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I shouldn’t be scowling, but I was.
I couldn’t help it.
He also had a decent black eye, and the right part of his face was banged up. The side of his mouth was cut and swollen as well.
“Ah, Mr. Raiden,” the teacher said. “You have graced our school with your presence this morning.”
I waited for the teacher to comment on his bruised face. He didn’t.
“We have found ourselves in a dilemma here. We have two empty seats. You and Miss Williams both need to claim one of them, but we also have Miss Harthorne who claims she’ll be claustrophobic if she sits with someone she doesn’t know.” He looked at me. “Please don’t take this personally. You’re new. Miss Harthorne is having a temper tantrum. This is common—”
“It is not!”
As the teacher spoke to me, I felt Mr. Raiden’s gaze come my way. Most times, I wouldn’t have been affected by such a casual glance, but this guy’s eyes trailing over me flooded me with feelings and sensations and shivers I did not want to experience. It only made me more pissed, and by the time he got to my face, he checked my lips, then checked my hostility. His eyes flew to mine, and his blatant interest was masked as he scowled back.
I relaxed. Good. As long as we’d gotten that settled—I didn’t like him, and considering the fuck-you look in his eyes, it seemed he didn’t like me either.
I really only had one option because no way I was letting the Harthorne girl take Clint’s seat and force me to sit with this guy.
“I’ll sit with Clint,” I announced and dropped abruptly onto the stool behind him.
Or I would’ve.
Clint pulled the stool away.
It happened in slow motion.
I heard the class gasp and then the laughter.
I locked eyes with my cousin and saw him smirking at me.
And as I was falling, I grabbed him. If I was going down, he was going with me. Once we both hit the floor, he shoved upright, but I twisted and kicked his feet out from under him. He fell back down, and then I was up, and I took his stool instead.
He jumped to his feet. “Get off my stool, Rams,” he growled.
My answer? I kicked out the one on the floor and said, “Go fetch.”
He glared at me but didn’t make a move to take me off his stool. He knew better. I’d grown up with this kid. We didn’t spend our time playing with stuffed animals, like I had wanted. We wrestled. We played football. Foosball. We did everything the boys wanted because they were the majority. I didn’t love it, but I’d learned to hold my own.
Clint knew this. He and I had tangled the most, but we weren’t in one of our backyards right now. We were in his school, and he had a reputation to uphold.
I raised an eyebrow, and he grabbed my stool, slammed it back in place, and then scooped me up as if I weighed nothing. I made some sort of sound, and then he deposited me back on my stool. He returned to his with a huff.
I’d forgotten how strong he was, and—I noted to myself—how strong Alex and Trenton would be too. We weren’t little kids scrapping anymore.
Everyone was gaping at us. Even the teacher. I didn’t look at Mr. Raiden. I already knew I’d be ignoring him forever and ever, but then Clint announced, “We’re cousins. It may not look like it, but I love this piece of shit.”
I found a good chunk of his underarm and twisted. He cried out before squashing my hand and wrenched his arm back.
“Don’t call me that,” I said hotly.
He sighed.
Tit for tat.
This time he gave in. “Fine. Sorry.”
The teacher had the last word. “Detention for both of you.”
4
RAMSAY
Word had gotten out about me.
Clint showed me where my second class was, and Alex was waiting for me after that one to walk me to our third. Trent was in my fourth period, and with each class, I caught more and more people shooting me looks. The conversations and whispers went quiet when I got close.
I wasn’t expecting this much attention. I knew the triplets were popular, but this much focus was a lot. I found Gem in the cafeteria, and mentioned this when she asked how my morning had gone.
“Yeah.” She moved forward in line, grabbing a salad and a water. “That’s because we’re outside the city. There are a ton of smaller towns surrounding us, but they aren’t big enough to have their own schools so everyone congregates here. Plus, Pine Valley is across the river. Pine Val is way bigger than us.”
“With the distance, that’s allowed?”
“They aren’t that far away. District boundary lines are broad here. Really broad.”
“Wow.”
At the register, Gem glanced at me. “You don’t have your ID yet, do you?”
