“Noah Hutchins,” Natalie said.
I stopped sketching, confused about what Noah had to do with Luke. “What?”
“Guess the hunk, remember? Noah Hutchins is definitely hot. I’d tutor him.” Lila stared over at the stoner table, practically drooling. How could she swoon over the guy who’d made fun of me?
Grace’s mouth gaped. “And take the social hit? No way.”
“I said I’d tutor him, not take him to prom. Besides, from what I’ve heard, quite a few girls have ridden that train and loved every second of it.”
Grace glanced at Noah, eyes wandering up, then down. “You’re right. He’s hot, and rumor has it he’s only into one-nighters. Though Bella Monahan tried to force a relationship. She followed him around like a pathetic puppy dog. He wanted nothing to do with her if it didn’t involve the backseat of his car.”
Lila loved dirt. “She lost her boyfriend, her virginity, her reputation and her self-respect in less than a month. That’s why she transferred to another school.”
Guys like Noah Hutchins ticked me off. He used girls, used drugs and had made me feel like crap this morning. Not that I should be surprised. I’d had a couple of classes with him last semester. He’d stride into the room like he owned the earth and smirk when girls fell all over themselves in his presence. “What a jerk.”
As if he heard me from across the room, his dark eyes met mine. His shaggy brown hair fell over them, but I could tell he was looking at me. The stubble on his face moved as he smiled. Noah had muscles, looks and trouble stalking him. Somehow, he made jeans and a T-shirt look dangerous. Not that I was into girl-using stoners. Yet, I took another peek at him while sipping my drink.
“Harsh words, Echo. You’re not talking about me, are you?” A chair scraped the floor. Luke flipped it around so he could straddle it between Natalie and Grace. Come freaking on. Luke and I had barely spoken a word to each other since we broke up sophomore year. Why was everyone pushing me into social mode today?
“No,” said Lila. “We talked about you earlier. Echo was calling Noah Hutchins a jerk.” I kicked her under the table. She sent me a glare in return.
“Hutchins?” Luke Manning: six foot two, built like a freight train with black hair, blue eyes, captain of the basketball team, hot and full of himself. To my horror, he sized Noah up. “What’s stoner boy done to deserve your wrath?”
“Nothing.” I returned to my sketch pad. My cheeks burned when one of Grace’s public friends mumbled something about my weirdness. Why couldn’t Lila, Natalie and Luke just leave me alone? The gossip only became worse when I crept out of my shell.
Unfortunately, Lila chose to ignore my red cheeks and my warning kick. “He made fun of Echo this morning, but don’t worry, she told him off.”
The pencil in my hand bowed from my tighter grip as I fought the urge to yank Lila’s gorgeous hair out of her head. My teachers and Mrs. Collins were so wrong. Interacting with my peers stunk.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say to you?”
I stomped on Lila’s toes and stared straight at her. “Nothing.”
“He told her that she had an effed-up name and then did the stupid ‘echo’ thing people did in elementary school,” said Lila. Oh, God, I wanted to murder my best friend.
“You want me to talk to him?” Luke stared at me with a familiar hint of possessiveness. Both Grace and Natalie smiled like Cheshire cats. I refused to look at Lila, who bounced in her seat. Now I would never hear the end of her fantasies about Luke and me getting back together.
“No. He’s a stupid guy who said a stupid thing. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it.”
Luke chuckled. “True. That whole table’s screwed up. Did you know that Hutchins is a foster kid?”
The girls at my table gasped at the new gossip. I checked out Noah again. He appeared deep in conversation with some girl with long black hair.
“Yep,” Luke continued. “Heard Mrs. Rogers and Mr. Norris discussing it in the hallway.” The bell rang, ending Luke’s spotlight on the forbidden information on Noah Hutchins.
While I threw away the remains of my lunch, Grace sidled up beside me and whispered, “This was huge, Echo. If Luke’s into you again, life will change. Who he talks to and dates changes everyone’s opinion. Maybe things will finally get back to normal.”
One of Grace’s public friends called out to her and she left my side without a second glance. I sighed as I pulled my sleeves over my fingers. What I wouldn’t give for normal.
NOAH
I’d told Mrs. Collins the truth. I didn’t have time for tutoring or counseling. In June, I would turn eighteen and graduate from foster care. That meant I’d need a place of my own, and rent meant a job. But Mrs. Collins had played me like a street hustler. An occasional supervised visit with my brothers wasn’t enough. She dangled them in front of me like a damn needle to a her**n addict.
My shift at the Malt and Burger started at five. I glanced at the clock hanging over the reference librarian’s desk. What part of “meet the guy you’re tutoring directly after school at the public library” did my know-it-all misunderstand? Mrs. Collins might have mentioned who would be tutoring me, but I’d stopped listening after a few minutes. The lady talked too much.
