A Son of Carver (Carver High #2) (3 page)

He cocks his head at me, confusion taking over his features. “Ummm…” he mutters, clearly at a loss for words due to my crazy ass.

But instead
of pulling myself together and overruling my momentary insanity, I just drive the case home because he can’t take this away from me – Nash or no Nash, I need this hour in my life. “You don’t understand. My school, the one where I lived, that’s practically all I had were art classes and this and my drawing class are all I have to remind me of it. And I miss it. I miss home. I miss my school and my friends. And I’m stuck in that house with all those people,
I live with Jolee and her mom.
Do you get that? Do you get how awful that is? No matter where I am, I can’t escape her. And my mom – even when I’m not at that house where she can bitch at me directly, she’s constantly texting me to look at my dad’s Instagram.
My dad has Instagram
because he’s going through a midlife crisis and I’m pretty sure the woman he cheated on my mom with is now his girlfriend and she’s twenty six.
Twenty six
… and she has Instagram and now
he
has Instagram and my mom has Instagram so she can stalk my dad’s Instagram. And the only time I’m truly away from all of them is at work, but I have to wear those slutty uniforms and get treated like a whore and all I can think is
I feel just like Jolee
and I just want to go somewhere where I don’t have to think about any of them. And that was supposed to be here - this class… and my drawing class and I can’t lose that. I can’t lose either of them.”

By the time I’m done with my rant, Nash’s hands have made their way to my shoulders and he’s desperately telling me, “Shh, it’s okay. Presley, it’s okay, just… shhhh,” while glancing over his shoulder at our fellow students.

I make one final plea, “Please, Nash.” And the words feel dirty rolling out of my mouth. Never, not ever, did I think I would be saying
please
to this man.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, no, you don’t need to drop the class. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how… sensitive the subject was. I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me what I need to do to get you to stop crying.” 

Crying?
Oh, crap. I’m crying. When I realize this, I take my glasses off and pull my hoodie over my face to wipe the tears away and while I’m under here, I take a deep breath and try to pull myself together. When I feel able, I look up at him. “Can you drop the class? It’s the only thing that’s gonna make this okay.”

He flares his nostrils and pinches his eyebrows together, clearly not happy with my solution.

“Please,” I whisper again, out of desperation.

“Damn it, Presley. Fine.” He gives in and I’m a little shocked. I’ve never played the unstable damsel in distress, and I wasn’t acting just then and I am embarrassed,
but damn
, I’m not opposed to using my new talent in the future if at some point it’s absolutely necessary. Something’s wrong with me because I bat my lashes at him.

He lets out one last frustrated breath before standing and leaving the room.

Despite my pathetic behavior, the second he’s gone, I’m smiling. And twenty minutes later, the bell rings. Which means lunch. Which means the only hour I get to spend with Tatum and Angel.

When I reach them, not in any way shape or form to my surprise, Angel is saying, “I get that Tatum, but if you do it then we’re gonna have to find a new sports reporter and you know how everyone’s just clamoring for that position. And when no one is willing to take it, guess who’s stuck with it?”
School paper talk. Blah.

“I’ll meet you guys in the cafeteria,” I tell them after reaching between them to get my bag stuffed in my locker.

“Presley,” Tatum calls after me. “You want a position on the paper?” I don’t bother turning around, I just lift my middle finger to her.

“Told you,” I hear Angel chiding. “If you can’t even get your best friend to do it…”

“Shut up, Ivy,” she tells him, suddenly at my side with her arm around my shoulder; her five-ten frame towering over my five-three one.

“Tatum, I’m not taking your position on the paper. The one you, only months ago, were fighting to keep,” I remind her. After her controversial article about her, now boyfriend, Brandon, she had to beg and plead to keep her position.

“I’m not asking you to… I just have to make Angel believe I am. Mr. Lawrence will approve my new column and, unfortunately, Angel will be left cleaning up the no-sports-reporter problem whether I help him or not.”

“Poor guy.”

“Yeah, poor guy. Kid’s got is super rough,” she says sarcastically. “Accepted to Brown, king of the nerds, making money hand over fist playing music in his garage. And you’ve met his mom. I feel
so
bad for him.”

“True.” I agree. I guess he’s got it pretty good. Especially in comparison to someone like Tatum who has to work her ass off waitressing at The End Zone to support her mom, and has to study ten times harder than Angel just to get B’s. She does have Brandon though. That’s gotta make up for most of her problems.

After filling our trays we head to our regular table, which is slowly getting back to normal. Nash sits on one side or at the adjacent table, Brandon and Tatum sit on the other and the rest of the football players and cheerleaders fill up the spaces in between. Angel and I don’t really fit in with the rest of the crowd but Brandon goes where Tatum goes and where the captain goes, the rest of the players go, and where the players go, the cheerleaders go.

But for a few minutes, the three of us have it to ourselves. While they’re discussing the paper, my eyes wander to the set of lockers just outside the open cafeteria. Nash is there with Summer. Even from this distance, I can tell from the stance of his body and his hand gestures that he’s pissed. Summer reaches out and squeezes his shoulder as he rakes his fingers through his messy, sandy-blonde hair.

“Has anyone figured out what the hell is going on with the two of them?” Angel asks, his eyes following my gaze.  

Tatum briefly looks, but just as quickly looks away.

“I think they’re just friends,” I mutter, unable to picture Summer with him.

“That looks like more than friends,” Angel gripes. “What is it with that guy?” he asks, his eyes aimed at Tatum. “Does he have a hypnotic penis?”

