I exhale, my eyes sweeping closed and my fingers tightening around the cell phone.
No, this can’t be happening.
This isn’t happening.
But when I open my eyes again, the picture is there in full color. The photographer captured me and Zane walking into the funeral parlor together. His hand is at the small of my back and I’m hunkered close beside him.
The picture itself is pretty tame, but the insinuation is devastating.
“Uh, Miss Jamieson, can I have my phone back?”
An ache springs in my head. It feels like someone’s taken a sledgehammer to my skull.
“Miss Jamieson.”
“Huh?’
“My phone.”
I hand the phone over, setting it in her manicured hands.
Vanya peers closely at me. “Is it… true?”
My mouth parts.
At that moment, the front doors explode open.
Dutch, Finn, Zane and Sol stalk into Redwood. They’re all huge. And I don’t just mean their height. Their presence fills the entire corridor, pushing everyone out. All incredibly gorgeous and charismatic, they always draw their own riptide of appreciative stares and curious gazes.
But today is different.
Because, while The Kings always command every eye in the room, a few of those eyes swing to me.
Vanya turns too. “Zane is here.”
The way she says his name, with a hint of awe and hero worship, sends a dark feeling through me. It’s so unexpected that I internally flinch. Why do I care that someone is fawning over Zane when my world is literally imploding?
Jocks swagger up to Zane and pat him on the back. Words like ‘right on’ and ‘good for you’ echo through the hallway.
Zane looks confused. His dark gaze wanders the hallway and briefly flicks to mine. My heart surges to my throat, and I feel this sharp, piercing prick in my chest.
Zane quirks one of those thick, black brows at me.
I whirl around, darting out of the hallway and into the teacher’s lounge. I can’t stand to look at him right now.
The placard on my table reads ‘Grace Jamieson, AP English’. I wrap my hands around the wooden stick and squeeze, trying to calm down.
I need to figure a way out of this mess.
The other teachers in the lounge glance at me, but no one says anything. I get the feeling that they don’t know about the picture. If they did, they’d be more glib about it.
None of the teachers here at Redwood Prep like me.
There are many reasons for that. I’m younger than most of them and, arguably, closer with the students. I also have a small, but passionate group of male students who routinely carry my books, bring me snacks and leave notes and gifts on my desk.
I’m also the only teacher at Redwood who’s immune to the scorching power of The Kings.
Or at least I was.
Before Zane started blackmailing me.
Is this his work? Did he sneak into the bathroom, move into my house, and charm my mother—just to stab me in the back like this?
Anger surges anew. I feel like tearing through the hallway, stomping right over to the obnoxious four and slamming a punch into each of their faces.
I rub my temple and contemplate what I should do next when the door bursts open. All the air gets sucked out of the room when I glance up and see Zane. He didn’t bother with a Redwood Prep jacket—it’s probably still drying at home. Instead, his stark-white shirt is unbuttoned at the top and tucked into a pair of dark trousers. The sleeves are folded up and tattoos snake over the pale skin from his wrist to his fingers.
Blue eyes slice through the room, landing on me with a thud.
I stiffen, form fists, and prepare for anything.
Zane stops in front of my desk. “We need to talk.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cross. I have to prepare for class,” I say professionally. “You need to leave.”
The teacher’s lounge has gone deathly silent. Everyone is staring at us and they’re not bothering to hide it.
Zane’s intense energy rockets up to a near nuclear blaze. I’ve never seen him this angry.
“I wasn’t asking,” he snarls.
I lift my head and glare at him. “Neither was I.”
“Grey.”
I stiffen at the nickname.
He taps his fingers on the table.
I look up.
Zane jerks his head to the door, insistent.
I stubbornly look down again, taking out a red pen and writing notes over a student’s essay. I’m pretty sure I’m writing gibberish, but I’m desperate to look busy.
The shadow over me gets smaller. I don’t check, but I feel Zane’s domineering presence withdraw from my desk. His military boots thump the ground and I think he’s going to leave.
For a second, relief washes over my body.
I let out a sigh.
Until I hear his voice lifting in the quiet lounge.
“You heard her. She said to leave,” Zane growls.
A confused hush settles on the room.
I whip my head up.
Stunned, I see that Zane is glaring at the other teachers.
At once, grown adults shuffle their papers into folders, replace their comfortable shoes with pumps and shiny leather oxfords, and slink out of the room.
In less than five seconds flat, the room is empty.
Just like that.
He commanded every teacher at Redwood Prep.
One word.
One snap of his fingers.
I’m shaking so badly, I’m sure Zane can notice.
His dark gaze moves over me. He slams the door closed and locks it angrily.
I shoot to my feet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He stalks across the room, scowling.
“You can’t just do that.” I throw an arm at the door. “You can’t just chase out your teachers and lock doors and act like you own this place. Because you don’t. You don’t own Redwood and you don’t own me. So get the hell out of my face.”
He remains standing by my desk, staring at me with those stormy blue eyes.
My entire world seems to shrink to this moment, to this anger, to this desperation.
I lash out, a tornado of pain, anger and guilt. “What? What do you want, Zane?” I drop my voice to a harsh whisper. “You think I’ll let you screw me again if I get fired? Is that why you did this?”
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Liar.” He presses his palms against my table, on either side of my plaque, and leans in. “You believe me, Grey. You just want to take your anger out on someone. It’s fine if that person is me, but at least have the guts to admit it.”
The emotions welling in my chest reach a breaking point.
I swing at him.
He grabs my arm. Rough fingers wrap around my wrist.
“Let me go, Zane.”
“It wasn’t me.”
My other hand whips through the air to smack his face.
He grabs that wrist too. My hips press painfully into the desk as he pulls me forward so we meet in the middle. The world falls away until it’s just his burning blue-flame eyes and the steady hit of his minty breath on my face.
I go still, my anger cracking under that deep, soul-melting gaze of his. The tension between us unfurls like a whip, snapping painfully against all my defenses and bringing the undeniable connection between us to life.
“I didn’t do this.” His words escape in staccato beats. Short, punchy truths. “I need you to know that. It’s important that you know that.”
“I…” I start, but there’s a knock on the door and I mash my lips shut, confining the storm of words pressing into my throat, desperate to spring free.
I want to believe you. I do believe you, but this is not okay. We can’t be alone in the same room like this. It wasn’t safe before and it’s definitely not okay now. I don’t know what to do. I only know that I can’t have you. What we did, what we are is wrong.
“Excuse me? I forgot something,” a teacher’s feeble voice rings from behind the locked door.
“Get it later!” Zane yells.
Everything goes silent.
I stifle a groan of frustration and shake out of his hold. It’s barely eight o’clock and today has already been a massive crap-fest. I almost cracked my head open in the shower, my step-brother licked my neck and I enjoyed it, my reputation is being smeared all over campus, and I still feel something toward a person I shouldn’t feel anything for.
Now, I’ve got to worry about losing my job at Redwood Prep.
“Give me time to figure this out,” Zane says, running a hand through his hair.
“No,” I snap. “You don’t do anything. I’ll figure this out.”
Zane stares at me with those screaming blue eyes.
My phone rings.
I dive into my purse for it and wrench it to my ear. “What?”
“Miss Jamieson? This is the principal’s office.”
The color drains from my face, and I feel the room spin.
“Principal Harris would like to see you.”
Jinx: A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words But Can Those Words Be Trusted?
Just like real beef and vegan beef look the same and taste different, manufactured scandals don’t have the same whiff. Bring me gold and I’ll sell it. Bring me a rock spray-painted yellow and I’ll throw it out.
Stay safe out there.
Until the next post, keep your enemies close and your secrets even closer.
– Jinx
