Hometown Girls: Beginnings (Hometown Girls Series Book 1) (6 page)

Marissa Lou had stopped in her tracks only a few feet away from Daniel and Katie when she saw them together, but her legs were too stiff to back away, so she just stood there staring at them. When Daniel turned in her direction her heart crumbled to pieces for the hundredth time. She didn’t even look at Katie, who now appeared to be hiding behind him. She only looked at him. She desperately wanted to turn around and run away, but her class was in that direction and she didn’t want to look weak. Not in front of him, and not in front of her classmates. She was the “it” girl in school. She could have anyone she wanted, and always got what she wanted and no one had ever stood in her way.

Unfortunately, what she wanted wasn’t hers to take, not anymore, at least for a little while anyway. She was the one that broke things off, so she had to stand by her convictions. Besides, he’d be back. She had no doubt about that. He was hers, he just needed a little time to remember that. But for now she was alone and in pain, although she knew it didn’t have to be like that.

She broke eye contact with Daniel and looked around the hallway at all the eyes on her. She felt humiliated. It had only been a few days and they were already making out in the hallway in front of everyone. Now everyone would know that Katie stole her boyfriend. There was no doubt that the gossip mill would be spreading like wild fire after this. She continued to look around as she considered what to do.

There were eyes of concern, eyes of excitement and eyes of pity, except for one. The lone set of eyes of Randy Farris, resident sexy bad boy, weren’t of pity, but of amusement and desire and that was exactly what she needed; someone to desire her and distract her from her reality. And someone to make her look less like a loser. Forcing her legs to move, she pushed past a few people as she made her way to him.

“Hey,” she said with a smile. She looked around at all the people who were still staring at her, knowing they were probably straining to hear what she was saying. She rolled her eyes and looked back at Randy. “Are you done watching this lame show?”

“Drama isn’t really my thing, so I was only watching one thing.”

“Good, you want to get out of here then?”

“Whatcha have in mind?”

“Come with me,” she said grabbing his hand and without another look toward Daniel or Katie, she escorted him through the crowd. All eyes were on her and Randy as they walked out of the school hand in hand and she instantly felt victorious.

Katie knew Becca and Jess had watched the interaction along with everyone else, except they actually had something invested there. The four of them were best friends. Cheating in the group was not acceptable.

“What the heck, Katie!” Becca scolded her once Marissa Lou was out of sight.

Katie was still hiding behind Daniel, wishing the wall would open up and swallow her already. She was so concerned about how things would go down between her, Daniel and Marissa that she didn’t take into account Jess or Becca. The four of them have been inseparable for a really long time, but this, what happened today, would surely change everything and that scared her more than anything.

“Katie!” Becca yelled when she didn’t answer.

“Hey, stop it!” Daniel yelled back, coming to Katie’s rescue.

Katie had seen him watching as Marissa Lou left with that loser, Randy Farris, his face a mask of disbelief. He had continued to watch the door, and she wondered if he was hoping, expecting, her to walk back in. He hadn’t even notice the other girls walk up. Not until Becca raised her voice. He turned to look at her, still cowering behind him. He lifted her chin to look into her eyes and when he saw the tears, his expression softened.

“Are you okay?”

She looked away and wiped her tears before shaking her head ‘yes’.

“Is someone going to explain to us what just happened?” Becca asked, her voice filled with disbelief.

“Marissa Lou and I broke up,” Daniel said still staring down at Katie. “And there’s a thing here, or at least I hope there’s still a thing here.”

Katie slowly looked up at Daniel. Her eyes still leaking and her throat feeling like the Sahara Desert had inserted itself there. She liked Daniel so much. He was everything she could ever want. But Marissa Lou was her best friend.

Was she kidding herself earlier? She was so happy to finally be with Daniel. She felt free. And something in the back of her head kept telling her that it would all work out. That she could be with Daniel and she and Marissa Lou could still be friends like they always were. Nothing had to change. That was until she actually saw Marissa Lou and the look on her face. She did that. She hurt her best friend.

“I, I don’t know if I can do this,” Katie said and slid from between Daniel and the wall and briskly walked away, leaving Daniel staring after her, and Becca and Jess staring daggers in him.

“Great, just great. Good job, Daniel. I hope you’re happy now. A nuclear bomb would do less damage than what you’ve done,” Becca seethed and walked away as well, pulling Jess with her.

Marissa Lou stared out the windshield of Randy’s beat up old truck, replaying what happened at school. In the scenario, in her mind, each time she said and did something different. Hell, anything would have been better than that what she actually did, which was stand there frozen, silently staring at Daniel like a pathetic loser.

“Hey beautiful, how about you slide your fine self closer,” Randy said to her and before she could react, he wrapped his arms around her rear and pulled her close to him and draped an arm around her shoulder. “That’s more like it.”

Marissa Lou giggled as he did, although the smell of cigarette smoke rolled off him in waves and crashed into her. She never considered Randy as a potential anything before and quite frankly, she wasn’t sure why that was. He was the ideal bad boy, and of course all girls loved a bad boy. He was cool, sexy and dangerous, which was the complete opposite of Daniel. Sure Daniel was hot, but there wasn’t a dangerous bone in his body, he was too much of a good guy for that. He was the All-American golden boy. The change to Randy would be exactly what she needed to distract herself for the time being.

“I can’t believe we are skipping school,” Marissa Lou said with a sparkle in her eye. She was always up for a good time, but defying authority wasn’t something she was accustomed to.

