He rolled his eyes when he spotted Roni Gray and her boyfriend walking ahead of him in the hallway. Roni had been named cheer captain in the fall, and apparently she’d decided that basically made her high school royalty.
What she really was, honestly, was a royal pain in the ass, looking down her nose at anyone who wasn’t a part of her clique.
Maverick didn’t aspire to run with the likes of Roni and her friends, but they still tried to include him. Probably because he played on the football team with Roni’s current boyfriend, the quarterback, Jeff Timmons.
Jeff wrapped his arm around Roni’s waist before letting his hand drift lower. She giggled loudly and smacked his arm away when he copped a feel of her ass.
“Jeff, you’re so bad,” she said, laughing loud enough to draw everyone’s attention.
He threw his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “Didn’t hear you complaining last night.”
Roni winked, then they engaged in a sloppy kiss.
Maverick rolled his eyes, trapped behind them, thanks to narrow hallways and too many kids blocking traffic by hanging at their lockers. He was grateful Roni and Jeff had found each other, because God knew no one else could tolerate them for more than five minutes.
“Get a room,” someone behind Maverick yelled, which interrupted the gag-worthy kiss.
Jeff flipped his middle finger in the general direction of the speaker, then he and Roni started walking again.
Maverick had almost made it to his math class when Roni pulled up short, stopping to whisper something in Jeff’s ear.The two of them grinned at each other—then Maverick watched as Jeff purposely shouldered into Ella Decker, causing the quiet girl to drop all her books.
“Watch out, Ella,” Roni drawled. “God!” It was obvious she’d encouraged her boyfriend to slam into Ella, which annoyed the fuck out of Maverick.
“Maybe Jeff should watch where he’s going,” he said, drawing the attention of Roni and Jeff. Maverick had enough clout that neither of them struck back at him for calling them out on their bullshit.
Instead, they shrugged him off and bypassed Ella without helping her pick up her books.
Maverick scowled at their backs, then knelt to help Ella gather her things.
“They’re assholes,” he said to her.
Ella glanced up, seeming almost alarmed by his presence. “Yeah. I know. I can get this. You don’t have to help,” she said, hastily trying to gather the looseleaf paper that had scattered from one of her notebooks.
It occurred to Maverick those were probably the most words he’d ever heard Ella say, or at least, the most she’d said that wasn’t in response to a teacher’s question. Unlike most of the kids in their class, who had lived their entire lives in Gracemont, Ella and her family had moved to the small town the beginning of Ella’s ninth-grade year. He didn’t have a clue where she’d moved from or why, because she didn’t really talk to many people. Maverick had always just assumed she was shy, which was an unfortunate thing for her, considering she’d started high school not knowing anyone.
A couple of the nicer girls in their class had reached out and tried to form friendships with her early on, but those efforts didn’t seem to last for some reason. He vaguely recalled Jenny Barber saying once that Ella never wanted to hang outwith anyone after school and that she didn’t have a phone—something unheard of amongst teenagers these days.
Ella clearly preferred books to people. She always had her nose in one, opting to spend her lunch period volunteering in the library over socializing in the cafeteria—another thing that marked her as different from most of the rest of their class.
Maverick hadn’t paid much attention to her because…well…she was easy to overlook. Given the way she always opted to sit in the front of the class, right next to the teacher’s desk, and the fact she rarely spoke. Maverick was strictly a back-of-the-room kind of guy.
Now that he was close to her, he wondered how in the hell he hadn’t noticed her before. Because Ella Decker was fucking gorgeous. She had long dark auburn hair, though she always wore it in a ponytail, one pulled so tightly it had to hurt her scalp. From this distance, he could see she had bright green eyes and the lightest smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks, all of which he could see clearly because she didn’t wear a speck of makeup. Not even mascara or lip gloss, like the other girls did.
“You okay?” he asked, suddenly concerned about the way Jeff, who was easily double Ella’s size, had plowed into her.
Ella nodded. “Really, I don’t need your help,” she insisted, when he kept picking up her things. “I’ve got it.”
Maverick ignored her, chalking up her independence to her shyness. “It’s a shame Jeff can’t tackle like that on the football field,” he said. “Maybe if he could, we would have won more than two games all season.”
Ella shocked him when she laughed. He’d never heard a more beautiful, joyful sound. “You’re forgetting he holds a school record.”
Maverick frowned, because he was pretty sure Jeff hadn’t broken any damn records with his shitty playing.
“Most interceptions in a season,” Ella added.
This time, it was Maverick who laughed, loud enough that several kids turned to look, obviously surprised to see him and Ella talking.
Maverick quickly started rearranging his assumptions about Ella, because it was apparent shyness wasn’t her problem.
