Page 3 of What Is Love
By the time I approached my locker, my hands were shaking. It took me two tries to get my combination right. I yanked the metal door open with more force than necessary, causing it to bang into the closed locker next to mine. I cringed at the attention it might have drawn.
Deep breath, Lottie.
I gave myself a moment to inhale deeply and exhale slowly.
It didn’t really help. So I quickly grabbed my laptop and the one textbook my chem teacher insisted we have a physical copy of. The rest of my textbooks were in e-book format. My arm muscles were grateful to my other teachers.
The student parking lot was still packed when I walked out of the school. I glanced ahead to where I’d parked and let out a frustrated sigh through my nose. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Standing behind and around my midnight-blue G-Wagon was a good chunk of the football team. They weren’t waiting for me. They were lining up to buy weed from our school’s only scholarship student, Monroe Walker, who was from the other side of the bridge and the son of a Haven’s Rebels MC member. Hidden from the school’s staff, Monroe stood between my G-Wagon and his motorcycle quickly exchanging joints for cash.
Unlike some of the country, marijuana wasn’t fully legal in Summerhaven. So unless someone wanted to drive hours to the nearest legal dispensary and knew someone over twenty-onewilling to buy it for them, Monroe was who Kendry students went to.
I cleared my throat to catch the attention of a few big jocks blocking my way to the driver’s side of my car. The moment they saw me, they moved out of the way.
“Set up shop somewhere else, potrepreneur,” I said as I approached my car door, right next to where Monroe was standing.
Monroe’s stormy blue eyes moved to me after he handed over a sandwich baggie with at least ten joints in it to our school’s quarterback, Tristen Montgomery. The corner of Monroe’s mouth lifted, and I could clearly see the tiny hole where he’d had his lip pierced. “Right away, Your Majesty.”
The asshole had called me an ice queen freshman year at a party after I’d told him he’d be better off going to a school on his side of the bridge. Ever since then, he’d always referred to me in similar ways. I hadn’t said what I’d said to him to be mean. I’d been drunk and everyone at our school had been messing with him. At that party four years ago, he and another student from Kendry had gotten into a fight. Monroe had kicked the shit out of that student, but he hadn’t walked away completely unscathed. Monroe and I had both coincidentally left that party at the same time. I had been waiting for a ride-share by the curb when Monroe had come to stand next to me. As he’d silently lit a joint, I’d noticed his bloody knuckles, split lip, and a cut along his sharp cheekbone.
After taking a puff, he’d caught me staring out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve looked worse, trust me.” He’d offered me his joint.
I’d taken it after a breath of hesitation. I’d never smoked weed before that night. Not wanting him to know that, I’d taken a puff like I’d seen him do, and the moment the smoke had hit my lungs I’d started coughing.
Chuckling, he’d taken the joint back.
I’d felt a slight flare of embarrassment, but I’d been drunk enough to ignore it.
When I’d finally stopped coughing, I’d sighed. “They’re not going to stop. If anything, tonight might make things worse.”
He’d stared forward, going silent as he’d continued to smoke.
“The rich and entitled don’t like it when they get knocked down a peg by those they think are lesser than them,” I’d said. “You should go to school on your side of the bridge.”
He’d exhaled the smoke through his nose slowly after holding it in for a while, his head tilted back slightly. He’d glanced at me from the corner of his eye again with a smirk just barely lifting the corners of his mouth. “Is Kendry’s Ice Queen actually worried about me?”
I’d been saved from having to answer when my ride had arrived. His question had lingered in my mind for a long time. It still did. I hadn’t known him well enough back then to worry—yet I had. I’d gone out on a limb, albeit a tiny one, and tried to warn him by suggesting he change schools to where he’d be better off. It had been a shock to me as well, because I’d earned that nickname he’d given me. I didn’t help anyone. I did my best not to take part in the bullying and teardown of others. Especially the bullying of Monroe. But I didn’t stop it, either. I watched all the bad things, still as stone, mouth locked shut, wearing a schooled expression I’d had no choice but to master a long time ago. I just stood by, which made me just as guilty as everyone else.
So why was he different?
Beats the hell out of me.
Everything about Monroe Walker screamed trouble. Selling weed at school should have been enough to back that up. But it wasn’t. When he’d started selling to his tormentors, they hadeased up on him. It was his solution to survive here, and I understood that more than I wished I did.
He was ridiculously smart, hence the full scholarship to Kendry, and stupidly good-looking. It was stupid because I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t know of any girl at Kendry who could. His hair was as dark as compressed charcoal, cut short on the sides and back but long enough on top to look tousled. It sometimes fell into his beautiful blue eyes. When it did, he’d slick it back with his tattooed fingers. That was another thing that made him stand out at Kendry. Students here wore pastels, polos, and pearls when we weren’t in uniform. He was all denim, black leather, and tattoos. Rumor had it that he’d gotten his first tattoo before freshman year and had been getting them ever since. Along with his lip, both his ears were pierced. He wore black metal studs in his ears every day. His cheekbones and jawline were perfectly chiseled to make his face what my friend Alicia described as “a perfect place for a lady to sit.” Not that she or anyone else at Kendry had a chance. He didn’t date girls from this side of the bridge, and I didn’t blame him.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Lottie. I’m having a party tonight,” Tristen whined jokingly, pulling my thoughts back to my current inability to floor it out of here.
My eye twitched from the amount of irritation I was holding in. “Then could you move your teammates so I can pull out? I have somewhere to be.” I mentally patted myself on the back at how calm I kept my voice.
“If you move your car, then the rest of us won’t be able to get what we came for,” Tristen said.
I wasn’t confident that I had the patience for this. Not when my delay would anger Mother.
Monroe handed over one more baggie of joints to another jock for a wad of cash before turning toward his motorcycle. “Let her leave. I’m sold out anyway.”
The next jock who’d stepped up to buy frowned. “What?”
