“And the girl who invited me has a thing for you.” I grinned cheekily.
His brow raised. “Is she pretty?”
Ah, that got him. “Oh, you’ll love her.”
“I guess I’ll tell Salem we’ll play tomorrow, then.” Carson pulled his phone out of his pocket and navigated to his messages. “I’m surprised you want to go since you never enjoy meeting new people.”
I didn’t want to go because I wanted to make friends. I wanted to go because I needed to stop thinking about Alex goddamn Pierce.
Chapter Four
ALEX
“How high do you think a person can get before their brain spontaneously combusts?”
My lips pressed together as the wheels in my head turned. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Leave it to Easton to find out,” my friend, Eli, muttered.
We were supposed to be studying, as I wasthisclose to failing my last bio test and jeopardizing my entire future. Somewhere along the way, Eli and I got sidetracked, and he started complaining about his brother, which I found ten times more entertaining than enzymes. In the short year I’d known Eli, I learned his family was a lot more lively than my own. Something was always going on, and it wasn’t necessarily for the better, yet some idiotic part of me wished I had that chaoticness.
When the craziest drama in your life was hearing about a crayon getting stuck up someone’s nose from your eight-year-old niece, you start to crave other entertainment.
Eli chewed on the tip of his pen. “Sorry for blabbing. I know you’re trying to learn.”
“I’d rather hear about your pothead brother than look at another equation.”
“I’ve got stories that could last a lifetime.” He chuckled bitterly. Scratching his head through his dark, coiled hair, Eli’s eyes narrowed in on something behind me.
I held my breath. “What is it?”
“Someone is…” Eli trailed off, brows narrowed in questioning. “Do you know number nine?”
Number nine? Too curious not to see who he was talking about, my head turned over my shoulder, and my eyes searched. All I could see were other students studying at outdoor tables, someone jogging, and a group of guys lingering in the middle of the sidewalk and blocking traffic.
I almost ignored them, but my eyes widened when I realized that among the group was my forgetful ex-best friend.
I groaned internally, already more tense than before, and that was saying something because studying biology made my stress levels the highest. Why was River showing up everywhere I frequented? He had me thinking this was all part of some elaborate plan to beat a dead horse.
“I’ve been trying to figure out who he’s looking at; it’s you, Alex.”
My eyes found my River’s, already glued to me. Beside him was a blonde man with a man-bun that towered over the group as a whole. He spoke to River, blissfully unaware that his words weren’t being heard because his friend was too busy locking eyes with me.
And stupidly, I was maintaining our locked gazes. It should have unnerved me how obviously River would watch me. Maybe it was dramatic, but I’d say it bordered on stalker-ish behavior. He’d show up at my apartment, began coming to one of my classes that he had never been to before, even though we’d been in school for over a month, and was constantly staring at me. There were too many coincidences.
Yet I couldn’t break eye contact.
Instead, River did it for us. One moment, we were the only two people in the area, the next his nose scrunched up in dismay as if he wasn’t the one watching me first. It was almost identical to the face he pulled in class when I felt his eyes on me then, too.
What game is he playing at?
Feeling humiliated, I turned back to Eli and hoped I didn’t look as uncomfortable as I was.
“That was fucking weird,” he murmured. “How does number nine know you?”
“Why do you keep calling him that?”
Eli pointed. “His number is on his athlete backpack.”
