Page 24 of Adorkable

“ButBecks,” she whined, “I don’t understand. Why her?”

“Nothing to understand really,” he said, smiling down at me. “Sal’s my girl. Always has been.”

As he squeezed my hip, I swear I stopped breathing. Eden was a dip, but she walked away at the clear dismissal. I was having trouble getting my lungs to work. And Becks was just standing there, smiling like all was right with the world, like this was all normal.

“Man, I tell you it’s a lie. Becks wouldn’t waste his time.”

I was so close I actually felt Becks’s body stiffen. Loud and obnoxious, the voice brought back bad memories of last night’s wandering hands. I knew I should’ve punched Chaz Neely when I had the chance.

“Spitz is an ice princess,” Chaz continued, speaking to the two guys at his locker. They were a little ways down the hall, backs to us, but their voices traveled.

“I don’t know,” Rick Smythe, goalie for CHS, spoke up. “They’ve been friends a long time.”

“Yeah, friends with benefits,” J.B. Biggs laughed. “There’s got to be something in it for him.”

“We went out last night,” Chaz said. “Lamest date I ever had. She wouldn’t even let me get to second base. Way I figure it, Spitz is a prude.”

I blushed furiously as we walked up behind them. I couldn’t believe Becks had heard that.

“Either that or she’s not into guys.”

“Maybe she just wasn’t into you,” Becks said.

“Who the hell—” Chaz’s big mouth snapped shut as he came face to face with Becks’s glare.

“You are such a sleazebag,” I spat.

“What was that you said about my girlfriend?”

The way Becks so casually called me his girlfriend distracted me.

“Apologize,” Becks said.

“What?” Chaz tried playing dumb. “Becks, you heard wrong, man. What I meant was—”

“Apologize,” Becks repeated, stepping closer, “or I knock your teeth down your throat. Your choice.”

“Sorry, Spitz,” he said, still looking at Becks.

“Sally,” Becks said lowly.

“Sally,” Chaz squeaked. “Sorry, Sally. God, I’m sorry.”

“Better.” Becks nodded. I started when one of his hands gripped mine. “Sal’s my girlfriend. You mess with her; you mess with me. Got that, Neely?”

There it was. That word again. As Chaz scurried away and the warning bell sounded, the hall cleared pretty fast. Everything that’d just happened hit me full force.

“How do you do that?” I asked after putting some space between us. It was impossible to think with him so close.

“Do what?”

“That.” Gesturing to his face, I laughed uneasily. “All that stuff about me being your girl, laying it on a little thick there, don’t you think?”

“Sal,” he said, “you are my girl.”

I waited for him to explain, but he didn’t. Instead he reached out to grab my hand again, and (of course) I jumped about a foot.

“So, what’s up with the jumpy thing?”

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