I picked at the corner of my sandwich and blew out a breath. “Why can’t Mads drive me home?”
The table fell silent, as if none of them could fathom my ability to negotiate with Brock. “Because you aren’t going home, not immediately,” he added, the muscles around his mouth tight.
“Where am I going?” He had another think coming if he thought I would just blindly go wherever. I barely knew these guys, despite how intimately I might know Brock. A blush stole over my cheeks.
“Fynn’s.”
I slid a glance to the golden, green-eyed god-like football player. He flashed me a teasing grin.
Wonderful. What the hell was I going to do alone with Fynn?
I spent the rest of lunch coming up with ways I could ditch Fynn. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the guy, but I wasn’t sure how I felt hanging out with him. Alone. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to sneak out of school without him knowing.
My mind was full of crap as I walked to History class. Fynn. Carter. Brock. Grayson. My mother. It was a never-ending Ferris wheel of hell that I couldn’t get off. Since Carter wasn’t at school today, my shadows backed off. I hadn’t expected to feel a sense of loss at not having one of them pop up after each class.
What is wrong with me?
The halls around me filled up fast as kids spilled into the hallways, either on their way to the next lunch period or to class. I wove through the crowd, heading to the stairwell that led to the main floor. My feet descended the first few steps as I clutched my laptop to my chest, doing my best to clear the memory of Brock’s kiss from my brain. It wasn’t working.
Why did that bastard have to kiss me?
I was doing just fine forgetting the night we hooked up.
Lies. But they were my lies to tell myself.
Someone brushed up behind me, and I didn’t think anything of it until I was fucking flying.
No. Not flying. Falling.
For a split second, I had this moment of perfect clarity—someone had shoved me—and then it was all drowned out by the thundering of my heart and the terror racing through my veins. Someone screamed. Someone else cursed. One of them might have been me, but I wasn’t sure which. Blurred images scrambled to get out of the way as I frantically attempted to reach for the railing, but it slipped out of my hand, along with my laptop.
Metal crashed, tumbling down the stairs, with me right behind it.
Motherfuckerrrrrrr.
I couldn’t stop myself. So I did the next best thing. I braced for an epic crash.
“What the hell?” A girl jumped out of the way when I finally stopped on the bottom landing. “What’s wrong with you? Did you just learn how to walk yesterday?” She dusted at her skirt in disgust and stalked off.
Fuck you very much.
I didn’t have it in me to give her a dirty look, not when I had the wind knocked out of me and the world was spinning. My body begged me not to move. Of course, I didn’t listen.
Groaning, I peeled myself off the ground and sat up, a sea of people swarming around me. It hadn’t been a horrible fall—jarring, to say the least, but it could have been much worse. I could have broken my neck. Luckily, the only thing broken was my laptop. My body seemed to be more or less intact.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t hurting everywhere. My wrists. My hands. My ass. My knees. Shit, even my boobs throbbed.
Waiting a minute for my vision to steady itself, I gulped air.Breathe. Just breathe, Josie.
“Are you okay?” someone asked as they walked by.
I nodded and waved them on, unsure if I was going to pass out or puke. Maybe both.
A pair of shoes stopped in front of me. “What the hell did you do now?” a gruff voice demanded, sounding irritated.
What does he have to be annoyed about?
I’m the one who is on the ground.