SOUTHSIDE HIGH: Rockstar Enemies to Lovers Romance (Tempest World Book 1) Page 15

  “Who told you about it?” Withdrawing my hand, I used it to toss a strand of my hair over my shoulder and affected a casual expression. But my pulse continued to fly, and my skin burned.

  “King.” Bryan’s gaze remained on mine, but it was darker and twinkled with something else. Anger? Desire? Amusement? I wasn’t sure. “He said you were ballsy as hell.”

  “He exaggerates.” I shook my head. “Truthfully, I was scared shitless.”

  “I should have gone with you. I don’t like that I wasn’t there to protect you.” He frowned. “Diz said your uncle laid into you last night too.”

  “He laid into both of us. Diz and me.” I dropped my chin, and Bryan gently lifted it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me how terrible he is to you?”

  “Because . . .” I lost my train of thought, falling, tumbling headlong right into the depths of his understanding gaze. Bryan’s tenderness always got me. The thoughtful boy I’d once crushed on remained, but he was a man now, strong with edges like War. Maybe not as lethal, but sharp nonetheless.

  “Because why, Lace?” Bryan asked softly. The sharpness of him was a compelling contrast to this sweetness, a nearly irresistible one.

  “Because it’s sad to be treated the way he treats me, and it makes me feel vulnerable for you to know.”

  “You think you deserve to be treated that way.” His expression hardened. “Which is not happening, I hope you realize.”

  Words, simple ones, but profound coming from him.

  “We’ll just have to prove to your uncle that he’s all wrong about you.” Bryan had been leaning forward, but he scooted back in his seat as the waitress returned with the breakfast special—two eggs over easy, hash browns, toast, and bacon, a large platter-sized plate for each of us.

  “He’s not wrong. I totally bombed the test today, Bry.”

  He went completely still. I realized what I done, what I’d said. And he didn’t miss it. “It’s been a long time since you called me that.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s been a while since I felt like you were in my corner.”

  “I’m sorry for that. It’s been difficult balancing my loyalty between two people I care about. But the truth is, I’ve never left your corner. I’ll always be there for you if you need me.”

  My eyes burned, stinging with emotion. I’d been with War nearly a year and hadn’t received that kind of declaration from him.

  “So, you bombed the test today. You can retake it, can’t you?”

  My chest tightened. “One more time before the scholarship deadline.”

  “One time is all you need. You’re gonna kick SAT ass. We’ll do it together this time. Me helping you.”

  Bryan blew out a breath and took in another that expanded his muscular chest distractingly. But his words and his sincerity distracted me more.

  “I know today was important for you,” he said, sincerity ringing in his tone. “You’ve told me about your goals outside the band. But I’m not here to tear you down or try to talk you into a different goal. I’m here to support you, to show you I care, to help however I can.”

  Lace

  After Bryan walked me home, I went to my room and crashed. When I woke from my nap, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. Was it going to turn out to be a decent day?

  My cell pinged as if to answer my question. Reaching for it, I detached it from the charging cord and scraped my hair out of my eyes to read the message.

  Bryan: You up?

  His was the most recent message. That was promising, but there were others.

  Dizzy: We need to talk. Come to my room when you wake up.

  Chad: Call me. I want to know what happened with Bryan.

  Janet: I need you to work a shift tomorrow. Call me.

  Although I pretended it wasn’t, it was disheartening that none of the messages were from War.

  I called Janet first.

  “Hi, honey,” she said in her sweet but age-warbled voice. “How did the test go?”

  “Not well.” I sighed.

  “Oh no. You studied so hard.”

  “I know.” Even with Bryan helping me, even renewing my efforts, was it realistic to believe that I could do better?

  “Maybe you should take one of those prep courses.”

  “I’ll look into it,” I said, but truthfully, I already had.

  The decent ones were expensive as hell. I couldn’t afford it, but I didn’t tell Janet. She would want to help, and would feel bad that she couldn’t. Her profit margin was so low at the shop that she could barely pay me.

  “You need me to work tomorrow?” I asked, forcing enthusiasm into my tone.

  “Yes, I’m going to hit the yard sales in the afternoon. If you could work from lunch to closing, that would be great.”

  “Absolutely.” I could bring my homework with me. Sundays were slow at the shop, but good days for her to pick up bargains when the yard sales shut down.

  “Thank you, honey. Sorry about your test.”

  “It’s okay. See you tomorrow. ’Bye.” I hung up, pocketed my cell, and opened my door.

  The hallway was quiet. Uncle Bruce’s door was closed, which meant he was either sleeping or at his girlfriend’s house.

  Dizzy’s door was ajar. I knocked softly and pushed it the rest of the way open. He was on his bed, headphones on, a steno pad with crumpled pieces of yellow notebook paper all around him. Seeing me, he lowered the headphones to his neck.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

  “Better now that I rested.”

  “How’d the test go?”

  “I didn’t even finish the math section.”

  “Oh, Lace.” His expression fell. “You can retake it, can’t you?”

