Ex-Factor (Diamond Girls) (19 page)

“Jerk,” I muttered beneath my breath, glancing across the quad to where he sat, while Claire and Tayla continued chatting. Eli was laughing and joking with a large group of football players, as if nothing had happened that morning. Tommy Doleman was visibly absent, and it was as if no one cared. Callie sat draped across Eli like a bad rash, her two sidekicks making googly eyes and flirting with the rest of the boys at the table.

I shook my head, disgusted with the lot of them. I’d so hoped, for Erin’s sake, that Eli had been telling her the truth about wanting to commit. Though I can’t say I was surprised by the crappy turn of events. Eli was a hardcore player, and it would take nothing short of shock therapy and a muzzle to tame his doggish ways. I took comfort in the fact that she’d decided not to sleep with him. Knowing his type, ten to one, he would have cut her loose even if she had given it up.
Dog!

Callie glanced over her shoulder and sneered at me before running a hand over the back of Eli’s shoulders possessively.
Blegh.
Callie was no better than Eli, and my heart went out to poor Tommy, who very obviously had real feelings for the girl. I hoped he hadn’t gotten in too much trouble for going after Eli in class. While I wasn’t a big supporter of violence, I couldn’t say that I blamed him. I’d only been at the school a few short weeks and had already experienced several moments where I’d give my eyeteeth to shank someone.

I let my gaze wander to the opposite side of the quad where Bodie sat with the senior members of the varsity team. While they yammered and joked around about God only knew what, Bodie sat stone-faced, eyes fixed on Eli and Callie, glaring. His open dislike of them was obvious, and I wondered what had happened to cause such animosity. Eli and Callie were both jerks, but it had to have been more than just that to prompt such glaring hatred from Bodie. Something had gone down between them, and whatever it was, it must have been bad. He’d treated me like a leper my first day of school when he’d thought I was friends with Callie.

He must have felt me watching him, because he turned his head, and the scowl pinching his face disappeared the moment we made eye contact.

Prickly heat tickled the inside of my flesh as his gaze drank me in. Friends didn’t treat each other to long, smoldering, lust-filled glances. And that was most definitely the type of look Bodie was giving me now. Maybe my instincts weren’t as jacked up as I thought.

He held up his cell and tapped the screen with his finger.

Grinning, I slid mine from my pocket and let out a small giggle when it vibrated in my hands. I swiped my finger across the touch screen, my smile growing wider when I saw his message.

Bodie: Sorry bout drama w/ ur friend. Hope Erin is ok. Meet me by ur locker after school.

Another message came through as I moved to put the phone away.

Bodie: Btw. Forgot 2 tell u that u look beautiful 2day.

My bones turned to mush, and I sat grinning in my seat like a useless bag of flesh. Um, yeah, that was so not a friends-only comment. It took an insane amount of control on my part not to squeal like an excited idiot. I talked a big game, tried to act tough when I could, tried to come off as strong and independent. But when it came down to it, I was just like every other teenage girl out there, a blubbering mass of “Oh, my God! He thinks I’m pretty!” I shook my head as I slid my phone into my pocket, once again, surprised by the absence of the guilt and sorrow that normally clung to my every waking mood.

Chapter Thirteen

Status update:
Suffering from sympathetic nausea. Will never touch cafeteria food. Ever!

I got out of my sixth period class five minutes early, because my art teacher suffered a sudden and very acute case of food poisoning she attributed to the mystery meat served in the teachers’ lounge. The scent of vomit still clung to my nose, and it would be a cold day in hell before I went anywhere near the garbage can beside the poor woman’s desk. She’d worn the damn thing like a hood ornament for a good ten minutes.

Livvie had informed me earlier that she needed to make up a test, and she’d catch a ride home with a friend, so I stood with my back against the lockers, waiting for Bodie. The steady drone of students whispering and talking as they vacated the building, lulled me into a trance.

A large hand passed in front of my face, followed by an arm and the overpowering scent of Axe body spray. Eli loomed over me, green eyes blazing, one hand on the locker above my head, the other at his side. His stance was confident, almost cocky, and it made my stomach turn. “You’ve been ignoring my texts, Nev. We really need to talk.”

