Dangers Back (sequel to "Danger")

"I'm going to protect you,"

I nudged my elbow into her, bringing her back to reality as she hissed under her breath, shooting be a quick side glare as if to say what the fuck? But I managed to ignore her as I turned to face Tanner once more. “She has a boyfriend.” I snapped, jerking Tanner’s attention away from Carly and over to me. “Just letting you know.”

“Oh,” Tanner took a step back, sliding his hands away in the depths of his pockets. “I didn’t know that. However, it was harmless. There were no intentions behind it.” His blue eyes danced across from me back to Carly. “I’m sorry.” He apologized.

I raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing him. “Uh, huh…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Carly waved a hand dismissively, giving a small smile in return.

Taking notice that things have been extremely awkward, I cleared my throat. “Well it was, uhm, nice meeting you?” I cringed at the words, “but we have to go. Bye.” Grabbing onto Carly’s elbow, I pulled her away and over to her car before letting her go.

“Ow, what the hell Kelsey?” Carly spat, turning to me as she rubbed her palm against the skin I had pinched with my nails due to how hard I had gripped her.

“Are you an idiot or are you an idiot?” I threw my hands in the air after I had thrown my books into the back seat of her car.

“What did I do?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” I sarcastically trailed off, placing a finger to the tip of my chin as if I were deep in thought. “Maybe the fact that you completely flirted with some random guy whom I’m convinced is a freak!”

“How the hell do you know if he’s a freak or not?”

“Maybe because the first thing he asked me was if Justin was my boyfriend? Or the fact that he practically already knew who I was before I even told him?” I whisper shouted, not being able to believe Carly was actually defending the likes of a guy she had just met.

“Wait a second,” Carly walked closer to me, her voice dialed down to a murmur. “What do you mean he knew you? I’ve never seen him around campus before.”

“Exactly the point I was trying to get across to you.” I sighed, licking my lips. “Let’s just head back to the house, I’ll tell you on the drive there.” Smack down in the middle of the school’s parking lot wasn’t exactly the opening for a discussion like this. Opening the passenger door, I sat inside the car, waiting for Carly to do the same.

When she did, turning the car on in the process, I turned to her. “Okay,” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, replaying everything that just happened in my head. “I was walking over to your car and I obviously wasn’t looking because I bumped into him. My books fell to the floor and I bent down to pick them up and he was helping me. I took them from him as we stood up…” I scrunched my face up, thinking about what happened after that. “And I began to thank him, wanting to do so properly with a name when he introduced himself to me and I was about to do the same when he answered for me and then asked me if I was Justin’s girlfriend which had weird written all over it. Why would he know something like that?”

“Well, Justin isn’t really unknown around here, Kels…”

“But I haven’t been seen around Justin for years, how the hell would he know something like that without even at least seeing us once? I’ve never, ever even seen him around Stratford before.”

Carly bit the inside of her cheek, taking a sharp intake of breath. “I don’t know Kelsey, I really don’t. He seemed harmless to me when I approached you guys.”

“Yeah but when it was just us, he was asking me all these questions that he already knew the answers to like what color my eyes were. He even tricked me into revealing I was Justin’s girlfriend.”