11. Helen #2
It didn’t matter that for a split second I thought he was going to kiss me and some long suffering, stupid part of my brain almost wanted him to. It had to be the teenage hormones running rampant in my body. There was no way that I was going to that damn party.
12 YEARS AGO
If attending St. Henry’s for six years taught me anything, it was that performing in the roles you’d been assigned since birth was as simple as breathing.
Trying to prove otherwise, to escape the boundary drawn by fate, was what caused complications.
Complications grown from the buds of my mistakes.
What if she didn’t show up? The music had been playing for two hours already, and I hadn’t caught a glimpse of that wretched head of wild hair yet.
She might not have taken the invitation seriously.
After all, as she’d rightly stated, I’d treated her poorly for years. Perhaps it was best if she didn’t come.
The air in the crowded room was stuffy, smoke hanging in a heavy cloud carrying the funk of weed and booze.
Bodies gyrating obscenely against one another in the dimly lit common room between the dorms. Silver moonlight from the windows barely penetrated the migraine inducing flashing light flaring in the corners.
“Have you heard there’s some commotion down the hall?” Dougie slurred, waggling his brows at me and Julian. A few droplets of his drink splashed on the carpet, and Julian glared at him.
“Shut up, Dougie,” I snapped. I was in no mood for his general idiocy tonight when every nerve ending in my body was pulled taut.
“No—no, listen.” His hand flapped, and he noisily smacked his lips. I almost prayed someone would turn the thumping music louder to drown him out. But the noise and twisting colored lights were already doing a number on my head. “They said she’s wearing a dress?—”
“Who’s wearing a dress?” Julian perked up.
“—and that she’s got some surprisingly shapely legs.”
“I don’t want to hear your drunken rambling, Douglas,” I snarled at him. He flinched back in his seat, eyes wobbling in his head from the overconsumption of alcohol. Of course, it was a party, but have some decorum for fuck’s sake.
“Fuck… fuck you, Graham,” he spluttered.
“You’re not my type.” With a sip of my beer, I rolled my eyes then returned to searching the shadows.
Julian nudged Douglas in the shoulder, sharing a conspiratorial smile that the oaf was too wasted to notice. “No, Drake’s type is unattainable.”
I scoffed, but it didn’t stop me from searching, looking, wondering if she’d make an appearance in another one of those terrible cozy sweaters. What would it feel like to hold her while she was wearing that blue one from last week…
Fucking hell.
Those weren’t my thoughts. They couldn’t be. We were on opposite sides of damn near everything in our lives. She’d see my invitation as a trick and if anyone asked, I’d laugh it off.
Little Monty was out of bounds. Off limits. Nothing more than forbidden fruit, and I was a starving, wicked snake eager to invade and corrupt her garden. That was it. I was just the bastard who wanted to taint the perfect, brilliant, little know-it-all.
The scent of her shampoo clung to me since the night in the library.
The sting of her slap must have knocked loose something in my brain, because it was all I could think about.
Her. The hit. Her smell. The feel of her wriggling against me as she struggled to get her book back.
And then today, being alone with her in the light of the morning and haunting her shadow.
She smelled like grapefruit, and I couldn’t stop dreaming about smothering myself in her hair to infuse her scent into my lungs permanently.
She smelled fantastic, but how did she taste?
I didn’t invite her to our usual Saturday night party because we were suddenly friends or because I’d seen the error of my ways.
It wasn’t an apology for my prior actions.
Deep in the back of my mind, I knew the truth—I knew I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her since the first time we met, and it had driven me to the brink of my self-restraint.
Getting on her nerves was the only way to get her attention, but maybe there was another way.
We still had the truce while we were in London at St. Henry’s. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to cave. One time. Just one time. I needed to get her out of my system.
A small crowd entered the room from the hallway.
A gaggle of snickering boys and a few girls in short dresses.
I didn’t have the patience for the annoyance, yet the shade of honey brown hair of one of the girls cracked my attention like a whip.
Angling toward the door, I did a double take as I took stock of the boys crowded around Brooke and the wisp of a girl in a tight red dress at her side.
Monty looked like a nervous ghost. The dress highlighted every bit of her I’d ever wanted to see, to touch, but she looked high-strung and tired as if she’d given all her energy into dragging herself to the party.
Her riotous curls were wrangled into a neat bun and dangly earrings drew my eyes to her elegant neck.
Which was how I noticed her throat bobbing uncomfortably when the drunken boys pressed closer into her and her friend.
Yet she held her ground, refusing to back down. A flicker of pride swelled in my chest. She remained utterly unbreakable. Her pinched little glare, usually reserved for me, now targeted the idiots swarming her. An odd twinge twisted in my chest. That glare was meant for me.
“Is that Helen Montgomery?” Julian gaped, like a big-mouth bass out of water. I wanted to punch his jaw back into place.
“I told you, dude. Look at,” Douglas hiccupped, “look at her legs.” He drunkenly gestured, trying to indicate the pale thigh exposed by her short dress. I’d kill him if he said another word.
I almost swallowed my tongue, and my eyes bulged half out of my skull. Julian snickered, but I ignored the sound, lost in my own world.
“Damn, look at Monty in that dress.” A voice broke through the thundering music. Halfway across the room, a crowd had stopped dancing to gawk at Monty in her new look. Every male in the vicinity seemed to stare at her as if she were a shiny new toy and they were beasts ready to tear her apart.
Without noticing, I rose from my seat. Each breath sawed out of me as I crossed the room, drawn by an unseen force. Perhaps the leash of fate guiding me to my next mistake.
“I didn’t know she could clean up so well. If she looks that good in her dress, think about how she looks out of it,” another boy said. I craned my neck in his direction, watching the group of boys jostle one another and egg each other on.
“How easy do you think it’d be to get under her skirt?”
“So easy dude. I bet she’s desperate for it.”
“The bookish girls always moan the loudest.”
“I’m going to fuck her, dude. Just you watch, I’ll have Montgomery screaming my name by the end of the night.”
Red hot rage surged at the edges of my vision, burning so hot with possessive jealousy it ignited a fire in my chest. My jaw clenched so hard my teeth clacked and a dangerous rumble vibrated in my throat.
I’d burn the world to ash before letting one of those dumb motherfuckers lay a single finger on Monty.