He loved her, and she loved him?
That fucking bastard.HimandFrasier.
The end-of-day bell rang, and students flooded into the hallways.I flared my nostrils and stared ahead toward her locker.I didn’t want to care.I didn’t want to feel this tight, burning sensation in my chest.
But there it fucking was.
Suddenly, she and Frasier turned the corner, heading toward her locker.She threw some hair over her shoulder, giggling at something that he’d said.I gritted my teeth, pushed myself off the wall, and closed the distance between all three of us in four strides.
Before Icould register what I was doing, I snapped her wrist and tugged.
“Hey!Arch, what are you?—”
I yanked her away from Frasier, not stopping, not even letting her finish her question.I dragged her with me, moving fast with my grip tight around her wrist.I needed to get her alone.I couldn’t fucking handle this any longer.
“Arch,” she hissed.“What the hell are you doing?”
Frasier shouted after me, but didn’t decide to follow.
Fucker didn’t deserve her.If someone did that to my girl, I’d make them pay.
Even if we were friends.
After pushing open the nearest empty classroom door, I tugged her inside.The door clicked shut behind us, the only sound echoing through her room?Her sharp inhale and quick breathing.
“Are you fucking enjoying this?”I growled.
She furrowed her brow.“Enjoying what?What are you talking about?”
I stepped closer, and she moved back toward a desk.
“You know what.”
Her legs hit the seat.“No, actually, I don’t.”
I placed my hands on the desk behind her, trapping her and leaning down so we were face-to-face.She wasn’t going anywhere until I got my answers.And not the ones that she was going to give me.The onesIwanted.
“Being passed around between Frasier and Calix like a dirty whore.”
Her eyes widened in rage.“Excuse me?!”
“You heard me.You’re acting like a dirty whore.”
“And what’s it to you?I thought that’s how you liked me?”She crossed her arms and met my glare with one of her own, that same smoldering intensity in them that I’d felt last night.“I don’t belong to anyone, Arch.Not Frasier.Not Calix.And definitely not you.”
“Not me?”I said in a dangerously low breath.A dark chuckle left my mouth.“Not me?”
“What?You mad about that?”
“Mad?”I said because she loved to get under my skin, didn’t she?“You have no idea.”
She glared at me for a couple of minutes longer, then flared her nostrils.“What the hell is your problem?You get angry at me for being out with Frasier, you fuck me in front of our parents’ room, you fall asleep with me, and then you run away like a little girl this morning.”
I captured her throat in my hand.“You’re my fucking problem, Astrid.You’ve been my fucking problem since our parents married.I haven’t been able to get you off my fucking mind, and it’s eating me alive.”
Just before she was about to give me a sassy response, she widened her eyes and snapped her mouth closed.She opened it again, only to close it, her brow furrowing, as if she didn’t know how to respond.
A long moment stretched between us.
