Page 24 of All In Good Time

He smiled sheepishly. “I’ll see you at lunch?”

“Go, go.” She waved him away, and he made a beeline toward Jenna. Becca chuckled under her breath and continued to her locker at the end of the hallway.

Break hadn’t really been a break, because she had been given multiple assignments to do over the two weeks. She was more than glad to unlock her locker and unload the unnecessary weight of the textbooks onto the shelves.

“I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend.” The voice in her ear caught her off guard, and she jumped in surprise.

Derek chuckled, hooded eyes bright with delight. He leaned back against the locker next to her. The cigarette had been replaced with a piece of gum that he chewed on.

“Jesus, can’t you say hello first?”

He ignored her question. “How does Parr feel about us being friends?”

A few curious heads turned to glance at the unusual interaction. Then again, everyone was far too interested in what Derek Stokes did.

Becca shook her head perhaps too violently. “First of all, Marty is not my boyfriend. He’s just a friend. And second of all, I haven’t told him yet.”

“Ooh.” His eyebrow raised with piqued interest. “So I’m your dirty little secret?”

“It’s hardly dirty.”

He leaned forward, his face closing in on Becca’s. His gum was mint, and the scent of it washed over her face as he exhaled, a hint of cigarette smoke still left behind. She leaned back and out of reach. “But it could be.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, stepping away from him to focus on grabbing the materials she needed for her first class. “Do you flirt with all yourfriendslike this?”

“Only the pretty ones.”

She was ashamed to admit that her face heated. Of course, she knew that Derek was kidding, and that he was just trying to get a reaction. She saw him flirt with just about every girl he encountered—it was his instinct.

But she had never been called pretty by anyone other than her mother. Certainly not by any attractive guys.

She made sure Derek couldn’t see her face by bending a tad too far into her locker, pretending to be interested in some notes in one of her notebooks. When it was just the two of them, he had never been very flirty. Maybe it was just something hehadto do when others were around. Maybe, just like he liked to walk into class late, he liked the attention that he was getting from the groups of people intrigued by why Derek Stokes was leaning in so close to Becca Lewis.

“Everyone is looking,” she mumbled, and he finally looked away to take in the observing eyes.

“What? You don’t like that?”

“I’d rather not have rumors flying around about me. Not really my thing.”

Derek went from a foot away, to six feet away, instantly putting distance between them. The flirty smirk was replaced by something softer. “Better?”

She nodded and shut her locker door.

“Stokes.” A new voice entered the conversation from behind, and they both turned to see where it came from. Brent Duggan and his girlfriend—Marty’s ex-girlfriend—April Perry approached them, his arm thrown casually over her shoulder, while April’s eyes shifted to Becca with a brow raised. “Where the hell you been, man? You missed the party last weekend.”

Derek’s relaxed stance next to Becca stiffened enough for her to sense. She glanced at him through the corner of her eye to see if he looked upset, but he still had that cocky smile on his face. “I had better things to do.”

Brent noticed Becca then, Derek’s words seeming to have struck some baseless assumptions into his head. Becca cringed internally and frowned. “What’s going on here?” There was a tease in Brent’s voice, and April laughed, but her eyes were judgmental as they ran over Becca.

Derek noticed it too. He kept his feet planted, the whole six feet away from her, but his stance shifted to turn their burning attention back to him and away from her. “What? I can’t chat with a classmate?”

Brent had been Marty’s friend once upon a time, when high school first started, and by association, sometimes Becca’s. April came along a year later, and fit her way into that dynamic a little too easily. Becca had never liked them; they’d never liked her.

“I don’t know. Becca isn’t exactly the type I’d imagine you going for.” Brent spoke as if Becca wasn’t standing right there. He even went as far as to lean in like he was sharing a secret with Derek, pretending to whisper, even though his words were loud and clear. “Take it from me, man, she’s not very fun.”

Becca bit her tongue as hard as she could without drawing blood. “I’ll see you later,” she said, her dismissal to no one in particular.

She never did get to see how Derek reacted to what Brent said, because she turned and walked away from April’s irritating laugh. They lived for a reaction, and the best way to deal with people like Brent and April was to give them nothing.

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