What the fuck? “She had a sock stuck to her ass?”
Atlee sat back and snickered, “that girl gives new meaning to the term hot mess.”
Great, another chick with issues. Well, there goes that idea. Then again…
I gave her another quick scan, raking my eyes from top to bottom then back up again.
“So, what do you think?” Atlee asked.
It could be fun, or messy and I didn’t like messy. Nah it was better to stay away. Besides, why would this girl be any different than the others? All I’d be doing was wasting my time. Atlee could have her.
“Thanks,” I sighed. “But I’m…”
She turned around, cutting my words off. There was something about her. Something oddly familiar but I couldn’t place what it was.
“Something wrong, Gio?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered back at Atlee while searching her pink lips and button nose. “She looks…”
“Familiar?” He finished for me.
Yeah, but I didn’t know why.
“What’s her name?” Darry piped in.
That’s when I got smacked in the face with a pair of hazel eyes.
My fists balled as my jaw clenched. “Novalee Ford.”
“And there it is.” Atlee sang, making me want to punch him.
He knew the whole time and didn’t say shit. That alone constituted a beat down. Now I knew why he was so goddamn annoying.
My fists balled as Novalee skipped over to a table where two guys were seated. One I think was on the basketball team. Chuck maybe? I was too busy plotting a murder to give a shit. What the fuck was she doing here?
“Did you say Ford?” Darry tipped his head. “As in Kato Ford?”
Yes I fucking did.
“She’s his sister.” I hissed.
The last time I saw her was at her brother’s sentencing. She’d grown up since then, which explained why I didn’t recognize her right away. But it didn’t explain why the fuck she was here. Kato killed my brother and now his sister was in my school, laughing and talking with her idiot friends like she belonged here. The entire Ford family could burn alive and I still wouldn’t be satisfied.
“Fuck this.” I shot up and stormed across the room.
Somewhere behind me I could hear Darry curse under his breath as a chair screeched across the floor. My friends could do what they wanted. My focus was laser locked on one target. And she didn’t see me coming until I slammed my hands down on the table in front of her, causing the trays on top of it to bounce.
“What the fuck are you doing here!”
When she looked up at me it took a second for recognition to flicker across her face, but the deep lines that pulled across her forehead told me she knew exactly who I was. If Novalee was upset by my presence it didn’t come out in her tone.
“You must not have gotten the handbook, but this room here,” she waved her hand through the air. “Is called a cafeteria. It’s where people come to eat.”
Was she getting smart with me? “Is that so?”
“That’s right, hence,” her eyes slid over to the tray in front of her. “The food.”
I responded to her snide comment by snatching the tray and tossing it across the room.
