Page 99 of Whispers of Wisteria

What was I doing here again?

“Right, cool. Whatever.” The shirt girl had picked up the garment from the dirty floor and held it back out. “Anyway, will you accept this? I’m free tonight. Don’t worry, I know the rules: no strings attached.”

The heat fled from my face. Oh… right.

Tonight? No strings?

I knew exactly what was going on. I’d read about situations like this. Humans and penguins were not so different, after all, and our feathered cold-weather friends frequently exchanged rocks—since they didn’t wear shirts—for future sexual entanglements.

The correlation was not lost on me.

“No.” I stepped in front of Miles and smacked her hands. “Miles willnotbe getting laid tonight.” Or ever.

Not so long as I could help it.

She pulled her hand to her chest, holding it, as she shot me a disbelieving look. “Who are you to—”

“This goes for all of you.” I pointed at her first, then waved my hand in a circle to include the now-staring mass. The crowd seemed to grow larger, but that was unimportant. “You claim to love Miles, but how can you call yourselves his fans when acting like this?”

The shirt girl lowered her arms, eyebrows drawing together as her bright blue eyes flashed with annoyance. “What do you mean?”

I stepped back and pressed my hand over Miles’s chest. His heart was racing, and his breath tight, but he made no move to help me.

I took his silence as acceptance.

“If you truly cared about him,”—like me, I thought, but didn’t add—“you’d consider how your constant hovering can make it hard for a man to succeed.”

Their cluelessness strengthened my ire. Stalkers haunted him. Probably more than we even knew, since he was generally too kind to complain. How couldanyoneconcentrate on competitive sports while people were screaming at them?

It required great focus to defeat the enemy. Every shout was a strike that marred his performance. How could their presence not be anything but distracting?

There was so much on his plate already. He had to attend class and study. Sports were also an essential part of academic achievement for some. Not for me, perhaps, but other people who liked such things might find them fulfilling.

Indeed, this was a part of his dream.

“Hey, Bianca.” Miles pressed against my back as he leaned into me. “It’s okay. I don’t need—”

I shook my head. I refused to allow anyone to stand in the way of his ambition.

Besides, no one else was allowed to blush when they looked at him.

“Do we… bother you?” Shirt girl stepped forward. She was watching Miles with her innocent, wide, watery eyes. “But… I thought you belonged to everyone?”

My eyebrow twitched. My violent daydreams were becoming more alarming. Right now, for example, I wanted to rip off her head. It’d been a somewhat familiar feeling as of late.

But…

Pummeling these people would not solve the immediate problem. I had to get them to leave Miles alone, by their own design, forever. Otherwise they’d become more determined. They had towantto leave him.

It was the only way to ensure long-term success.

“What’s your name?” I waved my hand, forcing her to look at me.

She blinked once, and then her eyes met mine. At first, she seemed almost defiant, but then something in her posture shifted. The tense line of her shoulders softened, and her mouth opened.

Well, that was odd, but at least it got her attention.

“H-Hailey?” Her response came out as a question.