The Awakening: A Witch-Vampire Romance: Feel the Heat. (2 page)

“We are
seniors now…Why is she still trying to buy your clothes for you? I swear that woman gets more controlling every day,” Jessa tells me in an exasperated voice.

She gun
s it out of our drive and squeals her tires as she shoots down my quiet little street. I am sure our neighbors are probably on the phone with everyone they know, exaggerating everything they saw out their windows this gosh awful morning.

Jessa nod
s to herself.

“Your momma
is seriously cray, cray,” she says, explaining it as only Jessa can.

I
can’t help but laugh. This is why she is my best friend. Like me, she doesn’t come from the best home either. Her mom almost died of cancer when Jessa was ten and her father works all the time. Sure, he buys her whatever she wants, but what she really and truly wants is a parent that gives his time, not one who writes a check and calls it a day.

I met Jessa when we first started junior high. We
had lockers next to one another and I had been blocking her way. She called me a wench and told me to move my Amazonian ass so she wouldn’t be late to her next class. And I have loved her blunt, brash ass ever since that day.

In the looks d
epartment we’re basically polar opposites. I’m tall and mostly slender, but she’s short with banging curves, topping off barely over five feet. And while my hair’s coal black and stick straight, hers is short, curly and golden blonde. When you see her, you see a Monroe look alike, until she opens her mouth. Then you have to wonder what trucker crawled up her ass and took control of her speaking functions. Some of the most outrageous things can slip out of her mouth at the most inconvenient times. The girl truly doesn’t have a filter. It’s one of the many things I love about her.

We pull into the student lot
, careening around like we are on a race circuit. Didn’t I tell you the bitch can’t drive? Well she can’t. Every time I ride with her, I make good use of the ‘oh shit’ handle. Trust me; it could make the least religious person start to pray with her behind the wheel. We swerve into the only open space near the front of the lot with smoking, squealing breaks. I look over at Jessa and give her the stink eye.

“What? You know I
know what I’m doing, girly. Stop being such a priss and just go with it.”

Yeah like that
is going to happen.

“Have you ever heard of Driver’s Ed? Yeah, well your mini me ass needs to enroll ASAP!”

“Don’t call me short, glamazon. You know you wish you looked like this.”

She look
s herself up and down. She is wearing black leather leggings, an off one shoulder sparkly yellow top, and the highest black booties I have ever seen. They have to be at least  six inches high. I just roll my eyes, step out of her death trap, shrug my bag across my body and wait for her while she gathers her things from the front of the car. I seriously don’t have a clue how she can saunter in those shoes. They would trip me up with every step. When she finally makes it over to where I am standing, strutting her shit the entire way, she pulls her new schedule out of her Gucci bag.

“So, how many classes
do we have together for this semester,” she asks as we start walking through the hordes of other students toward the front doors of our tiny in town, local high school.

Pinewood
High School has an amazing student body count of only twelve hundred. Everyone knows everything and everyone’s business. Again, the joys of living in a small town. Nothing changes. Everything stands still. Stagnant. I reach into the back pocket of my skirt, take out my schedule that I had gotten at orientation, and hand it to her. She had gotten hers at the same time. But my guess is that she forgot to ask to compare them then because she was too busy checking out the local male specimens.

“Squeeee
,” she suddenly bounces like a little kid at Christmas.

”We have five
out of seven classes together and we both break at the same time for lunch. GO US,” she shouts. “I’m so glad we’re going to be here together, Ella. Seniors!! Can you believe it? I wonder if we have any fresh meat that I haven’t seen yet. The buffet around this town can use some new sumthin, sumthin. Ya know?”

That’s when I s
ee him, the
Nordic god
, standing off to the side almost directly in our path. I look quickly down at my feet, trying but failing to fight the full body blush that I can feel coming on. Keeping my head down isn’t going to work, so I peek up through my eyelashes to check that he hasn’t caught me blushing.

That would seriously be cringe worthy. To be caught fawning over him like some simpering, stuttering school
girl,
I think.

What I s
ee when I get another clear view of his smexiness makes me huff inwardly. Of course he is surrounded by all the beautiful people that take up the top shelf of our tiny town, but he seems to only have eyes for me. Again, he is staring at my face like he knows me or like there is something stuck on it. I try to discreetly wipe away whatever has caught his attention once again. He just smirks at me and continues to lock eyes with me. Today he has his long, almost-white hair tied back with a leather band, is wearing light wash jeans that probably cost more than three times what Jessa’s car did, a black faded rolling stones tee that hugs his massive arms and chest, with leather cuffs on his wrists. It makes me wonder what he rode to school in or on.

As we pass
by I can’t help but snark in his direction.

“Stare much?”

He just does that annoying eye brow lift and leers at me. I swear his eyes are as familiar to me as my own. They have haunted my dreams for years. Not that I would tell anyone else that bit of news.

To hide my inner turmoil
I roll my eyes and stroll on as if I have all the confidence of a supermodel. So
not
. Jessa is watching all of this and stays silent for once. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about him once we reach a fairly quiet space. It is so not normal for her to be so closed-mouthed about anything. Maybe she is struck mute by his seemingly physical perfection. I wouldn’t doubt it. He seems to be charming the masses, judging by the horde of giggling priss-bots surrounding him like a lynch mob.

