Page 1 of You Belong With Me

one

He was late.He was always freaking late.

I checked my phone again, as if the numbers had changed significantly since I last checked it three minutes ago. I thought maybe somehow I’d imagined that it was actually six o’clock right now. Maybe my phone would somehow say that it was still only 5:01 and I’d imagined the last hour that I’d been sitting here on the school wall, just waiting for my stupid older brother to finally show up.

I last texted him fifteen minutes ago, but he still hadn’t gotten back to me. I kept opening the message thread, waiting for those stupid typing dots, but the bottom of my screen remained empty regardless.

Nora

Hey I’m outside

Are you on your way?

Dean???

Are you planning to pick me up at all??

DEAN

Nothing. Nada. Not even a stupidsorry got caught up, I’ll be there in a bit. I pressed the call button again, not even bothering to hold the phone up to my ear this time. It was just loud enough for me to hear it ring once then go to voicemail. It was the sixth time that had happened—because not only was he abandoning me at school, but he was also ignoring every single one of my calls.

I put the phone back in my sweater pocket just as a car came revving past me. I was sitting on the half-wall that faced out to the parking lot, so plenty of cars had driven by in the last hour, but I still checked each one to make sure the license plate wasn’t the one I was waiting for. The black sports car raced straight past me, going faster than any car should reasonably be driving in a parking lot, but then suddenly screeched to a stop ten feet away. I cringed at the harsh sound, then stared as the car was thrown into reverse and came to a stop right beside me.

That’s not good.

I slipped my hand into my school bag, my fingers immediately finding the mini can of hairspray I kept in the front pocket. Hairspray probably wasn’t as effective as pepper spray, but it was what I could carry in my bag at school and I hoped it would still bother an attacker for long enough for me to get away.

But then the driver’s side door of the car opened and a head appeared above it. I let go of the hairspray as I realized it wasn’t some murderous stranger coming to kill me, but I couldn’t say I was happy either.

“Did Dean send you?” I asked. Not waiting for hisresponse, I gathered up my stuff and hopped off the wall. I didn’t care if he was here to pick me up or if he happened to be driving by when he saw me—Dean clearly wasn’t coming for me, so I might as well make use of his best friend showing up instead.

Sebastian’s brows pulled together as he leaned forward on the roof of his car, resting one arm along the smooth top and using his hand to hold up his chin while he pretended to think through the question.

“Hmm… Dean. Do I know a Dean?” he asked in his deep, smooth British accent. I hated that my heart always raced at the sound of it. If I were any other girl—or really, if he were any other boy—I might have swooned or giggled over it. But Sebastian Novak was the one person that was completely off-limits to me, so I refused to let myself even think of him like that.

It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way, because there had been a time that I secretly crushed on him. But then I’d once mumbled his name in my sleep when I was sharing a room with Dean on a family vacation, and he tried to smother me with a pillow.

“I should hope so,” I said. “He’s your best friend.”

“Hmm,” Sebastian said, starting to tap his fingers against his mouth. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Oh, well, that’s concerning.” I propped open the passenger’s side door but continued to look at him across the car as best I could. He was a lot taller than me, so he could actually see me over the car but I had to crane my neck to be able to see him. I probably looked like a kid compared to him. “Because if you’re not my brother’s bestfriend, then I’m getting in the car of a stranger, and how do I know that you’re not going to kill me?”

He t’sked. “I guess that’s just a risk you’re gonna have to take then.”

He dropped down into the car, slamming his door behind him—a clear indication that I was supposed to get in too. I did, throwing my bag in the backseat and immediately turned down the volume of his music, which was so loud that it was making the car shake. He was listening to his usual awful music and I wasn’t going to deal with that trying to burst my eardrums for the whole ride home.

Sebastian put the car into drive but didn’t start going, eyeing me pointedly. I rolled my eyes but buckled my seatbelt, which I knew was what he was waiting for. He didn’t do that with any of his other friends, just me.

“So, where is your brother?” Sebastian asked. He whipped out of the parking lot at full speed, and I quickly grabbed the armrest with one hand and the handle over the door with my other, trying not to get thrown out of the seat. I wasn’t sure why Sebastian’s parents ever thought it was a good idea to give him a sports car—he drove like a maniac. Actually, he drove like somebody who was looking to commit vehicular manslaughter and he wanted to kill all his passengers along with him.

“Who knows,” I choked out, trying not to puke from motion sickness. It was always like that for the first couple of minutes I was in his car, and then I got used to it again. But the cycle repeated every single time he gave me a ride, because these rides only happened once in a blue moon. It was only when Dean couldn’t be bothered to come pick meup somewhere, or if we were all going somewhere together because Sebastian’s car was nicer than our mom’s old SUV that she let Dean borrow. “He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

Sebastian looked genuinely surprised at that. I wondered whether it was because Dean hadn’t actually sent him and he had just happened to pass by me sitting here, or if Dean had sent him but neglected to mention how long I’d been waiting around.

“An hour?” he asked. “Need me to remind him what manners he’s supposed to have?”

I snorted at the implication that he would ever get in the middle of an argument between me and Dean. Sebastian may have treated me like one of his little sisters, but whenever it came down to it, I knew he would always pick Dean over me.

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