Page 80 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Wednesday

Jacob grabbed my hand as we made our way back up to the school. No, I hadn’t kissed him. But I’d had so much fun on our date. And I just knew in my gut that he was my kiss thief.

He opened the door for me.

Lunch must have only just ended because the hallway was crowded.

“Thanks for the ice cream,” I said as he walked me to my locker.

I wanted to pinch myself. How many times had I dreamed of a guy holding my hand and walking me to my locker?

Well, not just some random guy. I’d always pictured Axel.

But this reality was a lot better than some dumb dream.

Yes, technically it had happened with Axel once last week.

But that must have been some kind of weird older brother thing.

I couldn’t believe he thought of me like a little sister.

“Any time,” Jacob said. “I’ll see you in coding class?”

I nodded.

He dropped my hand and disappeared into the crowded hallway.

Sophie popped out and squealed.

Where had she just been hiding?

“Were you two holding hands?!” She squealed again.

“Yes.”

“Ah! Tell me everything!”

“We had a really good time.” I smiled. “Like...really good.”

“Oh, did you do hand stuff under the table?” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

“What? No.”

She laughed. “Well you certainly look like you’re in a good mood.”

“Yeah, because Jacob is my kiss thief.”

“Really? Damn. He’s way kinkier than I thought he was.” She fanned her face. “You never can tell sometimes. So how was your second kiss?”

“We didn’t kiss, but...”

“Then how do you know he’s your kiss thief?”

“Because he mentioned red pandas. He confessed that he’s had a crush on me for like forever. And he liked being my first date.”

She just stared at me.

“ First date. Because he said he was going to steal all my firsts.”

“Um...no. None of that proves anything. And I’m pretty sure your first date was with Axel at the zoo a bajillion years ago.”

I frowned. I didn’t think that really counted.

“And honestly? I’m kinda relieved we still don’t know. Because I just got our kiss thief trap approved.”

“Our what?”

Sophie laughed. “The kissing booth for Saturday’s game, silly.”

I groaned. “Sophie, it’s definitely Jacob.”

“That’s up for debate. Time for Operation Kissing Booth!”

“What if I kiss Jacob before Saturday and confirm it?”

“If you kiss Jacob before the game then maybe we can cancel it. But I’m kind of just excited for it now, you know?”

No, I didn’t know because I wasn’t excited for it at all. “I can’t go around kissing random people now.”

“Why? Did Jacob ask you to be his girlfriend?”

I pressed my lips together. “No, but...”

“Were you planning on ghosting the kiss thief now that you’ve gone on one date with Jacob?”

“No, but Jacob is the kiss thief.”

“But what if he’s not?”

I exhaled slowly. Crap, she had a good point. I liked Jacob. And I liked the kiss thief. And I liked Axel. Gah. No. Scratch that last part. I shook my head. I was a mess.

I’d felt so good walking into school a few minutes ago. And now my stomach was twisted into knots.

“Don’t sweat it,” Sophie said. “Everything will be sorted by Saturday night. We’ll unmask the kiss thief after kissing a bunch of hot guys. And then we can have the best night ever at the after party to celebrate the first win of the season.”

Our versions of good nights were very different. But I did need to unmask the kiss thief. Because if it somehow wasn’t Jacob... I shook my head. Screw me.

***

“Are you excited for your date with Pavel?” I asked as we made our way to our last class of the day.

Sophie gave me a weird look. “My what?”

“Your date.”

“Did I call it that?” She laughed. “It’s not really a date. We’re just meeting up after school real quick.”

“Okay...”

“Just wait for it. It’s going to be epic.” She sounded just like RJ.

“Can we circle back to the mascot thing for a minute?” I’d been trying and failing all day to get out of Operation Kissing Booth. “Because if we can find out who dresses up like the Empire High eagle, we’ll have our answer.”

“Stop trying to get the kissing booth shut down. It’s going to be so freaking fun. Besides, I already asked everyone at lunch about the mascot, and no one knows who it is. Apparently the mascot is very mysterious.”

That didn’t make any sense. How could the mascot be on the varsity team and no one knew who it was? Or was he just lying about everything and wasn’t even on the team? My head was scrambled. There were so many little clues but no concrete facts.

“So let’s say the kiss thief just stole the mascot costume to take the picture,” I said. “After all, he is a thief. That narrows it down to...wait. That doesn’t narrow it down at all.” Yeah, my brain was definitely scrambled.

Sophie laughed. “I can’t wait for the kissing booth. We’ll have to get to the game early to set everything up. It’s going to be so fun.”

