Into Your Arms (Squad Stories #1)(10)

I haven't talked to my parents in two weeks. I moved up here all by myself with a small U-Haul trailer tacked on the back of my rusty blue Ford Explorer. It's partially their fault when they declared that they would no longer help pay for my education if I was going to fritter my time away with cheer. So they basically made me choose between money and what I love to do. I chose cheer. And then I found out their secret and my decision was made.

Mia's the reason I even started cheer. We became friends at school, as kids do. One day my parents weren't home to get me from the bus, so Mia said I could come to her house. I did that day, and nearly every day after that. Her parents, Melissa and Neil, gathered me into their home and, well, saved me.

Mia did cheer, and one day when we were both seven, they asked if I wanted to come with her to see what it was about. I remember going with them into the gym and seeing girls twisting in the air and tumbling and all I could think was that I wanted to do that. It didn't matter that my parents wouldn't pay for the expensive cheer classes or travel to competitions. I was going to do it.

Melissa made up some lie about a scholarship program, but once I was older, I knew she'd paid the fee for me to go. Every day she would drive me and Mia to cheer. I kept my uniform at their house, and they even set up an extra bed for me in Mia's room.



       
         
       
        

They gave me everything my parents wouldn't (or couldn't) give me. I've had a knife in my heart since I sat them down and told them I was moving here. Melissa's been sending me letters every few days. She's big on old things. Like silver tea sets and typewriters and baking everything from scratch. At night when I was back in my own home, I would look at the ceiling and wish that Melissa and Neil would adopt me. Or that I could go back in time and magically make them my parents.

Shaking my head, I put the folder in the bottom drawer of my dresser, under my sweatpants.

I need to screw my head on straight. Well, that and do some homework. Deciding I can't focus in my suddenly depressing apartment, I pack everything in my messenger bag and walk to the library. On the way, I stop for a skim caramel macchiato and have to suck it down before I go inside or else I'll get in trouble.

Avoiding the first floor, which is usually the noisiest, I take the stairs and walk all the way to the fourth floor. There's a little nook in the very back stacks that no other person is likely to stumble across. Setting everything out, I work on math first so I can knock it out before I move on to gathering sources for my English paper and then playing around in Photoshop for my digital imaging class.

I have my earbuds crammed in my ears and the new Ed Sheeran album going, so I'm in the zone. But then there's a tap on my shoulder, and I nearly bite my tongue in half in surprise. Good thing I hadn't been drinking my caramel macchiato.

I whip around and find a grinning Rhett staring down at me.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Don't do that," I say, smacking him in the stomach with my hand. That's a mistake, because damn, he has a lot of good stuff going on under that shirt.

"Sorry," he says, not looking sorry at all. "Wasn't sure how else to get your attention." I turn my music off and get my heart rate back to normal.

"And why are you trying to get my attention in the first place? What are you even doing up here?" How the hell had he found me?

He squats down so our faces are level.

"Just saying hello. Are you against people saying hello to you?" I turn in my chair, completely distracted by my annoyance with him.

"I'm against you interrupting my precious study time," I say and he leans his forearms on the back of my chair. Our faces are perilously close. Much too close for my comfort.

"I'm just saying hello. So, hello," he says one side of his mouth pulling up, and from this close viewpoint, I can see he has a dimple in his cheek under the beard.

I won't think about his beard . . . I won't think about his beard . . .

"Fine. Hello, Rhett," I say, my voice trembling a little. "I have a lot of homework, and I need to focus. Please." 

He sighs.

"Fine, fine. But you're not the only one with homework." I realize he's got a tattered bag over his shoulder that's crammed with books.

"This seems like a nice place to study." I stare as he scoots until his back is against the wall right next to the table I'm sitting at and then starts pulling things out of his bag.

"You're going to study right there?" I ask.

"Uh-huh. Seems as good a place as any," he says, giving me a quick smile before arranging his books and notebooks into piles.