Chapter 6 #3
“Casey?” The guy behind me murmured, and I froze. How the hell does he know my name? But I was so pissed at him for getting me into trouble that I ignored him and hunched over my notes. I didn’t need another strike with this a-hole teacher.
I felt a hand suddenly touching my shoulder, and I realized that this annoying prick behind me was trying to turn me around.
I wrenched away, flipping him off over my shoulder and muttering just loud enough for him to hear, “Touch me again, and I’ll cut off your fingers and sell them on the dark web so some psycho in Russia will use your prints to leave behind at a crime scene. ”
Whoever was behind me, he was utterly unfazed by my threat because he chuckled, a deeper, baritone sort of chuckle, yet didn’t touch me again.
I heard him move around for another few seconds, then the beep-beep of his cell phone as he typed something out.
The guy was so annoying he didn’t even mute his phone!
Who did that? I decided that tomorrow, I was picking out a new seat.
The class was dead quiet, but I could sense the guy behind me moving a little closer instead of away.
It was like I could feel him leaning over his desk to close the space between us, and for a horrible minute, I was thinking he was about to cut off my hair, or burn it, or something.
I didn’t want to draw attention from this douche-wad teacher, so I bowed over my notes, leaning farther away from him.
I even slid my chair and desk forward ever so slightly to get a little extra space.
The sound of my chair scraping across the tile was loud and sharp, and Mr. Fortin glared over his shoulder, searching for the culprit.
When he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it had come from, he went back to writing down the lesson plan.
When he did, my chair slid back, and I realized this guy was pulling me close again!
What in the ever-loving hell?! I’d been about to whip around to finally confront him, when the sound of running footsteps from the hall heading towards our door caught everyone’s attention.
I took the opportunity to give the jerkwad behind me a death glare and tell him off, but instead, my voice lodged in my throat.
I was gazing into a pair of black eyes, a face so handsome and familiar that I instantly recognized him.
He was older now. All the childhood fullness of his face was gone and replaced with a sharp cut of his jaw.
His black dreads were shoulder-length, his cheekbones high, and his skin a beautiful warm brown.
His bottom lip was slightly fuller than his more defined top one, and his dark eyes were slightly upturned.
“Lee…” I whispered, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. Before I could say anything else, the door to the classroom burst open with a crash.
“Excuse me, you are not a part of this class this period!” Mr. Fortin’s face had gone beat-red, but even I could hear the adjustment of his tone.
How was it he didn’t raise his voice, yet still was able to speak so sternly?
He was afraid of this newcomer, and I stared back to the front, my mouth dropping as I stared at the man who had charged in here like the hounds of hell were chasing him.
Vail St. James.
I knew it was him immediately. He stood at the doorway, one hand holding the door open, the other leaning on the frame.
He was panting as though he’d just ran here from the other side of the school and then some.
His bronze-coloured hair was messily strewn about his head, looking effortlessly styled.
His face had grown more square, with dark stubble covering his jaw, and the look in his bright hazel eyes as they locked right onto me sent a flurry of butterflies fluttering around in the pit of my stomach.
But that feeling went away at the look of rage on his face. He was furious.
“Casey?” he snapped, his tone dripping with disbelief.
Hearing him say my name, his voice now so much deeper than when I last heard it, rolled over me like a shock to my system.
In seconds, I was now in the presence of two people I’d cared about more than anyone in the world.
All the old memories came flooding back to me, the bike rides, the ball games, the swims in the local pond, our sleepovers…
all of it hit me at once, and for a moment, I felt like I was going to fall out of my chair.
Two of the boys I’d once wanted, once had, were here.
“Mr. St. James-” Mr. Fortin snapped, but before he could finish, Vail marched down the aisle, scooped me up in his arms like I weighed no more than a kid, turned, and strode out of the room.
“Really now! That’s eno… Mr. Knight! Where do you think you’re-” Mr. Fortin’s objections were cut off as we left the room and the door slammed shut behind us.
I craned my neck around to peer over Vail’s shoulder to see Lee following us close behind, my things tucked under his one arm, and his own bag hitched on one shoulder.
“Guys, I… stop! Put me down! What the hell-” I squirmed in his arms, but Vail didn’t falter in the slightest. If anything, he hoisted me up, so I was pressed against his chest, our faces much too close.
But he didn’t look at me. He walked with purpose, knowing exactly where he was taking me, and with Lee shadowing us closely, I almost felt scared.
I held onto Vail’s black long sleeve shirt as he carried me down all the way to the main floor near the back of the school and into an empty classroom at the end of a quiet hallway.
Were there even classes back here? It seemed so remote.
“You tell him?”
“I just said to meet us here,” Lee replied, closing the door behind us as we entered and stood by it as if keeping watch.
Neither turned on the overheads, so the only light in the room came from the four small, narrow prison-style windows on the far wall.
Vail set me down, so I sat on the vacant teacher’s desk, and stepped back, giving me a chance to look around.
It was obvious now why they brought me here.
This classroom had clearly been turned into a junk room.
Broken desks, chairs, and bookshelves were gathering dust in the back, with buckets of what I assumed were paint or cleaner products stacked in a corner.
This desk was dusty and worn, the surface scratched to hell, with lewd cartoonish drawings etched all over.
Nervously, I gazed at the two boys I had both wished and dreaded to see again.
Lee was still standing by the door, his arms crossed, and now I could see exactly how huge he’d become.
He must have been close to six foot five or six, and his arms were thick with muscle.
I felt like he could crack my head by simply placing it into his elbow and flexing.
Though he was watching the door, his eyes would flicker across the room back to me often, like he was checking to make sure I didn’t suddenly vanish on the spot or something.
And Vail...
A girl never forgets her first kiss, and he had been mine, the sneaky bastard.
But I sort of fell in love with him when he did it.
It was so… Vail . And then he crushed my heart and cut me out, and the other two followed suit.
Seeing him now was absolutely soul-crushing, and my heart twisted painfully.
I remembered how much I needed them, how many times I called, messaged, and left voicemail after voicemail, begging them to call me back and how they never did.
My brain slowly started to catch up to everything, the shock of seeing them again now wearing off.
I felt that bubble of resentment I’d been holding onto all these years, now rising in my chest. Narrowing my eyes at the two boys and crossing my arms over my chest, I arched a brow at them.
“You know, instead of carrying me all the way down here, the easiest thing would have been just to call me back six years ago,” I snapped.
Lee’s lip twitched like he was fighting a smile, while Vail’s eyes tightened for just a moment, like he was in pain before his mask slipped back into place. He reached out for me, but I held up a hand, warning him to stay back.
“Careful, bruh, she threatened to sell my fingers on the dark web.” Lee ran a hand over his face, and that smile he’d been fighting vanished completely, his composure back now.
“Did she now?” Vail didn’t take his eyes off me, and like Hunter, his eyes moved up and down, taking me in, but it didn’t creep me out like when Hunter did it.
After all, I was doing the exact same thing.
He was not as big as Lee; then again, no one is.
But at around six foot two, he was still intimidating.
It’d been obvious he worked out a little, and I felt the hard planes of his muscles beneath his shirt as he carried me.
Yep, no doubt about it. These two boys grew the fuck up, and damn .
I was in trouble. Both were gorgeous in their own way, both standing with that confidence I’d always loved.
That same familiarity was there, but it was different now.
We were different. We were older, and God only knew how much we’d all changed.
But a small part of my heart was aching for them, wishing that we could just go back to the way it was.
I broke that hope a second later when I reminded myself that they had dropped me at the first opportune moment.