  “Once more.” I swallowed with difficulty. I was scared. My grades were good, but I wouldn’t even qualify to apply for a scholarship if my test scores didn’t reach the minimum requirement. “But I don’t really want to think about it right now.”

  “You have to think about it,” he said gently. “You can’t stay here. If you don’t get the scholarship money, what are you going to do?”

  “Work, I guess.”

  “Janet can’t pay you full time.”

  “I know. But maybe she would let me stay with her in exchange for working at the shop.”

  “That’s an option.”

  “Is it my only one?” I asked, holding his gaze and my breath. “Am I out of the band?”

  His gaze hardened. “War’s not the only member in the band who gets to decide things.”

  His non-answer was answer enough. I was out.

  “Come sit down.” He swept a space clear for me, and I plopped down. “War was pissed as hell last night. But if you talk to him today—”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m not doing that. Me being in the band shouldn’t hinge on whether I obey his every command. If he wants me in for my ability, fine. But he’ll have to come talk to me and apologize, not the other way around.”

  “You know he won’t.” Dizzy gave me a sad look. “He’s as stubborn as you are.”

  “Is there anything else you needed?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay.” I stood and moved toward the door.

  “Lace,” he called, and I turned.

  “Yeah?”

  “You should know I told him I’d quit the band if he doesn’t reinstate you.”

  “No, Dizzy.” I shook my head. “Don’t do that. Take it back. Tell him you didn’t mean it. Heat of the moment and all, whatever you need to say. Fix it with him, but leave me out of it.”

  “Final word?” he asked.

  “Final,” I said and exited his room.

  Hearing a door slam downstairs, I hurriedly returned to mine. Shutting my bedroom door, I leaned against it and told my hammering heart to slow. I didn’t know what to do exactly about the band, but it would be okay somehow. I wasn’t going to beg War to let me back in the group.

&n
bsp; Heavy footsteps outside my door made my heart beat even faster, but luckily the footsteps faded and a door, Uncle Bruce’s bedroom door, I assumed, clicked closed.

  Not in the mood for another lecture today, I exhaled in relief. Returning to my bed, I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket and pressed Chad’s number. Tears pricked my eyes when I heard his kind voice.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” he asked.

  “I’m still breathing. But I’m out of the group. Dizzy confirmed it.”

  “Oh, Lace. It didn’t go well with Bryan either?”

  “Actually, that part did go well. He wants to be friends again. Real ones.”

  “That’s good. But was that all he wanted?”

  “Yeah,” I said, not allowing myself to speculate further.

  Bryan might think about kissing me. I certainly thought about kissing him. But I didn’t think there was any scenario where we could be more to each other than we were. Not while he remained so committed to War.

  “He doesn’t look at you like he only wants to be friends.”

  “We have some chemistry,” I said, staring at my guitar in its stand on the other side of the room. “But it’s not like he has a shortage of girls willing to sleep with him.”

  “None that are you.”

  “I’m no prize.”

  “Well, that’s not true.” Chad sounded irritated. “We need to do something fun and get that wrong thinking out of your head.”

  “What do you propose?” I asked. “For fun?”

  “A movie and popcorn.”

  My mouth started to water. “I love popcorn.”

  “I know you do, and you need to kick back and get your mind off everything.”

  “Are you offering to take me out?” I asked.

  “I’m not offering. I’m telling.”

  I smiled. “You’re a great friend.”

  “You are for me. But do you really think you can you make a friendship-only deal work with Bryan?”

  “Of course I can,” I said airily. “We’ve done it before.”

  “You were kids then,” Chad said, his words taking the wind from my sails. “You’re not kids anymore. Friends don’t look at each other the way you two do.”

  “I’m wise enough to know not to make it complicated.”

  “Wisdom doesn’t count for shit,” he said. “Not when you’re totally hung up on him.”

  “I’m not that hung up on him.” Lying, I braced, knowing I risked a lightning strike.

  Chad snorted. “You look at him like you want to fuse your essence to his.”

  “That obvious?” Worried, I bit my lip.

  “To me it is, but we’ve been friends a while.”

  “As long as I’ve been dating War,” I said reflectively.

  “Is that completely over?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He scoffed. “Does War know?”

  “I told you what he said last night. He dismissed me without a backward glance.”

  “Yeah. But, babe, the way he is with you is a carbon copy of the way you deny being about Bryan. And I don’t think War gives a shit about it being complicated as long as he gets what he wants in the end.”

  Lace

  I texted Bryan on my way to take a shower.

  Lace: Just woke up. Is everything okay?

  Not expecting an immediate response, I set my phone on the counter and took my shower. But when I shut off the water, I heard the phone ringing and picked up the call.

  “Hello,” I said, dripping water all over the place.

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Bryan asked, his tone both sexy and irritable at the same time.

  “I am answering it.”

  “I called several times before this.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was in the shower.” When the connection went silent, I asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Are you naked now?” he asked, sounding a little choked.

  “No, I’m in a towel.”

  “Fucking hell,” he muttered.

