Page 32 of I Would Stay Forever (Parkhurst Prep #2)

twenty

I didn’t expect to see Dean again all day, since we didn’t have any other classes together and weren’t planning to meet for our project, so I was very taken aback when I got to my locker at lunch and found him leaning against it.

He was standing in a typical boy pose, his shoulders pressed against the metal, one leg crossed over the other, and one hand in his pocket, the other loosely holding onto the strap of his backpack.

I might have stopped to appreciate the view—if he wasn’t currently chatting with Zoey.

I rushed forward. Zoey and Dean barely knew each other, and any time she and I had spoken about him was when she was trying to convince me to go out with him, which didn’t bode well for whatever they were chatting about.

The bad feeling I got only worsened when Zoey spotted me, and turned with a giant smile on her face.

“Hey,” I said warily. I stopped in front of Dean, expecting him to move out of my way so I could open my locker, but he stayed stubbornly in place.

I might have assumed he wasn’t sure exactly which one was my locker, except he’d slipped the note into it last week so he obviously did. “What are you guys talking about?”

Zoey grabbed my arm in a talon grip like she thought I was going to run off, which was red flag number three about this whole situation.

If Zoey was holding me hostage here, something very bad was about to happen.

Well, bad for me—I was sure Zoey was thinking whatever this was would be the most exciting thing in the world.

“You’re coming out for lunch with me,” Dean said.

It was a statement, not a question—though it didn’t feel quite like an order, either.

For a second, it confused me enough that I wondered if I’d actually agreed to this at some point and forgotten about it, but I was pretty sure I would have remembered that, especially since I would have had to lose my mind to say yes to it.

“No, I’m not,” I said. I made a motion for him to move aside so I could open my locker, but he stayed in place. Was not letting me into my locker a part of his plan somehow? Was he not going to let me access my own stuff if I said no?

“Yes, you are!” Zoey said. Her fingers dug even deeper against my arm.

I was just grateful that I was wearing two layers of clothes to stop her from actually cutting into my skin.

I glanced at her, wondering if Dean had told her I said yes to this already, but her eyes were wide and she seemed to be trying to telepathically communicate something to me.

Clearly, she was trying to subtly tell me “this hot guy is trying to ask you out” but she didn’t know how to be subtle and didn’t understand that I could not go out with Dean.

Dean, who I’d imagined half-dressed this morning.

Dean, who kept making butterflies erupt in my stomach and shivers go up my spine.

Dean, who was my brother’s best friend and so, so off-limits.

“Why don’t you take Sebastian out for lunch instead?

” I suggested. Then, since subtlety hadn’t been working for me either, I elbowed him out of the way so I could get into my locker —and oh my gosh, his biceps were huge.

I clearly wasn’t strong enough to move him but he chuckled and slid out of the way.

I dumped my book bag in there, deciding I’d come back before next period to grab it again and switch out all my books instead of carrying it with me through lunch.

The only thing I took out was my wallet—which Dean promptly grabbed from me and chucked back into the locker.

I gaped at him, but he just smirked back. “I’m paying.”

Beside me, Zoey swooned. And honestly? I was struggling not to swoon myself. But I couldn’t keep entertaining the idea of Dean and me spending time together outside of the school project. It was only going to get more complicated, and I needed to nip it in the bud.

“No, you’re not,” I said. I dug my hand into the locker, blindly grabbing at whatever I could find, but my hands came up empty. I scowled at Dean. “Where did you throw it?”

I wouldn’t have put it past him to trick me into thinking he’d thrown it in the locker when he’d secretly pocketed it so I wouldn’t be able to find it, but his face was completely innocent as he shrugged.

“It’s somewhere in there.”

I was suddenly beginning to question why I ever thought he might be someone I’d want to spend more time with. The boy was infuriating.

“What if I need it for something?”

“I told you, you won’t need it. I’m paying.” He looked way too smug and self-satisfied. It made me want to knock him down for fun, even though I had no idea how I could do that.

“And what if I need my student ID or…” I faltered, trying to come up with something else I might need my wallet for. Why was it that whenever I was in an argument with Dean, my brain seemed to go out the window? “Or my bus ticket?”

