Crushed (9 page)

Adam
’s eyes were huge and he gave Reece a look that let him know he
’d done something moro
nic of epic proportions. Emma was
leaning forward, practically hanging off of her desk with a look of horror painted
on
her face. L
ike she’d been trying to get their
attention.
Natalie
looked as pissed off as a wet cat
.
Reece
didn’t doubt
that she had
already texted
Mia
about this. Everyone else just looked entertained.

He slumped down in his
seat
,
trying t
o convince him
self
that
this wasn’t humiliating at all.

Without looking her way, he could see that Cleo had slumped in her seat too. Her hands
were over her face.

“Alright th
en!” Mr. Jessen said
. H
e clapped
his hands like they
were a
bunch of unruly little kids
. “I’ve changed my mind
. The noise level is getting a little high in here,” he said as he
glanced their
way.
Reece
was pretty sure
there was a good possibility no one
had been talking but him and Cleo
. “So, let’s take it outside as long as the weather is still permitting.
Let’s get the desks back where they belong and take advantage of this lovely morning!
”

Everyone got to their feet
, haphazardly shoving the desks around. T
here was a stampede to the door. Cleo was the first one out.
Reece
stepped back and let everyone through.

When Adam reached him he smacked him
across the back of the head hard enough it stung a little. “What the hell
was
that?!” he demanded.

Reece didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure he
even really kne
w.

“Too bad Mr. Jessen came back when he did because I thought for sure you were going
to get down on
one knee in front of your ex.” Reece
couldn’t tell if he was being
serious or not as they filed out. He kept a good distance between them
and the rest of the class.

“It wasn’t—”

Adam cut him
off with a snorting sound. “Oh, dude, it so
was
.
Mia
’s going to want your balls on a silver platter over this.”
He looked at
Reece
and cringed
. “This might be the only time I’ll ever say I can’t really blame h
er.” He made a face at
Reece
again. T
o drive home that
he
was an idiot and he said, “For the record, Cleo may not be able to tell you
how you
should
feel
,” he mocked, “but believe me, I think we
all
know. You didn’t leave a lot of room to wonder.”

“Whatever,”
Reece
mumbled. Now that the heat of the moment had passed the absolute
humiliation
of the situation was becoming mo
re and more apparent to
him
.
He knew he
was
never
going to live this down.

They
trudged down the hall in silence for a whi
le. They lagged
behind as much as they could
. T
he last thing he
wanted to do was talk with Cleo for the rest of the hou
r. Even if it was only about their
assignment.

Adam finally started in again. “You know I like Cleo. I do. But man, that was painful.
What were you thinking?”

“Obviously, I wasn’t.”

Adam didn’t say anything to this.

Finally Reece
said, “I just wanted answers. That’s all.”

“Did you
get them?” he scoffed because Reece
obviously
had.

“Yeah,” he
said, “I got them.”

It was just that the
truth was worse than he
’d thought.
He and Cleo
had been
over long before he’
d
had any idea. And he wasn’t so sure he
believe
d
that there wasn’t anything going on with Ethan. If she kept how
she had started to feel about him
, about their relationship,
a secret, how was he
to know that she didn’t keep how she f
elt about Ethan a secret
, too? The more he thought about it, the more he convinced him
self that Cleo and Eth
an started way before he and Cleo
ended. Why else would’ve Ethan
just rushed in like he did? Like he belonged there and Cleo
hadn’t flinch
ed
. Hadn
’t hesitate
d
when she left with him.

By the time
they
got outside, Cleo had found a place on the lawn
. Emma had
parked herself a little off to the right and
Natalie
had
tugged Eli to a spot not too far to the left.
Natalie
was glaring at him but he
ignored her. She didn’t have to worry.

There was no chance he and Cleo
would be discussing anything more than the assignment for t
he rest of the hour. In fact, he was pretty sure they
might not be discussing anything else ever again.

By the time class
was
over
Mia
had
gotten a full report, via
Natalie
. He
was
treated to a royal screaming fit by her majesty right before second hour.

