A Non-Prep’s Complete Guide to Pissing Off a Prep

Chapter SIX: Insult to Injury

James

I couldn’t believe it. They’d won. Holly, Lena and the other girls had won.

We guys, whether boyfriends, friends or siblings — or, in my case, ex-best friends and ex-boyfriends — to these girls, had gotten our asses kicked.

Holly cleared her throat pointedly and wriggled under me, reminding me abruptly of the position we both found ourselves in. I hurriedly pushed myself to my feet, knowing she wouldn’t hesitate to give me a real reason to stay down.

She hopped up lightly, grinning at the sigh of her teammates, all clustered in a whooping, cheering group that was jumping up and down at the other end of the field.

I took advantage of her absent-mindedness to study her more carefully. Physically, she hadn’t changed much since we’d been friends (blue tint to her hair aside): same dainty, fine-boned build; same high, proud cheekbones and big, expressive dark blue eyes. Emotionally, she seemed to be a completely different person. Something had happened to her the summer before we made our entrance into high school, and I didn’t have a clue what it was. I only knew that it had affected Holly, and in a big way. Confronting her hadn’t been the best tactic, as I’d later learned for myself.

“Damn, O’Connell! You losing it?” called Chase O’Malley as he jogged past me to Holly. Once he’d reached her, he clapped an arm around her shoulders and boomed, “Way to kick ass, short stuff!”

The entire class had now converged around Holly and Chase, and everyone laughed when Mr. Burke warned, “No height discrimination, please, Mr. O’Malley.”

Chase flashed the gym teacher a snappy salute. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir!”

“Like hell you wouldn’t,” I heard Holly tease him as she, Chase and all the other girls began to make their way back to the school to shower and change.

When I reached the locker room, it was to find most of the guys grumbling disbelievingly about the loss. A few were still keeping their chins up, determinedly good-natured; some of those who were dating girls from the other team even seemed proud.

Through it all, the prevailing mood was still stunned disbelief.

“I don’t believe this,” ranted Tommy Bryant furiously. “How the hell did that happen?” His eyes snapped up to mine as he added fiercely, “How the fuck did she get by you, O’Connell? You could’ve knocked her over with a damn feather and won that for us!”

I moved my shoulders restlessly as I tossed my shirt aside. “It was a well-played game, Tommy. They just snuck past us. It was luck.”

Chase overheard this and snapped his towel at my legs with a cheerful hoot. The sting of the makeshift whip was painful, but I gritted my teeth and listened as Chase announced, “That’s bullshit. They fooled us good and you know it, O’Connell.”

A mutter of grudging agreement went up. I gathered soap, shampoo and towel and headed for the showers, jaw set.

This couldn’t continue.

But apparently it was going to, because when I emerged to find myself the only remaining person in the locker room, someone (heavy sarcasm) had taken all of my things. Including my clothes.

I gnashed my teeth together and clenched my fists, then searched the room. And found it empty.

I’d been left alone with no towel, no clothes, and no end in sight.

My angry growl echoed eerily in the empty room.

“Damn it, Holly!”

———

Ironically, Brayden saved my ass.

Without my watch, which had been in my stolen gym bag, I had no way of telling the time, and there was no way I was leaving the locker room naked. Pride kept me from calling for help. So I sat there, alone and pissed off, imagining getting my hands around Holly’s neck so I could throttle her.

I was brooding over what my fourth-period Calculus teacher, Mr. Pearson, would do to me for not showing and would have guessed it was about halfway through fourth period when I heard the door open and then Brayden’s voice, in a lazily amused drawl.

“Hell, O’Connell, you look like shit.”

My head jerked back up, my eyes narrowed. Brayden, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over himself, looked too damn comfortable for my liking at the moment, as though he knew he had an advantage over me and would use it. I’d always thought of him as easygoing and of little consequence, but now I frowned to myself, deciding to be careful.

I ignored him.

“Derek?” Brayden again, on his cell phone, apparently. “I’ve got him. Bring him some clothes and that if you can, and meet me. He’s in the change room off the third gym. See ya.”

Click. The little phone snapped shut, and silence fell.

Frustrated and more embarrassed than I would have cared to admit, I lashed out first. “What the hell are you doing here, MacPhee?” I snapped harshly, glaring at him while trying to assemble the shreds of my dignity.

Kinda difficult when you’re sitting on a locker room bench, naked as the day you were born — and depending on the brother of the girl who put you in the position to give you a way out.

“Pearson sent Derek and I to find you after someone said they hadn’t seen you leave the change room after gym class.”

I only grunted in response, then stared at a water stain on the ceiling until I heard Derek arrive minutes later. Brayden moved back, and with his eyes “politely” averted — I got more of the impression that he was trying to subdue laughter — Derek stepped forwards and tossed me a bundle of wrinkled clothes and a pair of shoes.

“From lost and found,” he explained. “Probably won’t fit well, but they’re clean.”

I nodded briefly, then hurriedly dressed. Derek was right; the pants were a little too short, the shirt a little too tight, the shoes were too small, and beyond that, the unfamiliar clothes felt strange.

Don’t get me started on the underwear. Let it suffice to say that I flatly refused to wear them.