“You don’t take the bus.”

Okay, yeah, that had been a bad example but I’d been silent for too long so I had to say something.

“I could take the bus,” I said, apparently deciding to dig my heels in further. Once again, something that only Dean brought out of me. “You don’t know anything about me or my transportation methods.”

Dean looked like he wanted to laugh at my use of transportation methods in a sentence, and yeah, I couldn’t blame him for that one. Deciding not to give him the chance, I barrelled on.

“Anyway, it’s not just about the bus ticket. How am I supposed to drive? My license is in there.”

Dean shrugged, looking unconcerned. “I’ll drive. And if you haven’t found your wallet by the end of the day, I’ll help you find it, okay?”

“Well, I…” That took some of the wind out of my sails.

It was a reasonable compromise and he clearly wasn’t entertaining the idea of leaving me here to find the wallet.

I turned my gaze back to my locker, trying to think of another excuse.

“Well, I can’t leave Zoey. I promised her I would eat in the cafeteria, and what kind of friend would I be to back out? ”

Once again not my best excuse since Zoey was the one pushing me to go out with Dean right now.

“I think I’ll be fine,” Zoey said. She was giving me a weird look, like she couldn’t comprehend why I was trying so hard to get out of this.

Despite all the times we’d butted heads over what guys were cute, she still didn’t understand why I didn’t want to go out with Dean.

Not that it was so much a matter of not wanting to anymore, and more that I knew I couldn’t.

Letting him take me out for lunch would only blur the lines between us further, when we really should be keeping our boundaries up.

“But Molly and Paige?—”

“Will be great company for me,” Zoey interrupted. She slammed my locker shut and made a shoo’ing motion with her hands. “Now go, before you run out of time to even get food and end up starving for the rest of the day.”

As if on cue, my stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. Luckily, Dean didn’t notice because he was already walking down the hall toward the parking lot. When I didn’t follow, he spun around to face me but continued walking backward.

“Coming, Novak?” he asked, raising a brow.

He looked ridiculously hot, and despite my earlier annoyance for his little tricks, I found my knees going a little wobbly.

It was still a terrible idea to go with him—it would be ridiculously easy for somebody to see us and tell Sebastian, which would dig us into a hole I wasn’t sure we could get out of.

But what were the chances this opportunity would come around again?

I glanced at Zoey, as if she was going to give me any good advice, and she gave me an encouraging nod.

Big surprise there. I sighed and jogged to catch up with Dean.

We’d already been talking in the hallway long enough for someone to take notice, so it was possible Sebastian was going to find out anyway—I might as well have some fun with it, right?

“So, where are you taking me for lunch?” I asked as we stepped outside.

We went out the doors that led directly to the parking lot, so not many people were out here.

I’d stalled long enough that anyone else who was driving for food had already left, and the people who stuck around the school were all either inside or out back by the fields since that was a nicer place to sit.

“Figured I’d leave it up to you,” he said. He shot me a sideways glance that made me a little wary until he added, “But I think it’s probably best that we eat in my car. Just so…”

He trailed off like he wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence, but I knew where he was going with it. I couldn’t help but tease him, though, so I said, “It’s because you’re ashamed of me, isn’t it?”

I expected him to go along with the bit or tease me back, but instead, he swallowed. “I don’t think anybody could ever be ashamed of spending time with you, Lavender Novak.”

We were at his car before I could even begin to process the words, so I pushed them to the back of my mind to deal with later.

Dean opened the passenger door for me and waited until I climbed in to close it and circle around to his own.

I had a sense of deja vu going back to the day of Sebastian’s breakup party and Dean driving me home from the mall, only this time I didn’t have the excuse of catching a ride instead of biking to fall back on for why I was hanging out with him.

This was happening solely because I wanted it to.

It went entirely against my better instincts and yet I found myself settling into the seat.

“Just so you know, this does count as a second kidnapping,” I told him.

“The first being?”

“At the mall.”

He smirked. “Well, much like that time, you’ll be released unharmed. And maybe even better off because you’ll get a free meal.”

“I’m paying you back.”

“I’m sure you will,” he said in a tone that told me I would be doing no such thing.