"He's just being a big ass crybaby, Reese. He'll get over it." Brianna said, following a loud sigh. I frowned, stirring my coffee with one hand, holding my head up with the other. Brianna had found me as soon as I stepped foot in the school, asking for my side of the disagreement I had with her brother, but I'd had a whole story of my own to tell her.
After Bryan had taken off, Andy and Liam just so happened to be making their way out of the building. Andy, being the nice guy he was, stopped while his friend continued on to his car. Once realization that Andrew wasn't beside him hit, Liam stopped and casted a glance back at his friend, then followed his gaze to me on the curb. For a fraction of a second I could swear on everything Holy that there was a flicker of regret in his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it'd appeared. After a little bit of prompting, Andy was able to convince me to hop in his Jeep and allow him to give me a ride home. I knew, without a doubt, if Liam had been the one driving, I would have remained seated on that curb until I gathered enough energy to make the hour and a half walk home. The car ride had been full of tension and sly glares out of Liam, who was clearly very annoyed with his best friend's kind act. Maybe it was because he was having to face the repercussions of his screwed-up actions for once.
"You're serious?" Brianna nearly passed out when I told her what happened. "Of course Andy did that, he's such a sweetheart."
After his genuine act of kindness, he'd definitely leveled up in my book. He was finally worthy of my gorgeous friend.
As I snuck a look in the direction of the Jock's table, I immediately locked eyes with Liam. He was sitting halfway off the bench seat, his usual lady-killer smile replaced with a grimace. But his eyes, those piercing eyes, were unreadable.
"I hope you guys make up by Homecoming this weekend." Brianna droned on, clearly wanting to release all the pent up aggression she had for Bryan before she had to face him again next period. "There is no way we're all going together with you two like this. I am not going to be a bone in a tug-a-war match, thank you."
"You're right about one thing." I said, looking back to my coffee for a second. "We're not going together, because you're going with Andy."
She busted out laughing, but it died quickly when she realized I was serious. "No way, Reese."
"Yes way." I smiled and stood, shoving my untouched tray into the trash and sipping at my coffee as I crossed the room to the jock's table. Liam immediately tensed, but everyone else greeted me with a curious look or weary smile.
"Hey, Reese." Andrew smiled, and being this close to him, I could see why so many girls fell for his looks and charm. He was handsome in a very boy-next-door kind of way. The genuine, perfect toothed grins, bright green eyes, and rust colored hair, they all shaped him into that one guy our mama's pray we end up with. "You need something?"
"I actually wanted to talk to you." I lowered my coffee cup and tilted it toward him. "Just for a second."
He shot Liam a quick look, eyebrows raised, then pushed himself up from the table and approached me. "What's up?"
"I know you like Bri." I gestured with my thumb over my shoulder. "And she likes you too. I was hoping you could make her Junior year just a little bit brighter by asking her to Homecoming."
He looked taken back by my words. "Wait, she likes me?"
"Definitely."
"I don't know, Reese. I mean, she's pretty cute and sweet, but her brother will string me up by my feet and torture me."
I nearly choked on my coffee hearing this. "I promise that Bryan is all bark no bite, Andy."
His green eyes shot to Brianna over my shoulder, who during my escapade over to his table, had buried her face in her hands and was blushing furiously, but kept peeking between her fingers to see how the scene was unfolding before her. A smile inched its way across his face the second he saw her.
"Yeah, okay, I'll ask her." He nodded, touching a hand to my shoulder. 'But if Bryan comes after me, I'm throwing the blame on you, Taylor."
I gave him a playful shove in Brianna's direction as the bell rang. He said something quietly to her, which earned a giggle in response. I waited until they were exiting the cafeteria, side by side, to touch a hand to my chest with a grin.
Now all I had to do was make up with Bryan and sweet talk him into accepting Andrew. Shouldn't be too hard.
"Man, I give him a month before he's totally whipped." A voice sounded beside me, startling me back into reality. I found Jason McDermott beside me and felt my semi-euphoric state evaporate within milliseconds, leaving my awestruck, awkward twelve year old self in her wake.
