Bitter Angel Read Free Page B

gray sweatshirt.
    I locked the door behind us. “Race you to the bottom,” I called as I dashed down the hall to the stairwell.
    He chased after me, catching my t-shirt and yanking me back so he could gain the lead.
    “Hey,” I whined and giggled at the same time. “No fair. That’s cheating.”
    He didn’t care. “Last one to the bottom gets to drive tomorrow.”
    We landed breathily at the bottom of the stairs, Jay beating me only because he cheated. He was only a couple inches taller than me, and I was a track star in high school…Okay, I was on the team…Okay, so I quit after a term. Still. I could be fast when I wanted to be. And now my loss meant I would be driving us back to Cinci tomorrow. Fan-freaking-tastic.
    Catching our breaths outside, we walked hand in hand, fingers laced. I took a noisy inhale of the fresh evening air. This place may be small and boring, but the purity of nature was divine, one of the things that kept me here. The idea of a smog-filled city had me wrinkling my nose.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Jay said quietly. We passed the tree we’d sat beneath earlier, and he plucked an orange leaf from an overhanging branch.
    I looked away from him and out at all the beautiful old buildings. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    I sensed his eyes narrowing. “You’re thinking about leaving and coming out to be with me. You’re thinking that despite the beauty and awesomeness, you’d sacrifice it to wake up next to me every morning.”
    I cringed from the hope in his voice. It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking, but pretty damn close. I tipped my head to the side and pursed my lips as I gazed at him.
    He shrugged like it was nothing. “Lil, you’re forgetting I’ve been able to read your mind since seventh grade. Remember?” He was talking about our stupid seventh grade dance.
    I had gone with David Cooper, a point guard on the basketball team. He was popular, nice, but I didn’t want to be there with him. I had known Jay since sixth grade, but we didn’t know each other. My girls had been out on the dance floor with their dates, and David kept trying to coax me to dance with him. That was when Jay rescued me.
    He approached, all lanky and a little awkward, but still so cute with his curly hair. He was in a striking black suit and blue tie that matched his eyes. He told David his buddies were outside looking for him. David ran off like he couldn’t get away fast enough. Apparently, I wasn’t fulfilling his entertainment quota for the evening.
    Jay leaned against the wall with me, quiet for a long minute until I finally asked him why he was just standing there. He told me, “I could tell you didn’t want to be with that jerk, so I rescued you.”
    “You could tell?” I asked with all the snooty attitude of a know-it-all seventh grader. Who did this kid think he was? He didn’t know me.
    “I could tell,” he said, not reacting to my attitude at all, and shutting down further comments from me. He stayed until the song was over, then he smiled and walked away.
    We became ‘sort of’ friends after that, the kind that purposely bumped shoulders in the halls, or stared at each other a little longer than normal in class. Then in high school, we became the ‘hang out’ friends that went to the local pizza shop together with a large group of kids after school. We always tried to sit next to each other. With Heather and Nilah at my other side, of course. Even then, there was a spark of something yet to come. But insignificant dates and relationships kept us in the friend zone for three more years. After we got together, Jay used the excuse that it wasn’t the right time before, but the truth was he’d never asked me. And I wanted to be asked. I was an old-fashioned girl.
    When we’d been dating for a while, he finally admitted he’d been too chicken shit to ask me. I agreed on that point, but I never doubted how good he’d always been at reading me.
    I