Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [90]
“Oh.” I could see the muscles in Brendan’s jaw tense. “How do you know all of this is going around?”
“I heard them this morning in the girls’ bathroom. It was Kristin, Amanda and Kendall, who bragged about hooking up with you, by the way.”
“She’s still talking about that?” Brendan looked taken aback. I just nodded, biting my lip nervously before pushing myself off the building, continuing our walk to the park.
Brendan gave me a sideways look. “Last summer, I was in the Hamptons with some friends, and they wanted to go to a party at Kristin’s house. So I went, too. Kendall wouldn’t leave me alone all night. I wasn’t into her but she didn’t exactly play hard-to-get.”
“Oh.” I gritted my teeth, annoyed that this bothered me just as much as everything else she’d said in the bathroom.
“Please tell me you don’t care,” Brendan asked, letting go of my hand to slide his arm along my shoulders, pulling me closer. “This happened before I even met you, you know. Please, tell me this isn’t bothering you.”
“Well, a little,” I admitted.
“Emma, I have zero interest in Kendall. I promise you,” he swore. “I never gave her a second thought. To be completely honest, I never even gave her a first thought. She was just there at the time.”
“It probably bugs me because I heard this after I got a nice little note in my locker.”
Brendan’s head snapped up and he stopped walking. “Someone left something in your locker?”
“Yep.”
“What did it say?” Brendan demanded angrily.
“I really don’t want to—” I started, embarrassed, but Brendan cut me off.
“Emma, what did it say?”
“It called me a slut.”
Brendan stopped walking, and when he faced me his eyes were ice-cold. “I’m going to have a little chat with Kristin,” he said, his voice low.
“Brendan, no. Look, we’re both in enough trouble right now so there’s no sense in confronting her.” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. “Kristin’s who she is, there’s really not much we can do about it. Besides, Anthony could have left it before leaving school yesterday.”
“Still, she has no right to talk about you,” he said protectively. “Your name should never even cross her lips.”
“Brendan, please. Let it go,” I pleaded. “It just made for a hard morning. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s really pissing me off that I’m getting away scot-free in this whole thing, and you’re on the hook.”
“That’s because girls are evil,” I muttered. “High school girls are demons, seriously.”
“Emma, I don’t want things to be harder for you than they already are.” His face softened, and he grabbed both of my hands in his.
“They won’t be as long as I have you,” I promised.
“It’s not like we don’t have enough to worry about,” Brendan whispered, resting his palm on my medallion. “If I could let you go, I would. If I thought it would make things easier.”
“It would make everything harder,” I said, feeling an ache in my heart when I thought about facing another day like this without him.
“Look, please just don’t do anything. Please, let it blow over,” I begged.
Brendan eyed me for a moment and bit his lower lip. Then he laughed a low, rumbling laugh and pulled me into his arms.
“Only if you will indulge me with something.” I could practically hear the wheels spinning in his head.
“What is it?” I asked cautiously. “I’m not going to break into a pool to go skateboarding with you if that’s what you want.”
“You might prefer that. But instead, I want you to—” Brendan paused for effect “—go to the stupid winter dance with me.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Brendan said, tracing my jawline with his finger. “I want you to go to the winter dance with me.”
“You don’t want to go at all, I thought,” I countered.
“You’re right, I don’t,” he agreed. “But I was thinking about it this morning. I’ve never really gone to any of these things with a girl I was…involved with.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Involved with?”
“Don’t make me spell it out, Emma. Look, I want to make a statement with you.