Randy smirked, “You’ve never skipped before?”

She shook her head ‘no’, but the smile she gave him told him she liked the thrill.

He gave her a considering look before he reached across her with his free hand and opened the glove compartment. He was so close his face was practically on her chest. He was so close he could probably even hear her heart speed up at their closeness. He smiled when he found what he was looking for. He sat up and leaned in close to her again.

She watched him in disbelief as he lit a lighter, lighting up a joint. She knew people that smoked pot, but she was not one of them. She didn’t like the burned out way potheads acted. She always said if there was ever a top unattractive quality in a person, it would be that one.

“Here, you want some?” he asked holding the joint out to her.

She looked away and fanned the smoke from her and stifled the need to cough. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

He pulled the joint back and put it to his lips, taking a big inhale of the toxic fumes. He grabbed her chin, turned her face to him and crushed his lips to hers, forcing the smoke into her mouth.

“What the hell?” she asked coughing on the foreign substance.

“Hey, don’t knock it before you try it,” he said and shrugged his shoulders.

She quickly became annoyed at his obvious lack of care of what she wanted. She pushed away from him and stared out her side window. But within minutes the mad feelings steadily dissolved leaving her with a sense of giggly happiness, although she was working hard to hide it from him, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

After a while he seemed unconcerned about her protest and pulled her back to him. She was feeling too loopy to fight it. He took another puff from the joint, lightly grabbed her chin to face him, and without any warning pressed his lips to hers. She instinctively opened her mouth to allow the kiss, expecting that to be what he wanted, but when she did he exhaled the toxic fumes straight into her mouth and down her throat again. She quickly pushed him back and a fit of coughs over took her. She had never smoked anything before, so the substance was foreign to her, and her lungs didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Jerk!” she yelled through gasps and flung the truck door open. He fooled her not once, but twice, and that wasn’t okay with her.

“Hey, where ya goin? I was just mess’n,” Randy asked, laughing as he followed behind her. “Hey, wait up,” he said grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him.

The sudden movement made her head spin, thankfully he was holding her arm to keep her upright. Still, she grabbed his arms for added support and bent her head. When she regained composure she looked up at him and punched him in the arm. Unfortunately, it was much lighter than she would have liked.

“Jerk!” she yelled again.

Randy, still holding her arm, albeit loosely, tried to keep a straight face, but the look of cute-girl-anger etched on her pretty face amused him, along with the effects from the joint.

“I don’t know what’s so funny,” she said feeling even more annoyed.

Obviously it didn’t have its desired effect because with that he completely lost it.

“Stop it! Stop laughing at me!”

The higher her voice got the more he laughed.

“Oh…my…god…I can’t,” he said through breaths.

Within minutes her anger slowly began to dissipate until she too was laughing. At what, neither of them really knew, but something sure tickled their funny bones. It struck her that in that moment she felt happier than she had felt in days. She no longer felt the crippling ache in her heart or the urge to curse God for allowing such pain into her life.

They walked back to his beat up old truck, hand in hand, where they remained for the rest of the day. Sometimes talking, sometimes even kissing, but mostly they sat in silence, watching the scenes of nature all around them. She even freely took a few hits off the joint as well. It wasn’t so bad once she realized it actually made her feel good. Something like that couldn’t be bad, right? There were no people or noise at the top level of the Bluffs, a popular make-out and party spot, just them. The only sound that was heard came from nature around them and from the cliff below where a constant song of water splashed against the rocky bottom.

Katie skipped school for the rest of the day, sending Daniel into panic mode. He knew getting together with her would be hard on everyone, but he couldn’t have predicted what Marissa Lou had done. Randy was not someone he liked, and she knew it. Now both girls were gone, so talking about it was out of the question and there was nothing he could do about it. If he didn’t have an exam in his seventh period English class, he would have followed Katie when she left, but his GPA was already on shaky ground.

Instead, he remained at school with his mind reeling about what Katie had said. She said she didn’t know if they were still a thing. The words stung and by the end of the day he was kicking himself for not skipping school too because he couldn’t focus on anything else. Not even the gossip that had ensued all over the school. He needed to talk to her.

As soon as his last class had ended he drove at the safest fast speed he could muster to her house. It was a path he’d taken many times before since Marissa Lou lived right beside her.

When he pulled into the driveway he was mostly relieved to see Marissa Lou’s car wasn’t there, but slightly disappointed to know that she was probably still with Randy.

Those thoughts faded from his mind when Katie opened the door. Her pretty face looked pale and her eyes were red. She was obviously taking it hard and it broke his heart to see.

“Can we talk?” he asked softly.

She nodded her head and opened the door further to let him in.

When she closed the door and turned around to face him, he immediately wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. “I’m so sorry about what happened earlier,” he whispered into his ear.

She melted into him and hugged him back, but she seemed still too raw to speak.

He untangled his arms from around her and pulled away slightly to look at her. She looked like she was about to start crying again. He gently put both hands on the sides of her face, forcing her to look at him. “Are you alright?”

Still unable to speak, she nodded her head ‘yes’ although the look on her face told a different story.

“Can we talk?”

She nodded again. Before releasing her, he kissed her forehead and led her by the hand to the couch in the living room.

“Katie, I know this whole thing is messed up and I’m so sorry about that. I’m not sorry, however, about us. I told you earlier that I didn’t regret the other night and I still don’t. Do you?”