Jennifer Armentrout: Shadows

He laughed. “Yeah, any more questions? The bell’s about to ring.”

Love of sugar had to mean true love. It just had to. A smile spread across her face, so big that she should’ve been embarrassed. “No. That’s all.”

“Good.” He reached out, tucking a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail back behind her ear. The brush of his knuckles across her skin went through her system like a bolt of lightning. “What are you doing after school? Want to grab something to eat?”

“I thought we were doing that on Sunday?”

“Yeah, we are, but I just wanted to make plans for this weekend. That has nothing to do with today.”

Her mouth opened and a laugh snuck out. God, he was just…there were no words. Mom would be expecting her home right after school, and that’s what she should do. Plans had been set for Sunday, but that seemed so far away. Days away…

The warning bell shrieked, causing her to jump.

“Bethany Williams.” He said her name teasingly.

Her lashes lifted and she started to shake her head no. “Yes.”

…

Bethany should’ve known that Dawson Black was trouble with a capital T , all rounded up in six feet and then some of lean muscle and disarming smile, from the moment she’d spotted him.

Boys were so complicated.

And boys like Dawson? Ah, so much more complicated.

Most guys didn’t have an ounce of the charisma he exuded. No wonder she liked him and was already planning to tell her mom that she was staying after school to do some art stuff. An easy, believable lie, since she’d done plenty of extracurricular work like that several times a week in Nevada. That she was already so willing to lie about him only further cemented in her mind the fact that she liked him way too much. And they had only spoken a few times. Bethany wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing yet.

She hadn’t expected how quickly he got under her skin. And she really wasn’t prepared for the slightly empty feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watched him jog around the corner to his science class. God…she actually missed him.

She definitely wasn’t looking over her shoulder in the hallway for him when she stopped at her locker before lunch. Nope. Not at all. Her mind wasn’t wrapped up in a boy she’d just met. And she definitely didn’t keep comparing every color of green to eyes that shone like polished emeralds.

Bethany drifted through the rest of her classes, nervous and excited and wound up like the tight ball of rubber bands that Simon Cutters always held in his hand throughout chemistry. After he’d tossed it in the air for about the fiftieth time, she wanted to grab it and throw it through the fogged-over windows in their classroom.

In gym, she kept staring at Dawson, who was at another ping-pong table playing against Carissa, a quiet girl with the coolest horn-rimmed glasses Bethany had ever seen. Her gaze went right back to him.

Damn, he made plain white T-shirts a thing to worship.

With every sweep of the paddle, the shirt stretched over taut muscles. Did he run? Work out a lot? Teenage boys usually didn’t sport that kind of a hard body.

Dawson smacked the ball toward Carissa again. She missed it, and in that tiny space of time while she hunted it down, he glanced over at Bethany and smiled.

Her heart skipped right out of her chest. Bad, oh so bad.

A plastic yellow ball zinged past her face, almost kissing her cheek.

Kimmy, her partner, popped her hands on her hips. “You’re not even paying attention.”

She winced, because she wasn’t paying attention at all. “Sorry,” she mumbled, turning around and searching the floor for the damn ball. It was all the way over by the bleachers. “I’ll get it.”

Kimmy sighed, studying her manicured nails. “Yeah, not like I was planning to in the first place.”

Ignoring her, Bethany stalked over to the ball. The whole gawking thing was already getting out of hand, and she had a feeling it was going to get worse. Even now she was fighting the mad urge to look over her shoulder to see if he was watching her. It felt like he was. Do not do it . The muscles in her neck cramped. Absolutely not. Her fingers twitched around the paddle. She bent and—

A golden hand reached the ball before she could. Startled, she took a step back as her gaze drifted up…and up. Where in the hell had he come from? It was the blond from the hallway yesterday — the model-perfect boy with wavy hair that kept falling into crystalline blue eyes. If she remembered correctly, he had been at least four tables over, and there was a good five feet in between each one. She hadn’t even seen him move, and it wasn’t like you could miss something that gorgeous walking around.

Or maybe she just had a bad case of Dawson on the brain.

“Um, thanks for getting…” Her words trailed off as her eyes met his. The coldness in his stare chilled her. He did nothing to hide his dislike. It practically rolled off him and crawled over her skin like a dozen spiders.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

Bethany blinked. The sound of his voice matched his eyes. Frigid. Hard. Full of snobbish loathing. Back in her old school, she’d been on the receiving end of that kind of a stare more than a few times, especially after she and Daniel had broken up. He’d been the popular one…

The boy smirked. “You have a name, right? Or can you not understand English?”

A hot flush shot over her cheeks, turning them cherry red, she was sure. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. Confrontation wasn’t her thing and this was a confrontation. Okay, so she had no problem getting into it with her mom over things, but with other people? Yeah, she stared at him like she was a mute.

He stepped closer to her, and even though it made her feel crazy for thinking it, she could have sworn that waves of heat blew off of him like he was some kind of electric radiator. Sweat dotted her brow. “I said, what is your name?”

“Her name isn’t any of your business,” a smooth, deep voice cut in.

Dawson stood beside her, but he was glowering at the other boy. He cocked his head to the side. “Give her back the ball, Andrew.”

The temperature in the gym skyrocketed. Kids were starting to stare.

Andrew’s lips curved into a half grin.

“Or do you have a problem understanding English?” Dawson asked. There was a smile on his face, but the way his muscles were tensing up, he was a second away from taking the ball from the other kid.

All of this over a ping-pong ball? How completely bizarre. She cleared her throat and extended her hand. “My name is Bethany. Now can I please have my ball back?”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Andrew’s eyes never left Dawson’s. “We’re going to have to talk soon.”

“Or not,” Dawson replied.

Andrew dropped the ball in her outstretched hand with an arched brow. Then he pivoted around, stalking off toward his table.

“Wow,” she mumbled, unsure of what to make of all of this.

Dawson cleared his throat. “He’s a bit…ah, yeah, Andrew’s just an ass of the highest order. Don’t pay attention to him.”

Bethany nodded and glanced down at her palm, sucking in a sharp breath. Holy smokes…

The ping-pong ball had been melted into an irregular circle.

Weirded out to the max by Andrew’s hostility toward her and the microwaved ping-pong ball, Bethany took her time cleaning up and changing after gym. Something was going down between the two guys, like they were communicating through epic death glares. It reminded her of the way Dawson and his twin had acted that morning. Like their epic death stares were something else entirely.