“You’re such a dick when you act like this, James,” Jackson said, shaking his head. “He was just kidding,” he whispered to me.
“Poor thing, look how she’s shaking,” added Marvin, upset. The girl on the other hand didn’t show the slightest concern.
I watched James take off his hoodie to reveal a T-shirt.
“Look at him acting like a gentleman,” teased Marvin.
“Right, it’s a shame that he’s missing the pair of balls that go with his white horse.” Oxygen seemed to be returning to my lungs now that he was far away. James didn’t respond to that jab, maybe because deep down he knew he’d taken it too far, so he threw his hoodie in my face. “Shut up and get dressed. You’re freezing your ass off, dumbass.”
I wanted to take it and wrap it around my neck. I would’ve rather frozen to death than accept an item of his clothing, but all that was in theory. As proud as I was, I was totally different in practice. I put the hoodie on immediately.
When I got home, I’d burn it.
My phone buzzed with a text. A flash of disappointment came over me when I saw that it wasn’t from William, but my mom. She was almost here.
“Why’d you give it to her?”
The girl was upset, but it seemed to be fleeting when James put her face between his hands and kissed her against the wall.
I grumbled and hugged myself in the hoodie, then smiled slightly at Jackson, who’d just tried to defend me. But now he glared at me in a way that was anything but reassuring. A second later, I noticed that he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the hoodie I had on.
28
June
William sighed before handing me a pack of cookies as he walked me to the gym.
“Then I passed out. I slept from seven at night, can you believe that?”
Unless he was putting up such a convincing performance that he’d be giving Leonardo DiCaprio a run for his money at the next Oscars, I found myself believing him.
But I didn’t want to give in on the first try. I kept walking with my head held high and without answering. As sincere as he seemed, Will didn’t seem too upset about standing me up so many times in one day.
“I hope the night without me wasn’t too boring.”
I sensed that Will was being sarcastic, but his furrowed brows made him look lost, which confused me.
“My night? It certainly wasn’t boring. It was definitely annoying,” I muttered. We walked into the gym, where a group of guys in gym uniforms were already waiting.
“Is gym class co-ed?” I asked, confused.
“Is this your first class, June?”
I nodded.
“Good luck.” He smiled and winked.
“Why? Where are you going?”
I noticed that, unlike me, he was wearing his school uniform.
“I gotta go to class and review. I have a pass. Our classmates can be really competitive, and class often turns into a battlefield. Men against women. Just like in elementary school. Nothing really educational,” he explained before giving me a kiss on the cheek.
Ari caught up to us.
“Hey, June.”
Her greeting was weirdly detached.
