Chapter 1
“Hey, Mags, watch out!”
But I didn’t see the missile until it was too late. She was a hailstorm of fury, click-clacking heels, and perfect blonde hair fluttering in the wind of her rage, and she was a homing beacon gunning straight for me .
Crunch!
“You scheming little bitch !” Ashley, Connor’s latest ex-girlfriend—as of five minutes ago, hit like a dump truck with an anvil in her fist.
Damn it, why did a cheerleader, obsessed with nail polish and shopping, pack such a nasty punch?I mean, not that I was looking down on her or anything like that, but literally no one would look at this chick and think, yeah, she’s a monster with them punches .
“Ow.” I groaned, covering my(probably) broken nose with both hands as I sank to my knees. “What the hell, man.”
“Oof, MascotMagsgot hit, too.” I could hear the others whispering from somewhere beyond me, like goddamn spectators following the play of a game. But this wasn’t a damn game, this was my nose on the line!
“That has got to hurt.”
Yes, it did hurt, damn it!
“Ugh, you bastards.” I groaned, lifting my eyes to glare at the guys. “Whose side are you on?”
“Aw, come on, Mags. You know I’ll always be on the side of the pretty girl.”
Those damned traitors. It was my fault for even thinking that those clowns would see this as anything more than entertainment.
Martin, the idiot who’d just made that vapid statement, even had his phone out, already recording every second of my latest humiliation for future comic relief. That bastard .
One of these days, I’ll smash his damn phone to pieces.
“Traitor.” I mumbled, my eyes still watering.
Damn it, maybe I shouldn’t have listened to Connor and followed him to practice today.
Hell, he should have given me a heads-up that he’d be breaking up with Ashley today.
Then, I’d definitely not have followed him to practice today.
They’d barely started practicing when she’d stormed the field, demanding to know why Connor wasn’t answering her texts.
I should have knownitthen. I mean, I’ve already had a six (now seven) time experience with how his breakups went.
I should have seen it when he took her aside and started speaking in fast, low tones.
Connor might be my best friend, but I couldn’t deny the fact that he’dquickly becomean unrepentant, serial heart-breakerwith experience inaccepting confessions without hesitation and then proceeding todropthegirls like hot bunsin freshman year of college.
The relationships rarely even lasted three freaking months before he was dating the next girl who asked him out.
That reputation spread quickly across campus by the end of our first year; like a heat rash in the peak of summer and gleaned him the sleazy nickname: the Con Man .
And you would think they'd know better by now; and steer clear of him, but no. The appeal of dating a King was, apparently,too much of a temptation to pass up.They’d pretty much turned it into some sort of competition, I guess.
Dubbed the ‘Kings of Kensington’—a title coined from the name of the football team they all played on—Connor was number one in the top fivemost handsome, and popular, players on campus.
This poll was, of course, curated by the unofficial fan club, but it was big enough to hold that much weight on campus that everyone just accepted it as fact.
Kensington Uwaspretty muchobsessed with football, so it was a given that its football team; the Kensington Kings, would have cult-like following. And the fact that Connor was the captainand star quarterbackof the team only added to the appeal of dating him, apparently.
They eventually learned, the hard way, that Connor was a rather hard man to understand, and he wasn't an easy one to control, either. And that was when they went all bat shit crazy on me , as if I was the witch whispering hexes into his ears.
“You think I didn’t notice, huh?” Ashley was still in front of me, a human bundle of electric rage that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. She’s got the crazy eyes and nest hair; there was no way I was getting out of this with just a broken nose.
Unless I hit back… and I’ve never had to go that far. But I found myself wondering if she was going to be the exception that’d break my pacifist streak.
“You think I didn’t see the way you looked at him?” She hissed at me, those crazy eyes narrowed into menacing slits. Wow, angry girls were terrifying . “With those moony eyes! Those stupid, moony eyes!”
Yep. She’s gone crazy crazy. I glanced at the guys, hoping for help, but they were just watching like it was none of their business. No, more specifically, they were watching like it was my business to give them a worthwhile show.
Right, why did I even expect anything from a bunch of traitors? It wasn’t as if they’ve helped me the last… six times, either.
I knew better than to talk back, though. I’d already learned my lesson with Connor’s third ex-girlfriend, Selena Martinez; a popular theatre kid. Oh she was a literal drama queen, and I quickly learned that talking back only made things worse. Much, much worse.
“But guess what?” Ashley’s usually smiling face was scrunched up in a nasty scowl, her perfectly glossed lips turned down at the edges. “He’ll never see you that way.”
Well, duh . Like I didn’t already know that.
They always did this shit. Whenever he dumped them, they turned all that rage on me, as if I was the reason he dumped them in the first place; talking about how I was wasting my time being by his side because he’d never date me.
The first time they’d done it to me, it hurt.
But, six girlfriends since then, I’d come to realize that they were just trying to make themselves feel better about being dumped.
