her mess.
Pained honey brown eyes flashed through my mind, and I clenched my teeth. There were secrets in her eyes, painful ones. That didn’t change anything. Whenever someone approached us, theyalwayswanted something, whether it be money, connections to my parents, or to use my reputation. Didn’t matter. I wouldn’t let them have it.
Especially women. They were the worst. They only wanted bragging rights, only wanted me to buy nice things for them. No. I was not going to fall into the trap of Cadence. The others would get over it. She was just some chick, nothing special.
I followed behind as Toby stormed into the courtyard. The rest of the others were already there, talking. As we approached, they stopped and turned, falling silent.
They didn’t need to say anything for me to feel all of their judgments. Shit. Maybe they wouldn’t get over it then.
“You need to make nice,” Justin said, doing his creepy ‘I see into your soul’ stare.
Double shit. Justin said few words, and when he did, we listened.
“No.”
“You hurt her last night.” Paxon threw in his two cents. “You know nothing about her, and yet you threw her background into her face. We all saw her expression. Since you hurt Cadence, you need to apologize.”
