Pure Redemption (Tainted Legacy) (40 page)

Her eyes landed on his immediately.

Reece had always thought that Cleo’s eyes were the most incredible shade of blue he’d ever seen. Like the Cornflower Blue Crayola he’d always chosen for the sky when he was a kid. They stood out against the espresso color of her hair. They were beautiful. And expressive. They also made her easy to read.

At least, easy for
him
to read.

Now that he had a closer view than he’d had that morning, he noticed a few things.  Her skin was pale. Her eyes were hollow and glossy, the way the eyes of only the severely sleep deprived are.

Not my business anymore
, he told himself. As if it would stop him from worrying. It didn’t, of course.

Her eyes lingered on him as long as his lingered on her. He forced a small smile and a wave, feeling pretty sure she was going to ignore him. She didn’t. Not completely anyway. She bit her lip and raised her hand. Just barely. Then her eyes finally darted away. Emma was tugging on her sleeve.

“You sit right here,” Emma pointed out to her.

He hadn’t seen Emma walk in. Too busy watching Cleo, he supposed. Emma was pointing at the seat in the front row. It was the seat closest to the door. Right where she’d been standing. He was in the seat furthest from the door. This put Cleo in a perfect diagonal line from where he was.

He saw Cleo’s lips move. He was sure she said ‘thanks’ or something along those lines. He couldn’t hear her over the racket the class was making. Emma started heading his way. She gave him an uncomfortable looking smile. Then she popped into a desk a row ahead and one seat over.

Emma was Cleo’s best friend. He’d gotten to know her pretty well over the last year. But now that he wasn’t with Cleo…because Cleo was with Emma’s brother…he was pretty sure he and Emma might not be friends anymore. Wasn’t that how those things were supposed to go? He didn’t really know.

He slouched down in his chair and forced his eyes to the front of the room.

Not seeing Cleo all summer had been tough. But sitting in the back row, where he would have a clear vantage point of her? Day after day? He knew, without a doubt, it was going to be hell.

Chapter 2

She shouldn’t have even been looking. She knew this, yet she couldn’t help it.

“You okay?” Emma asked as she grabbed her elbow. She knew she’d spotted Reece. He was sitting in his vehicle which was pretty impossible to miss. If he had gotten out, he would have at least blended with the crowd and she might have been able to avoid seeing him. But he was chatting with Adam while he gazed out the window. Like he was already bored with school and it hadn’t even started yet.

“Cleo?” Emma pressed when she didn’t respond.

“I’m good,” she told her as she pulled her eyes away. She’d followed Reece’s line of sight and realized he’d been watching Mia. Of course he had been. Her stomach folded into a painful knot.  She’d been dreading this day. Of course Emma knew this. She tried to smile and Emma rolled her eyes because she didn’t buy it. She knew better.

“So, Luci looked super cute today,” Emma said. She’d brought up the one subject that she knew would make Cleo smile.

It worked. She grinned despite herself. “Thanks. I thought so, too.”

Luci was her life. She was the thing that kept her sane. She couldn’t help but picture her. Her long blond hair all curled to perfection. She’d helped her curl it because she’d asked.  But Luci still had such baby-fine hair that she knew it would be back to stick straight by the end of the day. She didn’t care. It made Luci happy and that made her happy. They’d gone school shopping. Cleo had let her pick out an outfit that cost twice as much as her own first day outfit. But you only start middle school once and Cleo had felt the splurge was justified.

“Thanks for driving us,” she said. She hadn’t asked Emma to. She sure didn’t expect her to. But when she offered, she hadn’t declined. Emma was sweet enough to insist on driving Luci, too. Even though it added an extra fifteen minutes because the middle school was definitely out of the way. And Emma was not a morning person. So Cleo appreciated the offer that much more.

She shrugged. “No problem. Sorry I can’t drive you home tonight. I can’t believe I got scheduled to work right after school. I’m barely going to have time to get out of here and change into my uniform. And it’s the first day. Who wants to work on the first day?”

“It’s really okay,” she told her. “I don’t expect you to drive me everywhere.”

Emma’s gaze darted toward Reece again. She grabbed Cleo by the arm. “I don’t feel like hanging around out here today. Do you mind if we just head inside?”

Cleo nodded. She wasn’t clueless. She knew the only reason they were headed in this early was for her benefit. Because Mia and Reece were not that far away.

As they entered the school, the familiarity calmed her. She loved school. She loved being in school. She knew it had something to do with school being the only place she had really felt happy when she was younger. Her mom had been sick. Not physically as much as mentally ill. Clinical depression, to be exact. It was such a debilitating disease that often times, she’d be bedridden for long periods of time. At those times it was Cleo’s job to keep Luci quiet so their mom could rest. Or because she had a headache and the noise bothered her. Their house, considering there were two kids in it, had always been unbelievably quiet.

Cleo was not a big fan of quiet.

So school was a refuge for her. There was always noise and activity and energetic teachers. She always welcomed the organized chaos.

Just walking into a school brought all of that back. She hoped to get her degree in education. She couldn’t think of a better place to spend all of her working years than in a school. Preferably a kindergarten classroom. All those busy little bodies, all that energy.

For a while, college had seemed like an elusive dream. Until she met with Mrs. Gaines, the school counselor, last year. She’d nearly assured her that she would probably qualify for enough financial aid to cover most of her expenses. She had decided it might be the one and only perk of being parentless. She’d started working when she was sixteen. She’d started saving most of her paychecks right away. But working part-time at minimum wage would barely make a dent if she had to come up with all of her tuition.

