Chapter Six
Luke
As I walked by the office on my way to class, I caught sight of two police officers standing at the front desk. Shit. Were they here about the vandalism? Did they know I was a part of it? Maybe Ayla had given them the video. My brow beaded with sweat as I moved closer to the door to listen.
“We might need to talk to a few of your students,” one of the cops said.
I was done for.
“Sure, I can have them paged. Who do you need?”
“Morrison Eberhardt and Troy Danvers.”
A sigh of relief flooded through me, and I hurried away. Damn, that was close.
I slipped into my first hour American pop culture class to find Brady waiting at my desk for me, along with Jack.
“Okay, so you and Ayla Hawkins?” Brady raised a brow at me. “Since when? And how come we’re just finding out now?”
“Since this last week,” I said. “And you’re just finding out because I knew you two would give me crap.”
“Shit, yeah, I’m going to give you crap. You could have any girl in the school and you picked that chubby weird one?”
Something inside me snapped. Why was he being such an ass? So I fisted my hand, pulled back, and punched Jack in the arm as hard as I could. “Shut the fuck up about my girlfriend. She’s smart, nice, and talented. You don’t know a damn thing about her.”
Brady watched me for a moment, then turned to Jack. “Leave him alone. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in forever, so if he says he likes her, then he likes her.”
Jack rubbed his arm, glaring at me. “Jeez, calm down. I was teasing. She’s not my top choice in girls, but she does have a nice rack.”
“God, is that all you look at, tits?” I dropped my books onto my desk.
“Sorry.” He held his hands up as if to fend me off.
Some days, I didn’t know why the hell I hung out with Jack. He could be a douche to people. But he’d been one of my friends since kindergarten, same as Brady. We’d moved up the ranks together. And when my parents got divorced when I was in fourth grade, they helped me through it. They were still helping me through it.
A part of me considered telling them about being blackmailed. Maybe then they’d let up and help me make this look real. But the last person I needed to find out about this was Jack. Because Jack would make things worse. He always did. He’d probably piss Ayla off and screw us all over. However, if I could get Brady alone, he might be able to help me.
Brady was my closest friend. Well, real friend, anyway. He saw through my facade and knew my family no longer had money. He knew I worked to help my mom out. There’d been a couple of times he’d spotted me some money to eat lunch. Which was embarrassing as hell. But he didn’t make a big deal out of it. Everyone else thought I worked because Mom wanted to teach me responsibility. Hell, Brady was the only one who knew where I lived now. I never invited anyone else over so they didn’t know how bad off we really were, and I planned on keeping it that way.
“Look, Ayla and I are together now. So you’ll either accept it or not. And if you don’t, then I guess we’re not hanging out anymore.”
“I’m cool with it,” Brady said. “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” He grinned. “Although I’m surprised anyone nabbed you with how much you study and work.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, tell me about it. If it wasn’t for me seeing her up at the pizza place so much, she might not have been on my radar, either.”
I’d have to remember to tell Ayla to make sure we had the same stories about connecting at Crusty’s. Hopefully we could keep all our lies straight or this would fall apart before it even began.
News of my new relationship status spread quicker than I thought it would. By lunchtime, pretty much everyone knew about us. We were definitely one of the strangest pairings, or so the rumors said.
“Hey, where you going?” Brady caught up with me on my way to the library.
“I was gonna have lunch with Ayla today.”
“Oh. Mind if I tag along?” He had a sack lunch in his hand.
Shit. If he came, then he might figure out that this was a sham. But if I told him I didn’t want him to come, it’d make him suspicious, since we ate together pretty much every day.
“Sure, if you want.”
As we rounded the corner, I ran right into Jenna Lee, whose lips were pursed into a tight line. When she saw me, her eyes narrowed. “Tell your girlfriend she’s not going to win this election. I don’t know what she’s trying to pull.”
I smiled at her. Damn. Ayla had her riled up. “Maybe it’s time for a change,” I said.
“Ugh! You realize she’s already getting petitions drawn up to take some of the funding from sports to put into the arts, right? She’s pushing to change things I worked hard to get for us.”
“So?” I shrugged. “Ayla’s got some great ideas.” Actually, I had no clue what her plans were. For all I knew she could be working on a big laser to fry everyone’s brains. But if it pissed Jenna off this badly, it was worth it. We’d dated for like five minutes my freshman year, until some upperclassman showed interest in her and she dumped me. Of course, looking back, that dude did me a huge favor.
“If she goes down, you’re going with her. Remember that,” Jenna snapped, then spun on her heel and stormed down the hall.
Brady chuckled. “Are you sure you want to get in the middle of that war?”
I didn’t tell him that I had no choice. Instead, I grinned. “If it means bringing Jenna down, I’m game.”
When we got to the library, Ayla was already sitting at the back table with her friend Chloe. As I approached, her gaze shifted to Brady and she frowned, turning to look at me.