And Ashley was no exception.Still didn’t mean that it didn’t irritate me whenever I heard it, though.
Ashley folded her arms, plumping up her breasts in a way that had even me blinking, like whoa . She packed a killer rack that had even girls in awe—
“Why would he? With your no effort pony tails and your terrible fashion sense, and your eyes that are set on different area codes on your face.”
—but then, she opened her mouth, and the spell broke into smithereens in front of my eyes. Or, should I say, my ears? Because what the hell did she just—?
“Ahem!” This cough was sharp. And fake . “Diff… Different area codes…”
“Hey, hold it in. Hold it in.” But the snorts trickled out, nonetheless.
I couldn’t even be pissed at the guys for snickering like that. Because, wow, that was… that was way too specific. Did my eyes really look that funny?
“Not to mention that annoying laugh of yours, I know for a fact that he hates it—there’s no sane person who’d enjoy hearing that donkey sniveling more than once.
” She hissing in my face now, her tone sharp.
“And, god, do you know how embarrassing you look every time you do those stupid people impressions?”
Wow. I didn’t know that. This time, I sent a sharp glare to my host of traitorous spectators, but they were looking everywhere else but at me, even while doing that fake coughing fit thing that I knew was really laughter.
Why, would you look at that? It was true ?
Just how many times have I done that when we hung out together, and none of them thought to tell me that I always looked stupid doing it?
I had to hear that from my best friend’s ex -girlfriend, instead?
The same one who was determined to break my face, so there definitely wasn’t any goodwill there?
Ha. Some friends I had. But then again, these morons probably didn’t care to say anything because my obvious foolery always made them laugh.
Grade A assholes. Dammit, do I need to find some new friends? Because, really, who needed enemies when you had friends like these?
“You think I don’t know your type?” Ashley looked down her nose at me, her perfectly drawn brow arched in the most condescending way.
“You’re the type of girl who thinks you can get the guy by being his best friend.
You think all you have to do is waitit out; I know what you’re thinking.
You think you just have to stick it out until the end.
How pathetic. You’re nothing but a pick-me, acting like you’re one of the guys so he’ll always compare you to all the girls he ever dates. You’re disgusting.”
I was disgusting? For what ? For being his best friend? For simply existing ? Damn it, I should start charging Connor per hour for every hour I hung out with him. And double the rate whenever he got another girlfriend.
Damn it, these girls were after my life and my nose. Ugh.
“That’s why I pity you, you know?” She went on, her mouth tilting up into a cruel smile now. “Because, no matter what you do, Connor will never see you that way, and he’ll keep choosing other girls over you, time after time.”
Ugh, and where was the damn star of this shit-show? Where the hell was Connor when you needed him? I was beginning to think he did this on purpose. Why did I always end up being the one dealing with his damn messes?
It wasn’t like I was the one who dated her. Why the hell was I the one getting verbally dressed down, goddammit?
“You think you’ll ever measure up to me?” Ashley laughed, her blonde hair fluttering about her face like a halo of light. “No matter how hard you try,” She was still going, God. This was the longest any of his exes had ever raged at me. A new record time. “You’ll never be me.”
“Whoa.” Martin oohed, eyes wide behind the camera.
“It’s like she’s breaking up with both of them.”
“Haha, yeah. Connor got his, now Mags gets her turn.”
“So damn hilarious!”
Oh, for crap’s sake. Those bastards. I didn’t even bother to look at them anymore. I was on my own here, and I’d pretty much had just about enough of this crockshit.
“I mean, it’s not my fault he likes me better than he likes you.” I glared up at her, my patience just about drained out. That god complex of hers was probably a contributing factor.
Ashley looked down the length of her nose at me as she sneered out a, “What?”
“Hey.” I said, climbing to my feet, my hand still over my nose so that my words even came out muffled. “I never wanted to be you in the first place, Ashley.”
Her face contorted into an even more grotesque mask of rage. “What?” She sounded like she couldn’t quite believe she could ever be wrong about any of the bs she’d just vomited all over me for the last fifteen minutes.
“I think you should check that inferiority complex of yours before it gets any bigger.” I sighed. “You’re coming for me? I mean, come on. Of all the girls on campus, you think I’m your competition? Seriously, me? Insecure, much? I guess that’s why he broke up with you.”
Oh crap. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that last part out loud. Ugh. I should’ve held it in, like I’d been doing since the past three exes. Now, I’d just gone and made things way worse. If she were a cartoon figure, steam would be blowing out of her ears by now.
“You ugly bitch !” She screeched, her hand flying towards my face again.
There was no damn way I was going to let her hit me again. I wasn’t her goddamn emotional sandbag. Damn it, was this truly the end of my streak of nonviolence?
But, before her hand could even land anywhere on me, her wrist was snatched out of its trajectory towards my face.
“That’s enough, Ashley.”