Nothing. I couldn’t form words. She was there in front of me, and I had no idea what to say. What did I say in all those fantasies I had? I know I had to have said something before we got to the making out part. What was it?
“Excuse me,” she ground out from between clenched teeth, and I stepped back out of surprise. Scout took the opportunity to slide around me and out the door.
She was running from me? What the hell? Never in any of my fantasies had she run from me. She actually looked scared, like I was some crazy unknown stalker…
Which is probably exactly what I looked like. Actually, once I thought about it, “crazy unknown stalker” was a pretty accurate description. What else would you call a guy who secretly watched you for years and obsessively thought about you every day?
The way I saw it, I had two options. One, I could get all broody and morose over the fact she didn’t know who I was and hadn’t been searching for me her whole life like I had been searching for her. It was the easier of the two choices, since it’s what I felt like doing, but no one likes a brooder. I know. I live with Liam Woe-Is-Me Cole on a full-time basis. So, I would have to go with the second option, which was to do this the old fashioned way. Talk to her. Charm her. Give her a chance to know me, and once she did, make her fall in love with me.
I could do that, right? It couldn’t be that hard, could it? We were destined to be together.
Filled with resolve, I snuck a peek at the school map hidden in my Calculus book and headed to my next class. On the way, I tugged out my phone and punched in a message to Liam.
“I found Scout!”
His reply came back not fifteen seconds later. “Stay away from the Hagans.”
Of course. I find the love of my life, and my brother is more concerned about Shifter stuff. Like I didn’t already know to stay away from the local pack.
My next class was some sort of hippie-dippie class about Shakespeare. If it had been up to me, I would’ve been in something like Wood Shop, trying to learn an actual useful skill, but when you register for classes the day before the new semester starts, you don’t get a lot of say in what you take.
The theater was on the other side of the school, which meant I had to hike across the upper level of what was possibly the world’s nicest and most expensive high school gymnasium. On the floor, a group of guys I pegged as the basketball team, thanks to the collection of State Basketball Championship shirts they all sported, goofed off. I slowed my pace as I watched them. One of the guys, the shortest on the team, slid around the other players with ease before jumping up to slam the ball through the net, hanging on to the rim for a second before pouncing back down to the ground.
Shifter! My instincts screamed, but I promptly dismissed the idea. The Hagan Pack that Liam was obsessing over lived near the army base close to the Tennessee border, which was almost an hour’s drive further south. Liam and I would eventually be seeking them out, but it was still too early. We needed to do a lot more recon before deciding whether they were Alpha loyalists. Until then, we were staying in Timber and keeping a low profile. Obviously, my brain had made the Shifter leap thanks to Liam’s text and the guy’s almost unnatural talent.
I glanced over my shoulder one last time. The showoff was once again dribbling around his teammates, changing direction so quickly it was hard to keep up with the movement.
Almost unnatural talent? It looked a whole lot more like supernatural talent. I took a deep breath, but couldn’t discern anything over the smell of sweat, rubber, and stale popcorn.
Could there be another Pack we didn’t know about? Did the Hagans move their den? Was there another family of outcasts running around Kentucky?
On a normal day, at a normal school in a normal class, I would have gone through every possible scenario at least a hundred times so I would have something intelligent to say when I called Liam at lunch. But this wasn’t a normal day at a normal school in a normal class. This was my first day at Scout’s school, and this class was already one of my favorites since she was sitting in the front row.
“His last name is Cole,” she was saying as I slid into the seat behind her. I tried not to grin like an idiot over the fact that she was talking about me, but failed miserably. “I don’t remember what his first name is though. Some really generic ‘A’ name. Alan? Andrew?”
“Alex,” I added helpfully. She turned around, and I was once again struck momentarily speechless at the sight of her. “Should I call you Scout or Miss Donovan?” I asked, recovering quickly, but not cunningly.
“Scout will be fine.”
“I’m Talley,” said the girl I hadn’t even really noticed, lost deep in Scout Land as I was. Her friend had deep blue eyes and hair so dark it almost looked blue. She was like a curvier version of Wonder Woman. The smile she gave me was both apologetic and friendly as she stretched out a hand. When my hand touched hers, a tingle shot up my arm.
Seer.
And now my imagination was really running away with me. First I thought I saw a Shifter on the basketball court, and now I was turning Scout’s friend into a Seer. Liam was making me paranoid.
“Nice to meet you, Talley,” And, just because I wanted to see how Scout would react, I said, “Cool name. Very non-generic.”
The best thing about a girl with snow white skin? You don’t have to be paying attention to see her blush. But when you are, it’s like every pore gets pink at its own pace. I had seen the dream version of Scout’s blush a million times, but seeing it in person was a new and wonderful experience. Another ice cream treat, this time with a cherry on top. I could have stared at her for the rest of the class. Heck, my day was pretty free. I wondered if the teachers would object to me staying right there in front of her for the next few hours.
“Thanks,” I heard Talley reply. I tried to look at her to be polite, but I couldn’t talk my eyeballs into it. “My mom went into labor with me at O’Talley’s restaurant. It was the only thing her post-childbirth drug addled mind could come with when they asked her for a name.”
Something about O’Talley’s restaurant set off little alarms in my head, but I was too busy coming up with something to say to Scout to pay attention.
“Cool. And how does one become a Scout? Are you like a super cookie salesman?”
Scout narrowed her eyes. “It’s because my name is Harper Lee.”