“Pearson wants us to ‘escort’ — his words, not mine — you back to class,” Brayden said when I was dressed.

Calmer now that I had clothes on and wasn’t in a really compromising position, and reminding myself that it wasn’t Brayden but his sister who’d put me in this situation, I arched an eyebrow as I asked, “He pissed?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I muttered as I strode to the door and brushed past them.

They followed without comment, and I could hear them talking quietly to each other as we moved up the hall. I tuned them out, wishing I were home so that I wouldn’t have to listen to the news spreading like wildfire.

“Fuck this,” I said abruptly, when we’d almost reached my locker. “I’m going home.”

Derek raised his eyebrows and pointed out, green eyes calm, “Pearson’s waiting for you.”

“Fuck him,” I said viciously. “I’m going home.”

“Really, Mr. O’Connell? Shouldn’t you be in class?”

I swore mentally at the sound of the vice principal’s voice. “Of course, sir,” I replied as politely as I could when my teeth were grinding themselves down to nubs. “I was only joking.”

“Of course you were.” The VP smiled, but his eyes said Do I look like I have ‘stupid’ written on my forehead? “Mr. MacPhee, Mr. Stevens, off you go. Let the teacher — you are all in the same class, I assume? — know I’ll be escorting Mr. O’Connell there myself.”

Great. Brayden and Derek nodded, then turned and left, leaving me alone in the empty hall with the vice principal.

It could’ve been worse, I told myself. He could’ve found you instead of Brayden and Derek.

Suddenly I was reluctantly grateful to them both — but that didn’t mean I wanted to go to class.

By the time it was over, Pearson had lectured me about the responsibility of every student to be in class on time, and had doubled my workload, so that I had pages and pages of equations to solve. I slid out a back door to avoid people as I left, knowing it was cowardly and really not giving a damn. When I got to my car and climbed in, I found a stack of neatly folded clothes and a gym bag — my gym bag — on the passenger’s seat.

Everything was there, I realized when I searched through. Nothing was missing.

As I riffled through the bag to reassure myself of the fact, I dislodged a piece of paper that fluttered to the floor of the car. I made to ignore it, then realized there hadn’t been any paper in my gym bag, and narrowed my eyes as I picked it up and studied the all-too-familiar scrawl.

Insult to injury. Not much fun,

is it?

I only needed to read it through once to know who had written it. And when I had, I clamped my jaw shut and crumpled the paper in my fist.

Holly.

End of Chapter

A/N: Yay me! Done another! And how ‘bout this, I’ll give you another preview since I’m feeling generous... but don’t expect this to continue! Ha!

Title — Butterflies

POV — Lena

Preview —

The next night found Holly and I working together on English homework at her house. We were reading Hamlet, and Holly was just getting into a rant about Shakespeare when we heard Brayden’s voice from the front hall:

“I come bearing food! Little sister, get out here!”

Holly bounded off her stool at the kitchen counter and headed into the hall. I followed and found Brayden and Chase holding four extra-large pizza boxes, with paper bags — presumably containing French fries and chicken wings, judging by the mouthwatering smells wafting from them — precariously balanced on top.

Chase grinned when he saw me, pizza boxes tilting as he used one foot to pry off his shoe. “Hey, Lena,” he said by way of greeting. “Hungry?”

I returned his grin and moved forwards to snatch the pizza boxes from him as I teased, “Yup. Now give me those before you drop them.”

He immediately pretended to look affronted. “Me? Drop good pizza? I’m hurt that you would think that, Lena, I really am.”

I heard Brayden chuckle behind me and turned to look at him as he said dryly, “Get over it, Chase. If anything, you’d eat all the pizza before dropping it.”

At that Holly and I laughed; Chase grinned again and said thoughtfully, “True enough.”

We moved into the kitchen as a pack: while Holly and Chase and I unloaded the food onto the table, Brayden went to the cupboard, pulled out napkins and a plate for me — while the other three were members of the Grab It and Eat It Club when it came to pizza, I preferred another way: a plate, a knife, and a fork. I offered a grateful smile when he turned and handed me the plate and utensils.

“Thanks, Brayden.”

He smiled, winked and reached out with his free hand to playfully chuck my chin. “No problem.”

For a moment we stayed still, looking at each other with Brayden’s hand still resting under my chin. I felt what had to be an army of butterflies waging civil war in my stomach, felt colour flooding my cheeks, but I couldn’t look away. Chase and Holly were moving about, carrying pizza boxes to the table, talking about nothing in particular, but it was as if I was beneath water, because even though I heard their voices, I couldn’t focus on what they were saying. I was almost entirely unaware of them. I could only stand there, my eyes locked onto Brayden’s warm brown ones. I was aware, though, of the heat of his hand when he turned it, laid it flat against my cheek, and of the look that moved in his eyes when I inhaled sharply.

And still we didn’t move.

A sudden loud guffaw from Chase made us both jump. I turned away guiltily, and Brayden’s hand fell from my cheek. We avoided each other’s gaze as seconds ticked by with Holly and Chase blissfully ignorant of what had just happened.

When I had worked up the nerve to look at him again, Brayden had turned away.

A/N: Whoo, that was long. Well, that’s it for me, folks! Till next time... drive safe, laugh lots, and tip your waiter!

- ML