Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 175455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 877(@200wpm)___ 702(@250wpm)___ 585(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 175455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 877(@200wpm)___ 702(@250wpm)___ 585(@300wpm)
Heat blossoms on Grace’s cheeks. “It’s not nice to gossip.”
My mind shoots off so many questions, I don’t even know what to ask first. “No, I know. It’s not gossip. I won’t tell anyone else, I promise. Tell me everything you know. Everything. Leave nothin’ out.”
Grace fidgets. “Well, I don’t know all the details. I try to close my ears to that sort of talk.”
Dammit, Grace! Don’t be a goody two shoes right now!
“I do know he generally sleeps with women a lot older than us, though. For the most part, he acts like high school girls are beneath him—not like he hasn’t slept with any, but the only one he kept around for a while was Erika Martin, and that’s probably just because he’s stuck with her in his friend circle so he got pushed into dating her.”
I suppose that sounds feasible. Carter guards his image, and Erika is popular, too. I’m not familiar enough with their dynamics to know how her social power stacks up to his.
“I heard the reason they broke up was because Carter slept with a teacher, and Erika caught them red-handed, makin’ out in her classroom. Remember last year when that pretty redheaded art teacher just disappeared halfway through the term? Rumor was, that’s what happened. Once their affair was found out, she had to resign and leave town quietly before it all blew up into a big legal hoopla. It was crazy too, because she was married, and she and her husband had bought a house from Barbara Lane from church.” Grace shakes her head. “It was a terrible situation.”
“What?” I demand, wide-eyed. “How do I not know these things?”
Grace shrugs. “You’ve never cared about Carter. Why do you think I was so surprised to see you talkin’ to him? Not to make you sound like a snob, but I always thought you were too swept up in your own world to even notice the jocks until this Jake thing happened.”
Why does everyone keep saying that? When the jocks suggest I’m a stuck-up bitch, I’m not surprised, but my own best friend? Grace wouldn’t be mean to me on purpose, so she must really think that.
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard not to notice a guy grabbing your breasts,” I mutter.
“I heard Carter dated a stripper once. I bet she wouldn’t have noticed,” Grace jokes.
Chapter 9
Everything Grace told me about Carter Mahoney should have diluted my interest in him. While I don’t have a clear picture of who he is, one thing is abundantly clear—whatever he is, for whatever reason, that guy is every variety of bad news.
I tried to fact-check Grace’s story about the art teacher, but there’s no record of it. Of course, there wouldn’t be. I may not pay attention to the goings on around school, but Carter would have been 17 a year ago, and if a scandal involving a minor and a teacher had made the news, I would have noticed that.
I try to distract myself with things that actually matter—homework, a four-hour shift at the bookstore, and the $1 clearanced paperback I couldn’t resist bringing home with me since I don’t have to pay actual money to buy books right now.
Around bedtime, my mind drifts back to Carter. I decide to check on his social media again, and the newest picture causes my stomach to sink and my face to curl up with distaste.
It’s his rally girl, mooning at him as she leans in the window of his car. His number is painted on her cheek, her top is cut so low she might as well be wearing a Band-aid for a shirt, and she’s holding up a tray of carefully detailed chocolate-covered strawberries, decorated to look like footballs.
“Post-practice treat. Best rally girl ever,” he commented, with his stupid Longhorn hashtags.
As I’m giving my phone dirty looks, I shift my body, suddenly uncomfortable for reasons I don’t even understand. Then I pick the phone back up, my thumb slips, and the worst possible thing happens—I accidentally ‘like’ the photo.
Gasping, I stare, horrified, at the little red heart. “No! No, no, no, no.” I quickly click the button again to unlike it, then I drop the phone like it turned into a tarantula, afraid to even touch the damn thing.
It takes a moment for the screen to go dark, but I stare at it the whole time, as if it’s a bomb that might detonate. The panic begins to subside, and my desperate hope is that he’ll never know. I may have unliked it fast enough and he’ll never get the notification. As much action as his profile gets, it’s not at all unreasonable to think he would never even notice a single like. Unless he’s literally looking at his phone right now, surely by the time he checks, a dozen more people will have interacted with the post and our names will all be grouped together. Surely as many people as like his posts, he must not even read all the names—