Page 14 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

In the sixty seconds since Tommy Dubrovsky leaped out of the closet holding a gun, my life—not all of it, just the parts with him in it—passes in front of me.

* * *

Twelve Years Earlier

Tommy Dubrovsky. Tall, dark, gorgeous in ways that make me wish I was one of those popular girls who knows how to get a guy like him.

But nope. That ain’t me. No girl was ever created as mousy as me. My hair is only blonde because my mom insists, but the platinum blonde clashes with my shit-brown eyes, so I disguise them behind gobs and gobs of kohl black liner and waterproof mascara. Oversized hoodies hide a board-straight stick of a body. It’s like I’m trying to disappear.

This doesn’t exactly make me attractive to guys or entice girls to want to seek out my friendship. As a matter of fact, no one talks to me except Mr. Bower, my tenth grade computer science teacher, and that’s only because I spent two semesters teaching him to write code so he could design a program to generate lesson plans.

But Tommy is a walking fantasy and, at this moment, he is walking toward me. Or at least, I wish he was walking towards me. He is in fact walking in my general direction. But there are a billion scenarios more likely than him being interested in talking to me. Off the top of my head: he’s got X-ray vision; he recently suffered blunt force trauma to the head; I’ve finally succeeded in completely disappearing, so he’s looking right past me and at whichever cheerleader he’s actually searching for (although if it’s the last one, I’d tell him that no cheerleaders—no females except for me, actually—come to the school computer lab unless they took a wrong turn while looking for an empty stairwell to smoke cigarettes in.)

We have one class together, health. Since we sit at the same table, I usually spend all of first hour inhaling his scent and trying to be discreet about it. It fills my nostrils now as he comes to a stop in front of me.

Lord, he smells good.

“Hey, Corinne.”

Did I mention the voice? It’s low and deep and always sounds like he’s either just woken up or is ready for bed. I wish I knew why that made such alternating hot-and-cold tingles go racing up and down my body.

“Hi, Tommy.” I sound like I’m chewing glass.

When he flashes his smile, I can’t breathe. He’s beautiful. God, so beautiful. “I figured I’d find you here.”

He leans against the doorframe. Our bodies are close. Like, if I had boobs, our chests would be touching. Not that I’m thinking about it.

If I was braver, I would reach out to touch his arm in that flirty way I’ve seen popular girls do. But my boobs haven’t arrived, I’m not brave, and I’m definitely not flirty or popular. So I just stand there grinning like a fool. I don’t know what he wants, but whatever it is, the answer is yes.

“If I’m not in class, I’m usually here.” I should have said I was glad he came looking for me. But I don’t think of that until it is too late.

“Good. I like knowing where to find you.” And then he pulls the corner of his lower lip between his teeth, tilts his chin down, and looks down at me. Eyes that blue should be against the law.

As we stand staring at each other, my skin heats to ten degrees warmer than usual, and I can’t stop thinking how lucky his tongue is to be able to taste his lip. I’ve never had those kinds of thoughts before. Now it’s all I can think.

“You were looking for me?” With how inexperienced I am as a flirt, this is painful for me. My stomach actually hurts.

“Yeah.” He says it like it’s so matter of fact, as if that’s not an event of nuclear-level importance in my life.

“Oh. Right. Why?”

There’s the million-dollar question. Why is Tommy Dubrovsky looking for me? He is gorgeous and the star at the center of our close-knit little high school’s universe, even if he is a little on the wild side—the kind of kid who shows up with scuffs on his knuckles from fighting and mud on the knees of his jeans from racing dirt bikes on the outskirts of town.

Me, on the other hand? I’m a computer geek with no friends and no life outside of motherboards and gigs of RAM.

“Needed help on the health homework.”

Oh. Of course. I’m a nerd, right? And that’s what nerds are good for, isn’t it? Helping popular kids finish their homework. I sigh and all my hopes fly out the window. Dumb of me for ever thinking that there was a spark of possibility here.

I roll my eyes, frustrated with the unfairness of it all. So frustrated, in fact, that all the brain-melting ooey-gooeyness that was short-circuiting my normal personality just seconds earlier disappears in the blink of an eye. Before I can stop myself, sarcasm rolls off my tongue like a bullwhip. “Is this the part where you say you want to study my body as a biology project? Because, c’mon now, that’s like the oldest and lamest joke in the book. Even for a jock, it’d be pretty unoriginal.”

To my surprise, he bursts out laughing.

And goddammit if that smile doesn’t reignite the warm flutter in my low belly. I hate myself for loving that look. He’s a rascal and a troublemaker and I’m the exact opposite. But part of me wants all of him.

“You’re funny. You should talk more.”

I’m in the middle of turning to pack up my backpack and flee from this horrible moment so I can go cry in the girls’ bathroom when he says that. I freeze.

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