When we reach
just inside the front doors, Jessa pretty much explodes, not even noticing that our three peat is waiting for us. Devon is the third of our friendship triangle, and is one of the most attractive guys in our school. He has sandy blonde hair, deep, rich chocolate eyes, kissable lips, and stands well over six feet tall. To the dismay of most of the priss-bots, Devon doesn’t swing the girly way. Doesn’t stop people from thinking we three have some kind of
friends with benefits
on the DL?

“OMG Ella! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that you knew
Thor
out there? He was practically eye fucking you while he was surrounded by the hordes!”

I
try to quiet her. Not that it helps.

“I don’t know him. Jeeze can you be any louder? He just busted in on my father’s sermon yesterday morning. I mean
, literally kicked open the doors then gawked at us all and strolled away. I haven’t ever talked to him. I swear,” I tell her in an exasperated voice.

Devon decide
s to get into the convo.

“Okay. Who, what, a
nd where are we talking about?”

“Pshhhh,
Ella has a new boyfriend. He was all but drooling at her,
while
he was surrounded by some prissy bitches. Can you believe that shit? I’m so jealous. He was most def, bitable,” Jessa mimics tearing into a steak as
Thor
passes us down the hallway with his groupies trailing behind.

I look at Jessa and
try not to laugh because Thor decides at that moment to look over at us and catches her gnawing on air.

“Okay
, let’s get our shit together and go. We are all going to be late for our first official senior class,” I huff.

I turn ar
ound and start strutting in the opposite direction, hoping they will take the hint and follow me.

“What
do you guys have for your first class,” Devon grabs for my schedule.

“English Lit
. with Mr. Sizemore. You,” I reply.

“Same. Well
, ladies, let’s haul it so he doesn’t blow what wad he has left,” Devon suggests in a playful tone.

He link
s arms with us and we start down the hallway, dodging students left and right. We get to the door of our class and guess who just happens to be sitting in a seat right by the door? Yup, you guessed it,
Thor
in all his glory.

Devon pull
s us to a stop as if stunned.

“I th
ought he was into
you
, Ella. Why’s Sabrina Queen Priss-bot all up in his shiz?”

Wait! Sabrina will be here
in this class as well? How in the hell did I not know this?!

“Babe
, does it really matter? Someone that pretty doesn’t stay untouched for long in this meat market we call Pinewood,” Jessa says, rolling her eyes as she heads down the row of desks toward the back of the room.

I fe
el eyes burning into my back the entire time it takes me to find a seat. His or Sabrina’s, it really doesn’t matter. Like I can really compete with
her
superior status. So I push it to the back of my mind and content myself with thinking of all the lovely STD’s he is going to catch when he dips his wick into that well used pool.

Mr. Sizemore rushe
s into the room seconds ahead of the bell, sweating and panting, his hog jowls wagging.

“Attention. Attention. I said
, quiet, class,” he fairly shouts.

“Let’s get underway shall we? This year
is going to be tough. This is not a free pass class. I fully expect you to take notes and read the required reading each night.” He looks at everyone in the room until his eyes land on me.

“YOU,” The professor shouts when his eyes land on me.

“Yes, Mr. Sizemore?”
I cringe at the attention of everyone in class turning my way.

“Please come to the front of the class and pass o
ut the syllabus for this semester.”

I shuffle my feet t
o the front of the room and take the stack of papers from the teacher, turn to each row and hand stacks to each student in the first seat for them to pass back. On the second to last row I meet the eyes of
Thor
and I swear that he is searing into my soul. What is it about him that overwhelms me? Guys just don’t affect me like that. My parents had a no dating rule all the way through high school. I know, no surprise there. I haven’t really had a boyfriend before. So I don’t know how to deal with the turbulence that he is causing. I break the connection and move to the next row. Sabrina is giving me the evil eye. Not a very pretty look for her. What is her problem? It isn’t like she has any competition for the guys in this school. Queen bee needs to chill.

Soon enough the bell r
ings and we are all gathering up our new texts and scrambling to leave the room as fast as possible. Jessa is babbling about something as she walks out beside me. Devon looks like he is lost in his own thoughts, as usual. Boy is a deep thinker.

“Ya know, I think
Sabrina was jealous of you, Ella. Did you not see the looks she’s been giving you all class? I swear I was waiting for her head to start spinning!” Jessa starts cackling at that moment, drawing all eyes to us. Including Sabrina’s, as she strides by and shoulder checks me.

“Watch where you’
re going, skank,” she spews at me as she passes.

I
decide to put my foot in it by yanking Sabrina’s messenger bag back as she passes by. “You watch it, you Barbie wanna be! Or did you want to taste my boot in the back of your throat,” I snarl into her face.

“Whatev,” Sabrina sneer
s as she cats down the hall.

I just
stride slowly with my head held high toward my second class for the day. I’m not normally like Jessa, brave enough to stand up to the masses or brave the hordes of drama. I am more of a ‘go with the flow’ type of girl. It isn’t like I can actually win against Sabrina anyway, so what’s the point? When we get to the door of our next class, Jessa is smiling at me.

“
Way to go you! It’s about time that you started fighting back and not taking her shiz!”

“
Jessa, you know why I don’t always stick up for myself. The last time I got into trouble at all, my parents went postal and locked me in my room for a week. Literally. Lock. Key. And bolt. I was only allowed to leave for church services and to eat whatever they deemed I deserved to eat that day.”

“I know
, sweets, I just wish you had something better to look forward to going home, too. Emotionally abusive bastards.”

Devon cho
oses that moment to join in with his two cents.