Jason McDermott had been the one boy that I'd allowed myself to have a crush on. In fifth grade, at the infancy of my crush, he'd been the only kid to help me up when I fell off the monkey bars on the playground during recess. From then on, we kind of just brushed passed each other in the hallways for the next few years. Once he hit puberty a few months into seventh grade, my crush had grown into infatuation. As soon as his voice dropped, so did his glasses and braces. Now, with a perfect, breathtaking smile and kind brown eyes, I always lingered in the hallway for just a second longer after the bell in hopes we'd brush by one another. He favored Andrew more personality wise, but seemed to carry a lot of Liam's arrogance with him as well, which had prevented me from approaching him the way I did Andrew.
"I say after the dance Saturday." I managed to croak, avoiding his eyes on me. "Brianna has this effect on everyone where you fall in love with her the second you see her."
"Seems to me." Jay started to head for the door, but spun around so I was facing him as he backed away. "That you two share that quality."
*
I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Jay McDermott had flirted with me at lunch today when a hand grasped my shoulder. I'd left class a few minutes early for the bathroom, but it was the last class of the day and I knew it'd be no use to head back in.
Hopeful that it was Bryan behind me, I was wildly disappointed to find it was Liam. He had avoided me all of English, rocking back and forth in his chair with his eyes trained on the ceiling, deep in thought. The behavior was so non-Liam like I almost asked him if he was ill.
"What do you want, Liam?" I said into my locker, stuffing my binder securely into my backpack as I awaited an answer.
"I saw that your friend didn't join you girls for lunch today. Where is he?" The fact that Liam was asking about Bryan's whereabouts only infuriated me more.
I slammed my locker shut and glared up at him. "Why do you even care? You're the reason he hasn't talked to me in three days, Liam."
He looked away and my anger left me in a slow leak when I saw the guilt that he was trying so hard to conceal. Then, cringing as he said it, he looked back toward me and whispered, "Sorry."
I opened my mouth then slammed it back shut again, not knowing what to say. I hadn't really expected Liam to apologize for riling Bryan up on Friday, but I guess good ol' Liam Scott was doing a great job with the first thing on the list.
"I gotta go. Without Bryan, I am forced to walk home. Need to go get a head start before this storm hits." I responded, turning on my heel and starting toward the front door.
"Let me give you a ride home, Taylor. I don't want to be responsible if something happens to you. Your friend and Andrew will kill me."
His words shocked me enough that I froze in front of the doors, slowly looking at him over my shoulder. He still had that distant look in his eyes, like he was on a faraway planet inside his own head and didn't want to come back down. The last bell of the day seemed to bring him back and he dug his keys from his pocket and held them out in front of him with a prompting look.
Nodding, more to myself then him, I agreed. "Sure, whatever. I'm sending everyone my location though, so if I end up dead they'll know where I'm at."
Liam cracked a smile at my sadistic joke and joined me in front of the door, pushing it open and holding it so I could follow him out before the swarm of our peers engulfed us. He stayed silent, lost in himself once more, all the way to his truck. It was a new Tacoma, but of course it'd been lifted, otherwise it wouldn't be able to support the weight of his ego.
"You need help? I haven't gotten around to installing stepsides." Liam muttered absentmindedly as he opened the passenger door. I looked from the asphalt beneath my feet to the interior of the car. There was no way I'd be able to get in without help, but the thought of Liam touching me made my stomach churn. "I promise I don't bite, Reese. Not unless you want me too."
The suggestive comment made my nose scrunch up in disgust. "Remind me to add that to the Playbook. No sexual innuendos for a month."
"A month? No way!" He gasped dramatically. "You're killin' me, Smalls."
A laugh escaped me at the reference, but it unfortunately didn't make up for the fact that he'd have to literally wrap his hands around my waist to hoist me into the truck.
"Come on." He offered me a hand, and when I hesitantly rested my own in his, I couldn't help but compare the size difference. My hand looked so dainty and small in his large, calloused one. "Count of three I'll throw you on to the seat."
I jerked away the first time his hand fell against my waist, but after considering that I wouldn't be able to get in otherwise, I stepped back into his touch again, but made the mistake of looking up as I did so.
Never in my life would I have thought I'd be close enough to Liam Scott to consider raking my fingers through his dark hair, or to touch the back of my hand to his flawless skin.
What the actual hell is going on with you, Reese Taylor. Get a grip.
