Page 53 of Find Me
I caught the look Colt gave Creed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Cassy had been talking crap about me.
“Why is he only telling you about this now?” Creed asked angrily. “It’s already Wednesday.”
I sighed. “What does it matter?”
Creed turned in his seat. “It doesn’t bother you that she and her friends are complete bitches toward you?”
Of course it sucked. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to care what other people thought of me?”
“This is different, babe.” Colt’s hands white-knuckled the steering wheel as he spoke. “She’s saying shit to hurt you and we’re allowed to not like that.”
The rest of the drive to school was in silence.
As soon as we were parked in the student lot, I hopped out of the car and grabbed Colt’s hand, stopping him from walking away. He was surprised at first and then his eyes danced all over me.
“Please don’t be upset,” I pleaded. “I can handle Cassy and her crap. I cannot handle seeing you upset. So please bring happy Colt to the surface.” I heard a snort behind me, and I knew it was Creed.
Creed scoffed, “You make it sound like he’s got multiple personalities.”
“Well, when he’s mad, he reminds me of the Hulk,” I teased and they both laughed. The softer side of Colt resurfaced and the tension around us seemed to disappear.
“You look really beautiful today,” he said to me.
Instead of feeling embarrassed, I smiled.
“I’m starting to miss the sweatshirts,” Creed mumbled.
Surprised, I turned. “Should I put one on?”
His eyes raked over me again before he looked up toward the sky, as if to curse the heavens. “No. I don’t want you to ever feel self-conscious, but at the same time, I’m a selfish bastard.”
Did that mean he didn’t want anyone to see me but him? I wasn’t given the time to think it over. Colt pulled me by my hand and from my thoughts and the three of us headed inside.
Like every morning, the guys walked with me to my locker before class. As we turned down the hall where it was located, a crowd blocked our way. Colt and Creed walked ahead of me to clear a path. Once past the crowd, we soon realized the reason why there was one. Spray-painted in bright neon purple across my locker was the wordWHOREand taped all around the word were opened and stretched-out condoms.
“Stay with her. I’m going to go report this,” Colt told Creed.
As he went to leave, Ethan appeared and stopped him. “I already reported it to the office. Someone’s coming to clean it up,” he explained.
Okay, I would admit that having my locker vandalized more than sucked. I really, really hated the attention and there was stuff I needed from inside. I was going to have to suck it up and walk in front of everyone with my head held high. I squared my shoulders, imagining myself putting on my big-girl panties, and took a step forward. A hand landed on my shoulder, stopping me, and Colt walked past me, up to my locker. He spun the dial, entering my combination—he’d seen me spin it from over my shoulder a handful of times—and unlocked my locker. Creed left me with Ethan to join Colt and they both started grabbing everything out of my locker. It was just a few textbooks, some notebooks, and a toiletry bag. Colt slammed my locker and glared at someone standing in the crowd to the right. I leaned forward and saw that it was Cassy and her friends.
“Are you going to write shit on my locker next?” he openly accused her.
Murmuring traveled through the crowd. Cassy just glared at Colt. She opened her mouth to say something, but he took a step forward, startling her. He didn’t stop walking until he passed her and he was down the hall, standing in front of his locker. Creed followed him, shooting Cassy a scathing look as he passed.
I glanced at Ethan, who mirrored my surprise. Without speaking, we made our way through the crowd and over to Colt’s locker. Creed was helping Colt put my stuff in his locker, leaving out the textbooks we’d need for our first class.
Colt shut his locker to face me. “I’ll text you the combination.”
I gave him a tiny smile. “I already know it.”
* * *
Later that day at home, there was a knock on my front door. After a quick look through the peephole and seeing that it was a delivery man, I felt like my day was finally looking up. My bench swing for my back patio was here. Excited, I opened the door and signed for it.
The delivery man took off, leaving me with a very large brown box. I bent to lift it and grunted when I felt the weight. It was so heavy I couldn’t even get my fingers underneath. Next, I tried pushing it. It moved a few inches. I glanced over at the guys’ house. Colt and Creed were at practice and Keelan’s Jeep was gone. Knox was home. Staring at their house, I debated going over and asking for help.
Nope.