I sneered at him with as much venom as I could muster, and turned to leave. His other arm shot up, caging me in, his close proximity and persistent stare forcing me to deal with him when I really just wanted to run.

“Let me go.” I shoved his arm. “I have nothing to say to you. Especially not after what you did to Erin.”

He shook his head and looked over his shoulder for a brief moment before staring me down once more. “Don’t be like that, Nev. Don’t make that situation out to be more than it was. I told you Erin and I weren’t official. We were just a casual thing, and it didn’t work out.”

Bile shot up the back of my throat, disgust-filled rage churned in my stomach. “A casual thing?” I raised a brow. “And I suppose you and Callie are just casual too?”

He laughed then. The asshole actually had the nerve to laugh, and I fought the urge to pull my pencil from my bag and ram it into the dimple on his left cheek, lead end first.

He leaned forward, grinning, and placed his face mere centimeters from mine. “Callie and I are just talking.”

From the expression he wore, it was obvious he believed I’d fall for his pathetic “I’m going to wow her with my hot guy aura crap,” but I wasn’t having it. I snarled at him in disgust. “Yeah, I heard all about how you and Callie were talking with your tongues at Wasabi Joe’s.” I pressed a hand against his chest and shoved. “Now, let me go!”

Eli frowned and shook his head. “C’mon, Nev. Give me a chance. I just want to—”

“I’m pretty sure Nev told you to back the fuck off, asshole.” Bodie’s voice cut through the haze of anger and panic flooding my system, and a smug sense of satisfaction welled in my gut as a look of real fear shone behind Eli’s shifty eyes.

One minute Eli stood in front of me, the next he was decorating the locker to my left. Holding a fistful of my tormentor’s shirt in his hand, Bodie held Eli a good ten inches off the floor and glowered at him as if he were a disgusting piece of dog crap stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “Wanna explain to me why you had your diseased face all up in Nev’s business?”

The altercation had drawn the attention of several students who remained in the narrow hallway.  I grabbed Bodie by the arm and tugged.

“Stop it, Bodie. Please. Let him go.”

He glanced over his shoulder toward me, jaw clenched, eyes wild and full of aggression. He was on the brink, teetering on the razor sharp edge of restraint and close to losing control. It wouldn’t take much—one cocky sneer, one nasty word from Eli, and he’d snap, give in to the rage he harbored for him and beat him to a bloody pulp.

“Bodie!” Any sense of pride I had flew out the window as I pictured him being escorted to the principal’s office by the school resource officer and suspended, yet again, for fighting. I refused to let him get in trouble because of me, so I let go, got emotional, and begged. “Please! Let him go. He’s not worth getting in trouble over.”

The vein that sat above Bodie’s temple looked as though it might burst, and his entire body shook with unleashed adrenaline. I knew the moment my words penetrated the thick haze of rage he’d built up. His ebony eyes softened, and he exhaled a long, slow breath. He gave me a nod, then turned toward Eli and growled before setting him on his feet. Hands still gripping his shirt, Bodie leaned forward until his face was mere centimeters from Eli’s. “PSA, douchewad. When a lady tells you to leave her alone, you tuck your tail between your legs, shut your mouth, and start walking. You feelin’ me?”

Visibly shaken, but trying to save face, Eli shrugged off Bodie’s grip and straightened his shirt with a scowl. He brushed past both of us, mumbled a low “fuck this shit,” and tore out of the building like it was on fire.

“C’mon.” I grabbed Bodie by the hand and tugged him down the hall in the opposite direction. Gossip spread like butter in a pancake house at this school, and I didn’t want to hang around and chance one of the administrators coming after him. We needed to get gone, and we needed to do so fast.

The sun scorched my corneas as we burst out of the back exit and rounded the building toward the parking lot.

Bodie was still fuming, but to his credit, he was trying his best to restrain the venom in his voice. “You want to tell me why Eli Walker was on top of you back there?”

I stopped short and turned to face him, disgusted as usual by Eli’s pathetic attempts to woo me, and worried that Bodie might actually think something was going on between us. “He’s trying to get me to go out with him.” I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out forcefully before locking eyes with Bodie. “He’s been trying to get me to go out with him since my first day at this school, and I don’t want anything to do with him.”

