I watched him without blinking; my heart so full, I felt it would burst.
The entire terrible day had been worth it for this moment.
Without looking at me he grabbed my hand and started to tug me out of the room. “You know what?” he snarled at a still mute Ms. Colby. “We’re done here. I’m fed up with this shit. This school is out of control. Whatever you’re going to try to pin on Scarlett, you can just go ahead and take it up with my gram.”
Something moved on Ms. Colby’s stunned face. Something that I liked. Dante had clearly struck a nerve.
Dante saw it too, and he smiled unpleasantly at her. “Don’t like that, huh? Well, like I said, you can take it up with my gram. I just called her from the reception desk and let her know what happened. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes. Good luck.”
He gave her a mocking little wave and tugged me out of the room, then the building.
“Where are we going?” I asked him when we’d crossed off school grounds and had moved into the forest. I was pretty sure I knew. This was a familiar path.
“Home,” he replied. He stopped suddenly, turning to me.
I was looking way, way up at him, thinking that he was the most beautiful boy in the world, and it was only as he touched my cheekbone that I remembered I’d been punched pretty hard earlier.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” he asked.
“It’s fine. I was so pissed off I barely felt it. And I did punch him first.”
“Yes, I know, tiger, but he attacked you first.”
“Who told you about it?”
“Nate Becker. He got a hall pass and got himself into trouble flagging me down in the middle of Mr. Jameson’s history lesson.”
I tried to keep my face impassive. Nate seemed like a nice enough kid, but I was savagely territorial where Dante was concerned, and I hated the idea that he might be making a friend aside from me.
“And then you got yourself into trouble storming Ms. Colby’s office,” I said, smiling up at him, my heart in my eyes.
“Well, yeah, but that was after.”
I blinked a few times. “After what?”
“After I stormed into your classroom and gave Tommy Mann the pounding he deserved.”
My jaw dropped. “We’re both going to get expelled,” I breathed, but not like I was sad about it.
He shrugged. “Either we will, or Gram will take care of it. My money’s on Gram.”
I squinted at him. “She’s the sweetest woman on earth. Ms. Colby’s going to chew her up and spit her out.”
He threw his head back and laughed and laughed. “Oh, you haven’t seen her when she’s mad, Scarlett. And you know she has influence over the school board. She donates a lot of money, money they won’t want to lose. Just you watch. There’s finally going to be some justice at this stupid school.”
He grew serious again, his eyes, then his fingers going to trace softly over my injured cheek. “We need to get you home and put some ice on this.”
I made a face. “It’s nothing. Stop making a big deal of it.”
But he didn’t listen. Instead he leaned forward and pressed a soft, chaste kiss on the tender flesh.
When he straightened, I took a deep breath. I’d been struggling not to say anything sappy to him, but I just couldn’t hold it in.
I squeezed his hand really hard, looked down at my feet, and said, “I love you,” for the very first time in my life.
He squeezed my hand back. “Love you, too.” His voice was quiet, but he hadn’t hesitated.
I swear I didn’t stop smiling for three entire days.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
“Unless life also gives you water and sugar, your lemonade will suck.”
~A realist
PRESENT
We arrived at LAX before noon, with four days off looming ahead of us. I was the only one on our crew that wasn’t happy about that.
The day was sunny and fresh to an unwholesome degree when combined with my mood. I didn’t need a nice day. I longed for a dark and dreary one. I wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there. A hole dark enough to wipe my mind clean of the night before.
Why had I done that to myself?
Why did I always do that to myself?
Because Dante. The Bastard.
We got home early enough that it gave us only two choices. Take a nap, or keep going. Any activity that consisted of sitting would wipe you out after a full day of work finished at eleven in the morning.
The four of us shared a sprawling apartment in a somewhat affordable area of town (if you had enough roommates) that had just converted some old warehouses into decent living spaces. We each had our own bedrooms, spaced far enough apart that none of us felt stifled, but shared a living area that was big enough for a hell of a party when the mood hit us, and it often did.
We’d been roomies for nearly a year, and surprisingly I had very little complaints on the arrangement. I’d thought for sure at the beginning that it was a horrible idea. It had all been Leona’s idea, and I’d gone along with it because it would save me money. She’d met these two young sweet girls in her flight attendant class and they’d hit it off.
Like us, and what felt like most of the women in L.A.¸ they were aspiring model/actresses.
I saw it as points against them. Stubborn woman that I am, I’d refused to even meet them at first. Leona was one of my first truly close female friends, and to be honest, I felt possessive of her. What if she found some new friend she liked more? What if I didn’t like these women, and she chose them over me?
But it was around that time Leona had found this apartment, and we needed two more to make the rent, and so she’d talked me into giving them a shot. The first time I met them, I disliked them on principle. They were too young, too gorgeous, too bright-eyed and optimistic. Too sweet and undamaged.
But, like Leona, they’d grown on me.
I’d been conflicted about it in the beginning. They were literally my direct competition. We’d be auditioning for some of the same roles. It was inevitable.
In spite of myself though, over time I’d gotten over it. For one simple reason. I liked them. They became my friends.
Even now, a year later, I tried to picture how I’d feel if one of them got a part I wanted. Any of them. Demi, Farrah, or even Leona. I’d hate their guts, I told myself. I’d feel betrayed, I reasoned. I’d been working for this longer. I wanted it more. There were no friends in show business, I told myself sternly.
But if I were being honest with myself there was a good chance I’d be happy for them. I might even be thrilled for them. Because I’d come to care for them and wanted great things for them. Because they were my friends.
What the hell had these damn girls done to me? When had I gone soft?
I’d surrounded myself with nice people. Apparently the condition was contagious.
Fuck me. I’d always been taught that kindness was a close cousin to weakness, so it didn’t settle easy on me. I doubted I’d ever let it.
I told myself they were the exception. I was otherwise still hard as nails.
Leona went out with her new ‘boyfriend’ for the day. I tried not to roll my eyes when she referred to him as such. They’d been dating a very short time, and she didn’t know him well enough to give him that title, and also he was a pilot, and therefore untrustworthy, but I kept that to myself. She seemed happy, and I did enough of my own bubble bursting. I didn’t need to do the same to her. Not everyone had to be as miserable as I was. Maybe she’d found herself the one faithful pilot on the planet. My cynical mind couldn’t fathom it, but I hoped for her sake that I was wrong and she was right.