First-day jitters were the least of my problems.
My pulse went erratic and unhelpful. I was hyperaware of every inch of space between us, which wasn’t much, especially when his hand moved under my chair and yanked me even closer. “What are you doing?” I snapped.
“I forgot my textbook. We’re sharing.” His breath was warm on the side of my neck.
How was I supposed to survive nearly an hour with Maddox all up in my personal space, making me flush from head to toe by just existing?
“Partner assignments are final,” Mr. Gifford was saying. “No switching. No complaining. You’ll learn to work together or you’ll fail together. Science is collaborative.”
Maddox’s hand rested on the table between us, fingers drumming. I stared at those fingers, at the tattoos visible on his forearm, a series of branches with birds perched on them disappearing under his shirt.
My finger lifted as if it had a mind of its own, but I got a hold of myself before I touched his arm and the ink penned into his skin.
What is wrong with me?
Just because he was close enough that I smelled his cologne didn’t mean I could start groping him in class. Or act on the other irrational thoughts popping into my head when it came to Maddox. It was as if my brain malfunctioned and I forgot who I was.
“You okay?” Maddox asked, so quietly I almost missed it.
I dared to look at him, praying I wouldn’t make a complete fool of myself and do something embarrassing as fuck. Like stare at his mouth too long, but damn, he had the most beautiful lips. Who wouldn’t be curious what they tasted like? “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He tilted his head. “Because you look like you’re about to bolt.”
He wasn’t wrong, but running now would mean admitting I couldn’t handle Maddox Corvo, and I wasn’t ready to give him that. I wasn’t ready to admit he had already gotten under my skin. “You don’t look like a jock,” I shot back, relying on my default setting…sarcasm.
A dark brow arched. “Is that so? And what do I look like?”
I shrugged. “A bad boy.”
“Can I not be both?”
I considered it and what little I knew about him. “I guess. It’s just throwing me, imagining you on the field.”
Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his arms over his broad chest. “It’s the perfect place for me to take out my aggressions.”
Interesting. “Do you have a lot of aggression?”
The corners of his mouth pulled down. “More than I would like to admit.”
“Why?”
His jaw flexed, and he got this look in his eyes. “If you knew my father, you’d understand.”
That was twice he commented on his father. I knew a little about him, but only from Paisley and Atlas. Perhaps I needed to uncover more.
12
MALLORY
The chatter in the lunchroom went up substantially, so much so that I turned in my seat to see what the fuss was about. My fork paused halfway to my mouth. I assumed a fight had broken out or someone had dumped a tray of food across the floor. But no.
Mason and Maddox walked in, the cause of all the chaos. The twins were flanked by two other guys, and all four of them moved in a loose formation. I blinked, unable to believe what I was seeing. How could two people create so many waves with just their presence? Was I reading the room wrong? I knew I was out of the high-school loop, but this…this was absurd. It was one thing to read about their popularity or hear about it from Paisley and Atlas, and quite another thing to see it in motion.
“Torin and Levi,” Atlas informed, leaning over the table.
I snuck a glance at him to see he was just as transfixed as everyone else in the room, including me. Fine, so maybe I understood a little why everyone was enamored. Atlas’s eyes tracked their movement with a gleam of appreciation.
Mason and Maddox sauntered through the lunchroom, making their way toward the back, near the wall of windows, just two tables away from ours.