She had a nice little chunk of money saved away. But it would go fast once tuition bills started rolling in. So when Mrs. Gaines laid everything out for her, it was like a huge burden had been lifted off of her shoulders.

Their local university was small enough and her grades were high enough that she had no doubt she would get in. She wanted to be able to be close to Luci. But those were issues to ponder another day. For now, she had to get through senior year.

As soon as they entered the main hall of the school, Melanie and Lauren bombarded them.

“What lunch do you two have?” Lauren demanded. She was usually so put together but at the moment, she looked completely frazzled.

“Second,” Emma and Cleo said together.

Lauren made a miserable face and groaned.

“Awesome. We all have second lunch,” Melanie pointed out.

“Um,” Lauren said, looking a little offended as she waved her schedule at Melanie. “No we do
not
all have second lunch, Mel. I’ve got first lunch.”

“Well, right,” Melanie said unapologetically. “I didn’t mean you. I meant the three of us. Adam has first lunch though, right? Can’t you eat with him?”

“We’re not really at the eating lunch together stage. And even if we were, Mia and Reece have first lunch. He’ll be eating with them. I’d lose my appetite if I had to watch Mia hanging all over Reece. It was bad enough having to witness it over the summer,” she grumbled. She turned to Cleo. “Sorry, but it was disgusting.”

She shrugged, not even bothering to fake a smile. “It’s fine.” She knew that Lauren had dated Adam on and off over the summer. It only made sense that she’d spent some of that time with Reece. Which translated to Reece
and
Mia.

“Of course it’s fine. It should be fine,” Melanie pointed out. “You’re the one that dumped him, remember? Because you were with Ethan?”

“Watch how you word that,” Emma snapped. “She wasn’t with Ethan until
after
.”

Melanie snorted. “Yeah, thirty seconds after. I’ve got to find Natalie. I’ve got some questions about practice times. I’ll see you at lunch,” she said as she sashayed off.

“Or maybe you won’t,” Emma muttered. “Want to go off campus?”

“Only if you really want to,” Cleo replied. She packed her lunch. It didn’t really matter to her where they went.

“Then we’ll go somewhere. But be quick after third hour so Mel doesn’t catch us,” Emma ordered.

“Maybe I can have my lunch changed,” Lauren mumbled. She looked over the paper in her hand again.

“You might have to change your whole schedule,” Cleo pointed out.

“It might be worth it,” she said. “I’m going to go look for Andrea. Maybe she has first lunch,” she moaned as she headed off.

Cleo felt for her. She wondered if whoever was in charge of the almighty lunch schedule had any idea how detrimental it could be to someone’s school year if they ended up in the wrong one.

She and Emma migrated with the rest of the students through the halls, separating to go to their own lockers. She grabbed a few notebooks and headed toward Community Participation. It was a newer class but it was popular. She’d heard they’d had to add another section of it this year because two hadn’t been enough. She was glad that Emma was in first hour with her. When she got there, there was a group of people in front of the door.

Emma appeared and groaned beside her. “A seating chart? What is this, preschool?” She scowled at the white tag board, with its neat little squares drawn out, depicting desks. Each little desk had a name scribbled inside. “I’ll go check this out,” she said. Her tiny body slipped through a crack in the wall of people.

Cleo managed to squeeze her way into the door. She backed up a few feet into the room. She glanced around and…there was Reece. Every nerve ending in her body erupted. Or maybe it was an adrenaline rush. Either way, she felt sparks go off and her heart sped up.

His caramel colored hair had been neatly cut. His skin was a deep bronze, probably from baseball and fishing on the lake he lived on. And then his dark brown eyes were on her, catching her sucking up the sight of him. She knew she should look away. She should try to not to make it awkward for either of them. But she just couldn’t.

She was expecting him to give her a look of disgust or frustration or…something. She wasn’t expecting him to wave. To be decent. But of course he was decent because he was Reece. He gave her a small smile—so small it didn’t even set his dimples free—and she forced one back. And managed a wave.

“Crap,” she heard Emma mutter from right next to her. She knew she had spotted him, too. “You sit right here,” she informed Cleo. She pointed conveniently at the desk Cleo was already standing next to. The look on her face was apologetic. She turned her back to Reece.

“Maybe
you
need to look into a schedule change,” she suggested.  

Cleo shook her head. “This isn’t a big deal. I can handle it.”

“Of course you can,” she sighed. “It’s just one class, right?”

“Right,” Cleo said with a shrug and an overly bright smile. If she were to drop the class, Reece might take it personally. After everything else, she didn’t want him to be upset with her over that, too. And if she was going to be honest with herself, she was thankful for the chance to see him. No matter how much more difficult it made things. Though she would never tell that to Emma.

However, for possibly the first time ever, she was grateful for a front row seat. She knew she couldn’t really lose herself in accidentally gawking at Reece that way. It would be too conspicuous. She was glad to be close to the door as well. She could bolt as soon as the bell rang and not have to worry about being next to him as the crowd filed out. If seeing him across the room had such an effect on her, she was sure being right next to him would be so much worse.

She leaned her elbows on her desk. She rested her face in her hands as Mr. Jessen bounded into the room. He smiled, looking pleased that most of the class had found their seats. The last few stragglers and the ones chatting at the door finally found theirs now that their teacher had arrived. The bell rang and he grinned. He looked up and down the rows. Cleo had the distinct feeling he was already trying to remember their faces. Or maybe trying to see if he already recognized any of them from the hallways. He finally pushed his gold framed glasses up on his nose and he began his introduction.