Tatum rolls her eyes. I give her credit – despite the way he shit all over her and admitted exactly how evil he was to her and Brandon during their childhood- she rarely talks crap about him or gets involved in any of the gossip.

“If they were together would it bother you?” Angel asks her.

“Ummm….no. Why would it?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you used to date him…. And it’s just weird.”

“Clearly, I’m over him. And even if I wasn’t, there’s not a chance in hell anything’s going on between the two of them. Summer’s smarter than everyone thinks, and everyone already thinks she’s a genius.” She stuffs a fry in her mouth, her eyes focused on me. With an amused look on her face she tells me, “You look more annoyed with him than usual.”

“I didn’t think that was possible, but I am.”

“Elaborate?” she asks, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“He’s in my photography class.”

“What?” she asks through her laughter, “Photography?”

“Exactly, I mean… what the hell, right? But it gets worse. He sat at my two person table.”

“Eww?” she asks, not impressed with my dilemma.

“The entire semester is one big group project… with our table mate.”

“Ha,” she stutters a laugh. “Have fun with that.”

“Hopefully I won’t have to. We got in a fight about it and decided one of us would have to drop the class. He… volunteered to do it.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Angel informs me.

“What?” I ask, appalled.

“Knowing him, his saved all his non-manly required classes for his last six months of school. There’s no chance he’s gonna find another open art class during fourth period. Can’t you change partners?”

“Oh, god,” I mutter.

“He’s not
that
bad,” Tatum says, reaching across the table to grab a hold of my hand.

Angel and I both glare at her.

“Who’s not that bad?” Brandon asks, appearing out of nowhere with a kiss for Tatum.

She kisses him back, beams at him for a few sickening moments, then says, “Nash. Presley’s stuck with him as a partner in photography class.”

Brandon laughs. “Mr. Conroy’s class?”

“I didn’t catch his name. Tall guy with bushy black hair and glasses.”

“Yep,” Brandon confirms with a shake of his head. “No one gave you the heads up? He’s still doing the personal landscape thing, right?”

“You know about that?”

He nods. “And Nash is your partner?”

“No. He’s dropping the class.”

“Not gonna happen,” Brandon confirms Angel’s earlier assumption.

His focus shifts to Tatum so I look at Angel, hoping he can help me find a way out of this. “You could drop the class,” he offers.

For sure I’m not touching that subject again. “I would have taken anyone else.” I think back on phallus with a newfound appreciation for what could have been. “Anyone,” I repeat, shaking my head.

“Remember when Tatum broke up with him? Remember how excited we were? About the fact that we wouldn’t have to look at him, or think about him, or
talk
about him?”

“It was bliss,” I admit.

“It is bliss. I’m not making this a regular habit with you - wasting minutes of my life talking about him. Figure it out,” he tells me with a pointed glare before kissing me on the cheek, then standing and walking away.

I watch him go with the same dull yearning that’s always there when I see him. There’s something about him that is so damn irresistible. Could be his clear blue eyes; his
I don’t give a crap but, yeah, I know I’m way cooler than you
wardrobe; his wavy bleached undercut that makes him look like he just walked out of the surf; the look on his face when he’s mindlessly strumming his guitar; his cocky attitude; his intelligence; his long, lean body… yeah, there are few items on the
Why Angel’s Irresistible
list.

None of it really matters though. Technically, Cole and I are still together even though there are, roughly, twenty-five-hundred miles and three months of time separating us. Our conversations have gone from nightly to weekly and it’s possible the only reason I’m holding onto him is so that I can play the,
I have a boyfriend
card. The bigger issue with Angel is his strong aversion to commitment. He believes high school relationships are a waste of time and prefers to focus on himself and his future.

It dawned on me one night that Angel’s relationships are not so different from Nash’s- they both prefer sex with no strings attached. Which was a shocking revelation considering I loathed one and was crushing on the other. But there’s a difference, I now realize. A big one. Angel respects women. And his
relationships
are two sided; both parties aware and in agreement that it’s strictly physical. And Angel keeps his private life private. He doesn’t flaunt his conquests. He doesn’t even talk about them, actually.

The point is, it’s never gonna happen with Angel. Even if I was willing, he’s not – he doesn’t have sex with virgins. A fact he shared with Tatum and she passed on to me. Yes, I’m a virgin. Shocking, I know.

My phone dings from my pocket. I pull it out and look at the text from an unknown number:

Meet me at my locker

Who is this?

Your photography partner

Oh, hell. “I’ll see you later,” I tell Tatum, grabbing my tray and standing.

“You riding with me to work?”

“Yes, please,” I tell her before turning and exiting the cafeteria.

As I cross the commons, I pass Summer. She gives me a sympathetic look and I give her one right back. Whatever’s going on with her and Nash is weird. At lunch or in any other group setting they act like they don’t know each other. But their quiet, intimate moments in the halls or by their lockers have not gone unnoticed by the entire school and I wonder if Tatum’s wrong about her – maybe she’s not as smart as everyone believes.

Nash comes into view; leaned up against his locker, arms crossed, a pissed off expression on his face.

“I don’t even want to hear the words. I’m stuck with you. I know. Please don’t say it.”

His expression softens and he looks at his feet like he’s trying to hide the grin on his face. He peeks up, looking into my eyes. “A whole semester of this, huh?”

“Meaning what?” I ask, my arms crossed over my chest now too like we’re in a standoff.

He cocks his head at me and stares for a few uncomfortable moments like he’s trying to figure me out. “Is it possible that we could start over… pretend like we don’t know each other?”

“We don’t know each other.” I point out the obvious.

“Exactly. So why do you hate me so much?”

“Really? Do you really want me to answer that question?”