“Hey.” I plopped down next to her. With the others watching, I bent over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close enough to whisper in her ear. “Sorry, he tagged along. He normally has lunch with me.” Man, she smelled good. Kind of a tropical coconut scent.
She pulled back, her face inches from mine. “That’s fine. Chloe came along, too.”
“Hi, I’m Brady.” He held his hand out to Ayla.
“Yeah, I know. We’ve gone to the same school since, like, kindergarten. You put worms in my hair in first grade.”
Brady rubbed his neck. “Right. Sorry about that.”
She rolled her eyes with a grin, then turned back to me. “So Chloe is going to do some pictures of me for my election posters. She wondered if you wanted to be in one, too?” Ayla’s ears turned pink, which made me smile.
“Sure. Oh, and speaking of the election, you’ve definitely pissed Jenna off. She wanted me to tell you to back out of this.”
Chloe shoved her seat back. “She’s such a B. I swear, if she got any farther up her own butt, she’d disappear.”
“It’s fine. Besides, she’s probably only freaking out because we have a chance to win,” Ayla said, although she didn’t look as sure as she sounded.
“Exactly. Don’t worry, Brady and I are going to help you win. Right, Brady?” I glanced at my friend, who’d sat down across from us.
He opened his turkey sandwich and nodded. “Absolutely. In fact, I think I might have an idea for you.”
“Really?” Ayla said.
“We could do a photo booth at the next football game and hand out pins with your name on them to anyone who comes up to get a pic with someone from the basketball team. But remember, whatever happens in the photo booth stays in the photo booth,” he teased.
I snorted. “Why do I get the feeling this has more to do with you than the election?”
Brady laughed. “It’s a win-win situation. Ayla gets votes, I get to take pictures with hot girls.”
“Now you sound like Jack.”
He wrinkled his nose. “On second thought, maybe we should do a dunk tank instead.”
“No. The photo booth would be perfect. I mean, if you’d be willing to help with it.” Ayla’s brown eyes lit up. She peered at me from thick lashes.
“I bet Jack would be on board with it, too. Although that might be a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Brady said.
Knowing Brady watched us closely, I raised my hand and caught her chin with my thumb. “I’m not sure how much time I’ll be spending in the booth, unless Ayla’s in there with me.”
My blood pounded in my ears. Whoa. Was I pouring it on too thick? Ayla had wanted a fake boyfriend, and that’s what I was giving her. At least in public. Maybe I fell into this part a little too easily. I didn’t even fight her on any of it. But I knew I was only one mistake or misstep away from having that video forwarded. And with the police sniffing around, I needed to be on my best behavior.
Ayla stared at me a moment, then turned to her own lunch bag, from which she pulled a piece of leftover pizza. I dropped my hand. “Is that the one I made you last night?”
She chuckled. “Yeah. And it’s even better the second day.”
“Luke said you guys met at Crusty’s? Well, I guess not met, but started talking.” Brady peered between us as if looking for a chink in our stories.
She took a bite of pizza, then wiped her fingers on a napkin. “We did. I’m in there all the time. Probably twice a week at least.”
“Ayla loves pizza,” Chloe confirmed. “It’s a stress reliever.”
“Unless you’re the one having to make it. I come home smelling like pepperoni,” I said. Or sauce, or garlic. Definitely not my dream job, but it helped to pay the bills.
Ayla laughed. “Which is why I like you so much.” She poked me lightly in the side.
“Oh, shoot. I need to head to the art room so I can get started on your posters before class begins. I want to have at least one done before the end of the school day,” Chloe said, grabbing her things from the table. “See you guys.”
Brady chomped down the rest of his sandwich and stood as well. “I need to go, too. Jack still has my government notes. I need them for next hour. I’ll see you two around.”
Soon Ayla and I were the only ones left at the table. I toyed with my peanut butter sandwich as I glanced at her. “Sorry about Brady coming along.”
“No, it’s fine. He seems really nice. Not quite what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” I pried.
She took a second piece of pizza from her lunch bag and handed it to me. “I don’t know. That you guys would be more stuck-up, I guess.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But you can’t blame me for stereotyping. I mean, you’re jocks and you’re usually in the halls talking shit.”
I took the food she offered. “You should get to know people before you judge them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never judged anyone. I bet I probably didn’t even register on your radar before I came into the pizza parlor the other day.”
“You’re right. You didn’t. And I apologize. I knew who you were and knew you were kind of nerdy—but I didn’t really know anything else. I still don’t know much. So you should probably stop into Crusty’s tonight so we can actually talk. Face-to-face.”
“I have play practice after school, and I’m meeting with Mr. Leaver about next week’s issue of Eye of the Tiger. I’m trying to get approval to write an article about sex trafficking, but I could swing by after that. Although my mom might kill me for not making it home for dinner again.” She chewed her lip.
“I’m there until closing, so if you wanted to stop home first and then drop in, you could,” I said.
She nodded. “Sure. So it’s a date—I mean, not a date date…”
“Yeah. It’s a date.”