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “Nothing. Only you, wet, and . . .” He went silent again, but I could hear his heavy breathing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “You sound out of breath.”

  “I’m trying to erase from my mind the image of you in only a towel.”

  “Oh.” I licked my dry lips. Now I was trying not to imagine him imagining me and sounding turned on. “Maybe you need to think about something else.”

  “Not likely,” he mumbled.

  A smile curving my lips, I asked, “What were you doing before you called me?”

  “Helping Miriam with her homework.”

  “Does she still have trouble reversing her letters and numbers?”

  “Yes.”

  “That must create a lot of difficulties for her.”

  “It does, especially at a school because she refuses to allow her teachers to give her any special treatment.”

  “She’s embarrassed.”

  “Proud. Her personality reminds me of someone else I know.”

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Definitely.” Bryan cleared his throat. “Are you feeling better after a nap?”

  “Yes.” I was also in a better frame of mind because things were better between us.

  “Do you have any plans this evening?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What? With who? You just broke up with War.”

  “He broke up with me.” Totally blindsided me, in fact, but I kept that part to myself.

  “He’s an idiot. I mean, he’s too hotheaded. Who are you going out with tonight?”

  “Chad.”

  “Ah.” Bryan let out a breath. “Your friend, the basketball player. Mind if I tag along?”

  “No, of course not. But we’re just going to the movies, eating lots of junk food.”

  “Junk food for you means popcorn when you’re stressed.”

  “You remember.” My eyes widened.

  “Not likely to forget the only thing guaranteed to stop you from crying when you were a kid.”

  “I didn’t cry a lot.”

  “No, you didn’t, even though you had plenty of reasons to.” He exhaled. Wherever he was, it sounded like he was smoking. “The way you lived in that apartment with your mom, the things you saw and endured, you were very brave.”

  “I just did what I had to survive.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. But, man, you were so little when I first met you.”

  “I was a frightened shivery mouse,” I said. “Afraid to even look at you.”

  “I got you to laugh.”

  “Yeah, by acting like a dork.”

  “Anything to make you smile,” he said softly.

  That right there was why I couldn’t put my feelings about Bryan to rest. Why I probably never would be able to.

  • • •

  “I’m buying the popcorn tonight,” Bryan said, elbowing me out of the way at the movie theater counter. “Quit scowling at me and put your wallet away.”

  “Okay.” I sighed and tucked it back into my slouch bag.

  “You can buy my snacks.” Chad slid his humongous pile of candy and a bladder-busting-sized soda toward the register.

  “No way in hell, Phillips,” Bryan said. “I’d need to take out a loan to pay for all that. Here, Lace.” He transferred my tub of popcorn from the counter to my greedy outstretched hands, then grabbed his soda and mine.

  “Hey, Bry.”

  I turned around and saw Missy Rivera waving at Bryan. She leaned into the guy’s arm she was with, said something, then abandoned him. I glanced at Bryan as she approached. His gray-green eyes widened, and mine narrowed as I looked back at her.

  “I thought you didn’t like the movies.” Missy flicked a long strand of her dark hair over her shoulder, a practiced move that drew attention to her boobs.

  I recognized the maneuver, having employed it myself. And I knew without checking that it had worked on both
men beside me.

  “I like ’em okay,” Bryan said in a tone that rang false.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends,” she asked.

  “I’m Lace Lowell,” I said, giving her the same sizing-up scan that she gave me. I looked pretty good in a vintage sixties purple dress that was tight on top but swung loose around my upper thighs. She looked better in tight jeans and a modern crisscross top that showed a lot of her significant cleavage.

  “But I thought you were with War—” Her ice-blue eyes widening, she glanced at Bryan, obviously noting the two sodas. “Aren’t you exclusive with him anymore?”

  My hands curled into fists at my sides. “That’s none of your business.”

  I really didn’t want to get into any specifics of my relationship with War. Whatever I told her was likely to cost me, as in her having the opening she needed to pursue him. She was already after Bryan, not even hesitating to approach him with me standing right beside him.

  “I’m Chad.” He stretched out his long arm. His wingspan was impressive, which the college scouts were excited about, as well as his shooting percentage.

  Missy shook his hand, his engulfing hers, then tilted her head back to meet his gaze like I had to the first time I met him. Dressed in a white oxford button-down, jeans, and suede chukka boots, there was a lot of him to take in.

  “Chad Phillips.” She licked her thickly glossed lips. “First-string varsity on the basketball team. I know you. I’ve seen you around school in your letterman jacket.”

  “I’ve seen you too. Impossible not to. You’re so pretty.”

  What the hell? I shifted to look at Chad, but he was so totally into her, he didn’t even notice me. Did she have magical pheromones or something?

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice husky as she batted her sooty lashes at him.

  “You’re welcome.” He stared at her like he wanted to skinny-dip in her blue gaze.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “The movie’s about to start,” I said. Moving my popcorn to my side, I freed up one of my hands and poked Chad in the side.

  “Ow,” he said, releasing her. The pheromone spell broken, he rubbed his side as he frowned at me. “That hurt.”