I rounded the corner and saw Bo leaning against my locker. He was scowling, which probably meant he wasn’t there to apologize. I let out a sigh. I wasn’t in the mood for this.
I walked up and slid my backpack off my shoulder. “Hi, Bo.” He stepped close to me, leaning down so his face was inches away from mine. His eyes flared with indignation. “Why did you turn us in to the police?”
I spun the first number on my locker combination. “Oh, I don’t know. It had something to do with the fact that you left me at a crime scene, and then the police handcuffed me, dragged me down to jail, and threatened to pin the whole thing on me.” I could have told him the police tricked me into telling his name, but suddenly I didn’t want to. His anger made me wish I had turned him in on purpose.
“You’re such a—” He finished the sentence, but the word was muted when he punched my locker. “We did it for you, and this is what we get? I have a two-thousand-dollar fine and a court date.” 87/356
I turned to face him. “You did it for me? Really? Because I remember asking you to stop. And what about the other buildings you vandalized? Those weren’t for me. You just like to destroy things.”
“Maybe I do.” He punched my locker again, this time so hard I jumped. Then he put one hand on either side of me, trapping me against the lockers.
My pulse hammered. He’s not going to hurt me, I told myself. Bo isn’t like that. But as I stood there with the locker handle pressing into my back, I wasn’t so sure what he was like anymore.
Bo’s lips twisted into a snarl, and he opened his mouth to speak.
Before he did, someone grabbed hold of his shoulder and pulled him backward, hard.
My first thought was that it was Nick—who else would stand up for me? A wave of dread ran through me. Bo would turn around and flatten him. Then Bo’s friends would make Nick’s life miserable.
When my eyes connected with my rescuer though, it wasn’t Nick.
The hot undercover police guy had pulled Bo away from me. He stood by my locker along with several beefy members of the football team.
“Is there a problem here?” Hot Police Guy asked. His jaw was set.
His brown eyes flashed fiercely.
Bo stepped away. “Get off of me, freak!” His gaze went back and forth between the guy and me. “Is that what you did at the police station, Tansy? You got friendly with the police chief’s son? What sort of interrogation was it?”
The police chief’s son? I stared at the hot guy. I didn’t know whether to be happy he’d shown up here or horrified that I would be running into him at school.
One of the football players stepped toward Bo, clenching his fingers into a fist. “Shove off, Bo.”
88/356
Bo flinched away from me, rolling his shoulders as though to shrug off the entire situation. “You aren’t worth my time,” he said, then turned and sauntered back down the hallway, disappearing into the river of students.
I leaned against my locker and took a couple of shaky breaths.
The football players talked with the hot guy for a few moments.
They did that boy thing where they bumped their knuckles together, and then the football players left.
The police chief’s son stayed, surveying me. His brown eyes were softer now that Bo was gone, his stance more relaxed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I figured Bo might be a pain today.” He looked down the hallway checking to make sure Bo didn’t come back. “Hopefully that’ll take care of it.”
Some of my gratitude for my rescue vanished. Police Chief Junior had known Bo was going to react this way, but he’d still tricked me. He didn’t care what it was going to do to my life or that I was going to be some sort of pariah at school now.
“So you’re the police chief’s son?”
His gaze returned to me. “My name is Hudson Gardner.”
“You go to school here?” I asked.
“I’m a senior.”
A senior—like me. I didn’t have any classes with him, but we were bound to know some of the same people. Rock Canyon High wasn’t that big. “So it wasn’t even your job to wring a confession from me on Friday night; you did that for fun?” He gave me an exasperated look. “When you wouldn’t tell the police your name, my dad called me to ID you. I know everybody at school.”
89/356
“You don’t know me.” I hadn’t seen him before. I would have remembered him. Guys that good-looking stick in your mind. “How did you know who I was?”
“Nick and I are friends. He’s pointed you out.” I should have put my backpack away. I needed to get ready for first period, but I didn’t move. “You’re Nick’s friend and you tricked me? Do you have any idea how traumatic that whole stint at the police station was?”