The anger I’d witnessed back inside the school returned almost instantly. Bodie’s face twisted into a mask of rage. He balled his hands into fists and rammed his fist into the stucco. “Fucking asshole!”

I flinched and took a step back. While I was positive Bodie would never unleash his anger on me, I was still startled by his violent outburst.

Doing his level best to wear a hole into the pavement, he paced back and forth as if the ground were on fire and mumbled a string of obscenities, half of which I’d never heard before. A trail of crimson trickled down the back of his hand, his knuckles shredded and bloody from their battle with the building. “Punk-ass loser doesn’t know when to quit. Walks around the school with his dick out, trying to shove it in every female pair of pants he comes across.”

I dug inside my bag for the case of travel tissue I always carried with me, and came at him with a handful of the white stuff. “Here.” I grabbed his hand, effectively stopping his million mile march back and forth across the concrete. I pressed the tissue to his knuckles and placed my hand on top, hoping it would staunch the bleeding. Worried, I looked up at him through my lashes and met his fiery gaze. “Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? Trust me when I say I’ve got no love for Eli. But, why do you care what he does? I’m sure there are plenty of guys at this school who view girls as nothing more than a cheap, sexual thrill.”

Bodie looked down at me, dark eyes cool and indifferent. The muscles in his neck strained as he swallowed, and given the way his jaw twitched, I worried there was a good chance he might grind his back teeth into dust.

“Bodie?” My chest felt funny, and I fought to pull air into my lungs.
Crap.
I was all too familiar with the sick, squirrely sensation whirling in my chest. Panic. The look on Bodie’s face—it worried me.

Lips mashed together, he sucked in a deep breath through his nose and exhaled good and slow before shaking his head. He pulled his hand from mine and stalked a few paces from me, his good hand scrubbing at the back of his neck.

My pulse raced and my hands began to sweat.

He stared off to the side for a moment, then met my gaze head on.

Oh no. Don’t do it. Don’t. Don’t say it, Bodie. Please.

He opened his mouth to say something only to slam it shut seconds later. He looked to the sky, then the ground, and with a curse, finally locked eyes with me once more. “I can’t…” He blew out a ragged breath and shook his head. “I can’t fucking do this right now. I’m outta here.”

And there it was. The freaking cut-my-heart-out-with-a-plastic-spoon-and-chuck-its-withered-remains-into-the-fire moment I’d been fearing. Was it possible to hear a person’s heart break? Because I could have sworn I heard mine snap in two as I watched Bodie walk away from me.

***

I took a swig from my water bottle and stared at the back of the door leading into the gym, willing Erin to be the next person to cross into the room. “Where is she?” I mumbled, placing the cap on my water and carefully stowing it in my cubby. Practice started in five minutes, and she’d yet to make an appearance. One of the first things I’d learned about Erin was that she was never late. In fact, she was terminally early. The girl experienced acute anxiety if she wasn’t at least ten minutes early to everything. You could imagine the grief she dealt with on a daily basis at school, running from class to class. It was an all-out sprint with her.

“She’ll be here,” Livvie said, trying her best to reassure me as we walked toward Claire, who stood stretching in the center of the blue mat. “She has no choice if she wants to compete. Doesn’t matter if you’re sick, starving, or suffering from a broken heart. Unless you’re dead or strapped to a hospital bed, the coaches expect you to show up to practice.”

“What do you think all those garbage cans lining the mat are for?” Claire piped in with a chuckle, before mimicking the act of vomiting.

Images of my sixth period teacher upchucking into her wastepaper basket combined with the heavy amount of suck I felt about what went down with Bodie flooded my mind, and I fought the urge to gag. Not a great way to start practice.

“Way to freak her out, Claire,” Livvie said before bending over to stretch. Her voice floated up from between her legs. “It’s a weird rule, but it serves its purpose. Our team is super tight, totally bonded, and on the same page.” She stood up and rolled her shoulders before glancing over at Callie, who sat off to the left chatting with her girls. “Well, except for maybe Callie. None of us wants to bond with her. You never know what you might catch.”