Mhm. “I have an idea. We could try to get RJ to spy in the men’s locker room to try to get a look at the mascot.”

Sophie just shook her head. “He already said he didn’t know. I thought we agreed to drop that?”

I sighed. Okay, fine. I’d drop the mascot thing. Besides, I had a backup plan to get out of the kissing booth. I just needed to kiss Jacob.

“Do you think we should get some orange and blue balloons...” her voice trailed off when we walked into our coding class.

I looked at the front of the room, assuming my dad was doing something embarrassing, but he wasn’t standing behind the desk. It was Mr. Halifax instead. What was going on?

“Am I dreaming?” Sophie asked. “Did your dad quit and now we have two classes with Mr. Halifax?”

“Doubtful. Do you think everything is okay with my dad?”

“Let’s find out.” Sophie undid a few more buttons on her shirt as she sat down in her seat. And then she leaned forward, revealing way more cleavage than necessary. She was going to have a bashful nipple incident.

She raised her hand and cleared her throat. “Mr. Halifax?”

Mr. Halifax turned toward her and I swear for just a second his eyes fell to her chest before snapping back to her face. “Yes?”

“Is everything okay with my uncle?”

“Your...uncle. Right. Yes. James is your uncle. I mean Mr. Hunter.” He shook his head. “Yes, everything is fine. He had a last minute meeting he couldn’t miss.” Mr. Halifax quickly turned away from her.

“Probably something for Hunter Tech,” I said.

“I guess so.” Sophie leaned forward even more. Yeah, I was pretty sure she was trying to fall out of her pushup bra.

Jacob walked in and laughed when he saw her weird pose.

“Not for you,” Sophie said and shooed him.

Jacob smiled at me and then sat down in his usual seat behind Sophie.

I turned around to face him. “Do you think maybe I can come over for dinner tonight?” I’d already been invited over for whenever. Uncle Matt had said that Aunt Brooklyn had a new cupcake recipe she wanted me to try.

Jacob rested his elbows on his desk. “Two dates in one day? I don’t know if I can handle it. I need both my eyes for the game on Saturday.”

“What?” Sophie turned around.

I ignored her. And luckily Jacob was too focused on me. Because I didn’t want Sophie to know about my failed kiss attempt. “I promise I won’t strike you again.”

He smiled. “Well, I’d love to, but we have a late practice today.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” I didn’t know what I had been thinking. Two dates in one day was a lot. Or maybe he was actually upset that I’d accidentally tried to poke his eye out? And maybe he hadn’t had as much fun as I had. But if not, why had he held my hand? I forced a smile onto my face.

“So how about tomorrow instead?”

Oh thank God. I thought I’d totally flubbed everything. But he really was just busy. “Tomorrow sounds good to me.”

“Great. I can’t wait.”

Axel walked by, his expensive cologne invading my senses.

I quickly turned around, trying my best not to let the familiar smell mess with my head. Okay, I had a date with Jacob on Thursday. I’d kiss him then. Reveal that he was my kiss thief. And get out of the kissing booth. Easy peasy.

I remembered what my dad had said after our first class. That Jacob and Axel had both been staring at me. And it was like I could feel it now. All the little hairs on the back of my neck rose. And then I felt Axel’s hot breath at my ear.

“Another date?” he whispered. “Seriously?”

I tried to ignore him. But I was practically melting closer to his lips. If I moved just a fraction of an inch closer, his lips would probably brush against my ear.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Scarlett.”

Why was he doing this to me? I already understood his threat.

He was going to start hooking up with Gigi.

Whatever. If he really did think of me like a little sister like Jacob said, then Axel was a real shit older brother for dating my enemy.

I was just about to tell him off again, but the bell rang and Mr. Halifax started talking.

“Mr. Hunter had a last minute meeting he had to go to. So I’m covering for him.

But he didn’t leave much of a lesson plan.

..” his voice trailed off as he flipped through some pages in a binder.

“Oh. Wait. Here we are. Apparently you are all going to be doing a project where you have to make your own videogame. That sounds fun.”

Sophie raised her hand.

“Yes, Miss Hunter?”

“Is it a group project? I really do best with one partner. It’s more intimate, you know?” She bit her lip as she stared at him.

Mr. Halifax pulled his eyebrows together. And then he looked back down at the binder in his hands. “Yes, you’ll be doing it in pairs.”

“Fantastic.”

As Mr. Halifax read about the project, my heart was racing. I wondered if Jacob would ask me to be his partner. Usually I’d just partner with Sophie on these things and Axel and Jacob would partner up. But they weren’t exactly on good terms right now. I really hoped Jacob asked me.

