Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Shut up,” he laughs. “But if you must know, mommy’s precious little boys get the ‘I’m very disappointed in you’ speech.”
“Oh, no,” I laugh as I turn in his arms to look up at him. “That must be horrible.”
“Yeah, it’s a real killer,” he says as he lowers his face to mine and gently kisses me. “Jesse can’t stand it and ends up sucking up to mom for the next week.”
“And you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you wait until nobody is around before you grovel on your knees for forgiveness and promise that you’ll never do it again, only, you always do it again, or at least, Jesse does it again and you take the blame.”
I feel his smile against my lips before he presses another kiss to them. “Go to sleep, Tora,” he tells me before kissing me once again.
Chapter 4
I walk through the school corridors on Thursday afternoon with a stomach growling for its lunch. I’m just about at the cafeteria. I’m so close I can smell the food and it’s the only thought in my mind.
Food. Food. Food. Glorious food.
I push through the big double doors of the cafeteria and inhale deeply. I briefly glance around to see the boys aren’t here yet, but all my girls are and what’s better is that they’re saving me a spot in the line.
I practically skip over to them. “Thanks,” I say as they reach the front of the line. Courtney leans forward and grabs a handful of trays before handing them out. I graciously take one and get ignored by Brooke whose attention is solely on the selections before her.
We make our way down the line and I settle for a salad sandwich before grabbing a bottle of water. I turn around to find Nate and Jesse walking through the door, and as usual, Nate’s eyes are already on mine. He sends me a flirty wink and I can’t help the blush that rises on my cheeks. He laughs at my reaction which has Jesse also looking up.
Jesse looks across at me before he rolls his eyes and flips me the bird. I flip it right back and laugh to myself as the girls meet me at the end of the line. We walk over to our table and leave the boys be for the day. I mean, I see enough of them at home, today is about my girls.
As I sit down, I can’t help but notice the table in the very back of the room looking extremely lonely. Elle sits by herself with her head down and not a single soul paying her any attention, though, I bet she’s hoping they don’t. After all, she’s made nearly every single person in the room’s life a living hell at one stage or another, and now she doesn’t have the security of the cheerleaders to back her up. She’s now the one on the other end of the bullying and I bet she’s regretting her decisions to alienate her classmates over the past few years.
She’s all alone in every way possible and I should be happy about that. It was her idea for Josh to get me alone and to attack me. She had planted the seed and convinced him to film it. They were going to post it on every social media account they could get their hands on and I would have been destroyed. All for what? Turning down the quarterback and refusing to bend to the cheer captain’s will.
Well, I certainly showed them as neither one of them are the captains of anything anymore. Josh is out of here and Elle is regretting every decision she’s ever made. Though, I had a little help from Jesse when it came to Elle.
But now, watching her all alone, I can’t help but feel for her. I never had an issue with her before the whole Josh thing happened and she had backed right off after Jesse had threatened to expose her. I don’t like seeing people being left out or hurting and that’s exactly what’s happening to her now.
“Earth to Tora,” Brylee says, clicking her fingers in my face. “What’s going on in there?”
I flick my attention back to the girls to find them watching me with a strange curiosity. “Oh, ah. Nothing,” I say before I grab my sandwich and dig in. “What’s going on?”
“Are you serious?” Courtney groans. “Did you really not hear a word of that?”
I press my lips together and shake my head. “Sorry,” I say as a grin starts to spread over my face. “I was distracted.”
Court rolls her eyes before lifting her fork to her mouth and jamming her salad in. She chews it for a moment and swallows. “Let me guess,” she says. “You were giving the designated bad boy bedroom eyes and planning your afternoon escape to the empty science lab?”