I focused on the double doors. Five more minutes and I could happily call this session a failure, a fact I would be thrilled to throw in Mrs. Collins’s face.
One door opened and cold air swept in, causing goose bumps to rise on my arms. Ah, hell. I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest. Echo Emerson glided into the library.
Her eyes swept the room while her gloved hands rubbed her arms. Like the cold could penetrate that fancy-ass brown leather coat. A light, sunshine smile rested on her face. It appeared Mrs. Collins had kept us both in the dark. The moment she saw me, her smile faded and her green eyes erupted with thunderclouds. Join the f**king club.
From under the table, I kicked out the chair opposite me. “You’re late.”
She set her book bag on the table and scooted the chair in as she sat. “I had to go to the office and find out testing dates. I could have gotten the information this morning, but some jerk got in my way.”
Advantage Echo, but I smiled at her like I had the upper hand. “You could have stayed. I never asked you to leave.”
“And let you harass me some more? No, thanks.” She shrugged off her jacket, but kept on her knitted gloves. She smelled of cold and leather. Her blue cotton shirt dipped below her beige tank, exposing the top of her cl**vage. Girls like her enjoyed teasing guys. Little did she know, I didn’t mind looking.
Catching me staring, she readjusted her shirt and her cl**vage disappeared from view. Well, that was fun. She glared at me, possibly waiting for an apology. She’d be waiting a long time.
“What subject are you failing? All of them?” Those green eyes danced. It appeared Echo also enjoyed dishing out shit.
All right, I’d screwed with her this morning for no reason. She deserved to get a couple blows in. “None. Mrs. Collins is calling the shots on this.”
Echo opened her backpack and withdrew a notebook. A shadow crossed her face when she slid off the gloves and immediately pulled her long sleeves over her hands. “What subject do you want to start with? We have calculus and physics together, so we could start there. You’ve got to be a complete moron if you need help with business technology.” She paused. “And weren’t you in my Spanish class last term?”
I lowered my head so my hair fell into my eyes. For a girl who didn’t know I existed, she sure knew a lot about me. “Yeah.” And this term, too. She barely beat the bell walking into class and took the first seat available without giving anyone a second look.
“Qué tan bien hablas español?” she asked.
How well could I speak Spanish? Pretty damn decent. I shoved away from the table. “I gotta go.”
“What?” Her forehead crinkled in disbelief.
“Unlike you, I don’t have parents to pay for everything. I’ve got a job, Princess, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late. See you around.”
Grabbing my books and jacket, I left the table and immediately exited the library. The cold January air smacked me in the face. Ice covered several spots on the pavement.
“Hey!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Echo bounded after me, leather jacket on one arm and pack slung over her back.
“Get your damn jacket on. It’s cold outside.” I didn’t stop for her, but I slowed my pace, curious as to why she followed me out.
She caught up quickly and kept step beside me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I told you, to work. I thought you were smart.” I’d never met anyone so fun to mess with.
“Fine. Then when are we going to make this session up?”
I slammed my books on the piece of crap I called a car, causing rust to scatter to the ground. “We’re not. I’ll make you a deal. You tell Mrs. Collins that we’re meeting as many days after school as you want, collect whatever volunteer hours you need for whatever little club you belong to, and I’ll back you up. I won’t have to see you and you won’t have to look at me. I get to continue with my screwed up life and you get to go home and play dress-up with your friends. Deal?”
Echo winced and backed away as if I’d slapped her. She lost her footing when she hit a patch of ice. My right hand swept out and snatched her wrist before her body could smack the ground.
I kept hold of her while she steadied herself using the trunk of my car. Embarrassment or cold flushed her white cheeks. Either way, I found it funny. But before I had a chance to make fun of her, her eyes widened and she stared down at the wrist I held.
Her long blue sleeve was hiked past her elbow and I followed her gaze to the exposed skin. She attempted to yank her hand away, but I tightened my grip and swallowed my disgust. In all the horror-show homes I’d lived in, I never once saw mutilation like that. White and pale red, raised scars zigzagged up her arm. “What the f**k is that?”
I tore my eyes away from the scars and searched her face for answers. She sucked in several shallow gasps before yanking a second time and successfully jerking out of my grasp. “Nothing.”
“That ain’t nothing.” And that something had to hurt like hell when it happened.
Echo stretched her sleeve past her wrist to her fingertips. She resembled a corpse. The blood rushed out of her cheeks and her body quaked with silent tremors. “Leave me alone.”
She turned away and stumbled back to the library.
Echo
“Nothing,” said Lila. “Not a word, not a peep, not a sound. Natalie, Grace and I even put a few feelers out to the juniors, but there is absolutely no gossip flying about you. Well, at least nothing involving Noah Hutchins.”
Lila sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the driver’s side of Aires’ 1965 Corvette. She’d come home with me to act as my barrier for Family Friday—or as I liked to refer to it, Dinner for the Damned.