"Done checking me out?" Liam leaned forward to whisper. "I always knew you were secretly obsessed with egotistical jocks with a superiority complex."
I snorted to contain my laughter and he hoisted me up quickly without warning. I grasped the console as soon as I was in, glaring out the open door at him. He winked before shutting the door in my face and walking around the car. He shoved the keys in the ignition and fastened his seatbelt right away, eying me cautiously until I followed in suit. I didn't need to be told about seatbelts, I had enough trauma in regard to them to last me my entire life.
"That lil pep talk you gave Andy earlier must've worked because he was bouncing around like an excited school boy when I talked to him in between periods after lunch."
I grinned.
I would definitely need to call Brianna as soon as I got home so she could dish out all the details of the interaction with Andy.
"You fascinate me, Reese." He said as we waited in the long car line to exit the parking lot. "I keep trying to figure you out and every time I think I got you pegged, you surprise me."
"Elaborate please."
He snickered. "I always had this image that you were some little shy, hot nerd girl that stayed in her own little lane and comfort zone. Then you blackmailed me, then you eat like a dude who's been starved for months, then you approach my friends like you've known them your entire life."
Wait, did Liam just call me hot? "Hot?"
"Come on, Sweetheart." Liam tapped his fingers along the steering wheel as he glanced over at me. "You know you've got that whole sexy nerd thing going on. Like a female Clark Kent."
"Umm, thanks?" I said, crossing my arms.
He shook his head to himself with a small smile. "It was a compliment, Reese, I promise."
"How has being nice felt? Do you feel all warm and tingly inside?"
"So warm and tingly I want to cuddle little puppies and cradle babies and sing them lullabies." He joked, laughing. "Seriously, though, Taylor, you underestimate me. I am a nice guy."
I laughed coldly. "What you said to Bryan wasn't even remotely nice, Liam."
"That doesn't count. Your little friend was provoking me."
Provoking him? What planet did Liam Scott live on?
"You're such a narcissist, Liam. Nothing is ever on you. Nothing is ever your fault. You're never in the wrong."
I thought by how tight he was grasping the steering wheel that he was going to explode and defend himself, but all I got out of him was a tight lipped, bitter, "Sorry."
Lucky for the both of us, we didn't try to conversate further the rest of the way back to my house. The second he turned on to my street, I had him pull over in front of the house at the end of it. I could see my father's Porsche in the driveway, and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to my father right now. With Mom not home, I always became his target for abuse.
"I'll just get out here." I muttered.
Liam looked toward me, confused. "No, I distinctly remember Andy dropping you off a few houses down."
"Liam, just let me out here." When I reached for the handle, he locked the door, earning an angry look out of me.
"It's supposed to start pouring in the next twenty minutes, Reese. If you're not going to go home, tell me where you plan on walking too and I'll drop you off there."
The concern on his face was so genuine that I might have thought he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart. Then I remembered he didn't have one. This was all for Bryan and Andy and so Liam didn't get his ass handed to him.
"I. . . my friends house is a couple blocks from here. I usually stay over there when my mom isn't home."
Liam looked toward the Porshe, then nodded and turned his truck around so we were headed in the opposite correction. We didn't speak, but he would occasionally look over at me, almost as if he were asking me to break the silence, but I only tightened my clenched jaw and trained my eyes out the window unless it was to offer directions on where to turn.
Bryan was helping his father in the garage when we pulled up, his entire face smeared with dirt and soot from the car he'd been working under.
"Thanks, Liam." I grabbed my backpack from my feet, relieved to find that Bryan was wiping his hands on a rag and heading down the driveway to us. He'd be able to help me out of the truck so I wouldn't have to be held so intimately by Liam.
"Sure." Liam mumbled, eyes on the road ahead. "See you around school, Taylor."
He unlocked the door and I opened the door to face my best friend. He didn't question why I was in Liam's truck, nor did he try and confront Liam, but offered his dirty arms to help me down.
I could feel Liam's eyes burning into the back of my head as I got out, and even for a few seconds once I'd shut the door behind me. Finally, after what seemed like a decade of his truck just sitting along the curb outside the Waters, Liam revved the engine and sped off down the street, leaving Bryan and I in a cloud of exhaust to stare after it.