Mr. Halifax closed the binder. “So how about you split up in...” his voice trailed off and he looked behind me. “Yes, Mr. Stevens?”

I looked over my shoulder. What was Axel doing? He literally never raised his hand in class.

Axel ignored me as he stared at Mr. Halifax. “Uncle James always just breaks it down into pairs with how we’re sitting. Like me and Scarlett. Then the two people behind us in our row are together. And so on.”

What? This was the first project we had in my dad’s class. And I was 100% sure my dad would not split it up that way. Because my dad didn’t really like Axel. My dad probably wouldn’t have paired me with Jacob either though. He probably would have paired me up with Soph.

“Uncle James?” Mr. Halifax asked. “I didn’t realize you were related to him too.”

“Yeah, we’re practically related,” Axel said.

I shook my head. Right. Axel thought of me like his little sister. Practically related. For years all I’d done was love him. And all he’d seen was a na?ve little sister. Screw him.

“Practically?” asked Mr. Halifax.

“Jacob and Axel are both friends of the family,” Sophie clarified. “They’re basically our cousins.”

Gah, stop it! She was giving plausibility to Axel’s outlandish claim about how my dad wanted to split us into groups.

“Okay, well, great,” said Mr. Halifax. “Break up in pairs like that.”

Damn it!

“You’re supposed to have a basic concept for your videogame picked out by Friday. So go ahead and start brainstorming.”

Sophie spun around to look at Jacob. “I guess that means we’re paired up. Is Mr. Halifax looking over? Does he seem jealous?”

Jacob laughed. “No, he’s not looking. And why would he be jealous of you pairing up with me? You just told him that we’re basically cousins.”

“Crap. I shouldn’t have done that.” She sighed. “But it’s fine. Pavel will make up for it in a few minutes.”

Axel tapped on my shoulder.

I couldn’t even look at him. I was annoyed at him for ignoring me for days until today. And now I was annoyed that he was giving me any attention at all. It just seemed like he enjoyed messing with my head. And my head was already messed up enough.

“What were you thinking for our concept?” he asked.

I sighed and spun around. “I wasn’t thinking anything. I’m going to get my dad to change my partner.”

Axel raised his eyebrow. “I don’t think your dad’s allowed to give you special treatment.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“We had a deal.”

God, him and this stupid deal. “Which you broke too.”

He shook his head. “Tit for tat, Scarlett. And like I told you earlier, it was just a few texts on Friday. I don’t know what Gigi told you, but she was lying.”

I glared at him. This whole stupid Gigi thing was just the tip of the iceberg.

Him thinking of me as a sister hurt my heart.

But what I was really pissed about was the fact that I’d told him I’d saved my first kiss for him.

And he’d had nothing to say. Not one word about it, really.

He’d just shrugged at me. And now he was acting like a total dick.

“How about we get together on Thursday to brainstorm concept ideas,” Axel said.

“You know I’m busy on Thursday.” I was pretty sure he’d overheard me making a date with Jacob.

“Well, I can’t do it tonight. We have a late practice.”

I wanted to protest, but Jacob had already said that exact same thing.

“And we have to have a concept to tell your dad on Friday. So...” He shrugged. “Seems like you’ll have to cancel that date after all.” He looked so pleased with himself.

But he had no idea how much he was messing up my life now. I needed to kiss Jacob before the game on Saturday or I’d have to kiss a baker’s dozen football players to find my kiss thief.

The bell rang, signaling the end of class.

“I’ll swing by after practice on Thursday,” Axel said and stood up.

I sighed. “Yeah, sure.”

He smiled at me and then walked out of class.

The old me would have been thrilled to be paired up with Axel for a project. But this was supposed to be my fresh start which didn’t include him for once.

I turned to Jacob. “I’m so sorry, I have to cancel for Thursday.”

“I heard,” he said as he pulled his backpack over one shoulder. “No worries. You’re coming to the after party on Saturday, right?”

I nodded. I’d ask him about Friday, but there was no use. There was always a team dinner the night before a game. He’d be busy.

“Well that can be our second date then.”

I smiled. “Sounds good.” I grabbed my books and stood up. “Soph, can I get a ride home?” I always came to school with my dad now.

“Sure.” She didn’t look up from her phone. “Give me like twenty minutes though. I have that Pavel thing.”

“Your date, right.”

“Just wait for it.”

I wasn’t sure why she was acting like it was going to be a surprise. She was just going to make out with Pavel in front of Mr. Halifax, right? At least, I hoped that was right.

But she had an evil glint in her eyes. Which meant it was probably something way bigger. Maybe she’d get expelled and the kissing booth would be postponed.