Page 143 of American Hellhound
She sighed. “Yes. Happy?”
His eyes bugged. “No shit. Really?”
“I thought you already knew,” she said, tone nasty. Whatever. She was tired of everyone’s obsession with her love life. Since she wasn’t a cheerleader or part of the popular clique, she’d always been blessedly invisible. But now she was an oddity, a freak show spectacle, and all because of her living arrangements.
She wanted to blame it on teenage stupidity, but her mother was proof that people who cared about the personal lives of others never changed.
“Whoa, look, you don’t gotta be all mad,” Cody said. “I just wanted to know.”
“You just wanted to know,” she repeated.
“Yeah.”
“Because we’re such good friends.”
“You used to be nicer, Lowe, damn.”
She felt a little bad. A little.
But then he said, “But…I mean…” He scratched the back of his neck and glanced at the passing students, lowering his voice. “Since we’re friends, I was wondering…”
“No.”
“You didn’t even let me finish.”
“What, you want drugs? Sorry, I’m not a dealer,” she said flatly. “Try getting them the old-fashioned way.” She turned away while he was still sputtering for her towaitandjust listen.
She had just reached the water fountain outside her history class when a hand closed around her arm. It let go when she whirled, but still, it frightened her. More than it should. Before Ghost, before meeting Duane and Roman, she wouldn’t have thought much about a boy’s strong hand taking hold of her like this, but now, she read the veiled threat of those kinds of touches.
“What?” she snapped.
Cody lifted his hands, palms toward her.It’s okay. “I just wanted to ask you something,” he started.
“Cody.” She closed her eyes a moment, willed herself some patience. “Please just leave me alone.” When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her with dropped shoulders and a guilty face. “What do youwant?”
“A little bit of weed,” he said in a small voice, holding up his thumb and forefinger a hairsbreadth apart.
“No.” She shook her head. It was only ten a.m. and she was exhausted already. “Why would you even ask that?” And then, growing angrier by the second, “I’m an honor student. I volunteer at the retirement home. Just because I’m dating Ghost, I’m suddenly a drug dealer? Jesus.No. I can’t get you any. Don’t ask again.”
“Okay, okay.” He looked sincere. As sincere as he was capable of looking.
“Tell your friends.” She was still worked up and wanted to vent. “I don’t use that stuff or sell it. Got it?”
“I got it. Yeah, okay.” He backed up a step.
The crowd was starting to thin, kids disappearing into classrooms, lockers slamming shut.
Cody risked a grin. “Damn, girl. I told you to get ruined, and you went and gotruined, huh?”
She sighed. “So they tell me.”
She wouldn’t have thought anything else of it – Cody was harmless, after all, comparatively – if she hadn’t walked out of history an hour-and-a-half later and found Vince Fielding waiting by the water fountain.
“Shit,” she said, and tried to give him the slip, ducking between two girls and hustling toward her locker.
He’d seen her, though, hurrying after her. She almost kept walking, all the way down the hall and into the restroom, but her life was enough of a mess as it was and she needed to swap her books. Damn it. She took a deep breath, braced herself, and watched him approach from the corner of her eye.
“Maggie,” he said when he reached her, breathless. “Hey, hold up.”