After that she t
hrew the silent treatment at him.

And he knew he
deserved it.

But all
he
could think
as she stormed away
was that if she left him alone
for the rest of the day
, at least something had gone
right during this day from hell.

Chapter 6

Reece
let out an aggravated sigh as
he
stood in line at the bank. A
few of the people in front of him turned to give him a disapproving look. He faked
an apologetic smile. He
wasn’t aggravated with the lin
e. More like, aggravated with him
self.

He
’d been thinking about Mia
because he refused to let him
self think about Cleo
. At first,
Mia
had been
nice and she
’d seemed sincere. But now, he
realized that was probably all just for show. She was driving
him crazy and not in a good way. He
wasn
’t so sure she actually liked him. He
was pretty much convinced she’d spent junior year
thinking
she wanted him just because he
was so obviously unavailable. She’d been pretty horrible to Cleo a lot of the time.

Now, he was sure she realized he
just wasn’t all that into her.
This only had her working twice as hard to win him over just to prove she could.

Because Mia was
one of
those
girls.

She’d pounced the same day Cleo tipped
his
world upside down.
He and Cleo
had been together over a year
as far as anyone else knew. F
ourteen months if he was going to admit he
was counting—
longer than an
yone else in
their
class.

What most people didn’t get was that
the first
four or five of those months they
were firmly in some kind of gray area. An area between dating and just f
riends where everyone thought they
were together
. B
ut
really
, they
were comfortably somewhere in
the middle
.
What they
had
included
a whole lot of talking and getting to know one another. Along with occasional
hand holding and completely innocent kisses on the forehead.

Cleo had enough to deal with in her life at the time
. S
o
they
took things slow.

Apparently
thei
r break up
had been big news and Mia had been
all over it. She
’d
swooped in like some vulture ready to feed off o
f the remnants of Reece’s
battered, bruised, ripped out heart.

And he
’d let her.

Cleo hadn’t made their
break-up all tha
t private. Sure, she’d pulled him off to the side but they
were at
school
. It was the las
t day of school, junior year. They
’d spent part of the night before together. Making plans for summer vacation. Then
she’d gotten a call from Paul telling her that she needed to come home to watch Luci.
Nothing new there.

But Reece ha
d known something was up right away th
e
next morning. Cleo had been acting cold and distant. Cleo had never acted cold and
di
stant to anyone. Least of all him
. By af
ternoon she wasn’t talking to him
at all. By the end of the day, after the bell rang, when everyone else was running
off, celebrating three months of impending freedom, she’d pull
ed him
over to the
row
of junipers. As if they offered
any real privacy. She’d told him
that she was breaking up with him because they
were too young
to be so serious. She thought they
should see other people.

At first
he had thought she was joking. He
even laughed. But the look on her face had made it clear she wasn’
t. Then she continued to tell him
that she, for example, wanted to ‘explore a relationship’ with Ethan Donovan. Her
best friend’s brother.

Explore a relationship? Who says that?! And what does that even mean
?!
he wondered to himself. H
is
feet shuffled forward a few steps in the shortening line.

He had
tried to argue but th
ere were so many people around he didn’t want to make a scene. He
was f
airly sure she’d planned that. He had demanded that they go somewhere else. He
had taken her by the hand and tr
ied to pull her toward his
truck. He
was
b
egging her to go somewhere so they
could talk things out. She wouldn’t budge. And then Ethan
was there, stepping between them
. He
had
plucked
her hand out of Reece’s and told him to back off
.
He’d told Reece that it was
over
. And that he needed to deal with it.
Ethan
then
slid his arm around her waist and just led her away.

And
Reece
had just let her
go. He
still wasn’
t sure why.
Shock, probably
, he decided. He had
just st
ood there,
stunned,
staring after them. He
’d been so blinded
by hurt and jealousy and yeah, he was pissed.

He ha
d wanted Cleo to know that she wasn’t the only on
e who could move on at a moment
s
’
notice. So when Mi
a offered to cheer him up, he went with it. Not one of his
proudest
accomplishments, but there it was
.