Crushed (12 page)

“Cleo,” he’d started as he slid into the
driver’s seat and reached for her
.

“Is tha
t what everyone thinks of me?” she’d whispered as she
backed away from him. “Is that what they say?”

Reece shook his head. Appalled. “No, Cleo, not at all.”

“People at school?”
she
asked, clarifying. “Is that what
they
think of me, too?”

“No,” was his firm reply.

She
didn’t wonder until later if they
did
and he didn’t know. Or maybe they
didn’t
because she
was lucky enough to be with Reece. And Reece Hilde
n
brandt wasn’t the kind of guy that got made fun of. Ever.

“I don’t want your money,”
she
told him.

The concept was so ludicrous that the words sounded crazy rolling off of
her
tongue. As if what? Reece was going to pay
her
to date him? Or she
was just going to swipe so
me cash right out
of his wallet? Landon thought she
was after his money? What did that even mean? How could
he
think that?

“I’m going to start paying for half of our dates
,” she
insisted. As far as disag
reements went, that had been their
biggest one. He
always
insisted that he ate dinner at
their
house too
often; eating groceries that Cleo ha
d had to pay for
. S
o he never let her
pay when
they
did go out. Never mind that he frequently ordered pi
zza for him and her
and Luci. And often Paul ate the leftovers.

“No,” he said forcefully.
“
Just…
no
.”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to argue and she didn’t trust her
voice.

“About my dad,” he began.

She shook her
head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
But the truth was
, she couldn’t talk about it. She
was a master at keeping tears away bu
t there was a limit, even for her
.

“Good,” he said, “because what he thinks means less than nothing to me. Other than
that, there really isn’t much to say. Except I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

She let him pull her into his arms then. She
let his kisses wash away the hurt of his father’s words.

If she
hadn
’t overheard him say he loved her
, if his actions hadn
’t proved it every single day, she
would’ve had the sense to walk away then.

She
should’ve walked away then.

But she’d had no idea how low Landon would be willing to go.

And w
aiting
had
only made it so much worse.

Chapter
8

Mr. Jessen was going off on a rant about the “phenomenal volunteer opportunities”
he ha
d
managed to scrounge up for
them
this year. Surprisingly,
or maybe not, everyone wa
s l
istening pretty intently.

Reece had
a phenomenal desire to
not
have the opportunity to volunteer at the animal she
lter. Or on the crew that cleaned
up the garbage i
n the ditches. So yes, Mr. Jessen seemed to have their absolute attention
. A
s Reece looked around the room, he could
see people making mental notes of what th
e worst of these opportunities we
re. The worst part? There
were
two other sections of this class. Apparently he ha
d
the volunteer options
evenly doled out on a roster. O
ne roster for each hour. Limited slots available on each.

He
was
giving
them
a rundown of what each assignment
would
entail
. Their assignments would last a month each. Then they would switch so everyone would
get a ‘well rounded’ experience over the course of the school y
ear. The good thing about that, Reece realized, wa
s that if you
go
t stuck with a c
rap-assignment, at least you knew there was an end to it. The bad thing was that you
we
re bound to be stuck with a crap-assignment at least once.

Also, each assignment was under the supervision of so
meone in the organization that they
would be working under. Mr. Jessen would get periodic updates as well as drop in
on
them
at random.

At first
Reece was glad that they
weren’t working in partners
just yet. He had told himself he wasn’t going to even look Cleo’s way. But his
eyes betray
ed him as they
drift
ed
on over to her.
His
lips twitch
ed when her nose crinkled
in distaste at the mention of the soup kitchen.
Reece thought,
Note to self: Add the soup kitchen to the list of places not to get stuck with
.

No surprise there. Cleo ha
d
an aversion
to cooking. Why? Because she could
n’t cook
, Reece knew. Her words, not his. He thought she could
cook just fine. Well, decent enough… m
ost of the time. If the recipe was simple. And if she remembered
t
o set the timer. And if she did
n’t try to substitute ingredien
ts. But otherwise, her cooking wa
sn’t bad.

Thoughts of Cleo’s culinary
questionability we
re shoved aside when
Mr. Jessen
mention
ed
raking leaves and other yard work,
winterizing for the elderly. Reece was instantly
interested in that, being outside
, not in some stuffy building. He had a feeling a lot of people we
re going to want that assignment. Before
Mr. Jessen was
done explaining it, Cleo
had tossed a glance Reece’s way. He was caught. He was staring. She didn’t seem to
care.

Or did
she?

She raised her eyebrows at
him, questioning. He
wasn’t sure if it was
a
Can we do yard work
? question or a
Dude, why are you staring at me like you’re a lovesick loser?
question.

He
hoped for the best and assume
d
it was about the yard work. He managed to nod in agreement. He got a pleased smile
that was so intense it even made her eyes sparkle. It was enough to cause his heart
to misbehave again. It
started
thrashing around like
it
wasn’t
supposed to do anymore.

“Last of all,”
Mr. Jessen
announced as he skimmed the list once again, apparently double checking to be sure
he didn’t miss anything, “there are limited slots available at the elementary school.
We only have one opening for each class period.”

Cleo shot up in her chair and her eye
s were immediately on Reece’s
again.
She was silently p
leading with the cutest sm
ile. He
roll
ed
his
eyes because he wasn’t
sure what else to do besides
that
, smil
e back and nod to let her know he would
do whatever she w
ant
ed
. Her grin nearly knocked him
senseless.

It
was hard to miss that Natalie was glaring at him. But really, he knew he wasn’t
doing anything wrong.
Everyone
had
been
sharing
looks with their partners. They were
all
tryi
ng to send out silent signals in regard to
what
they did or did not
want to be doing.
Even Eli was trying to catch Natalie’s
attention
. B
ut she was
too busy
shooting daggers at Reece
to notice her partner.

He
made a face at
her
as he
shrugged.

This wa
s about an assignment. That
was
all.

Natalie finally
let
out an annoyed huff as she
turned away.

Cleo raised her eyebrows at him
. She’d seen the exchange with Natalie. She
gave him
an apologetic look but her smile stayed in place.

Reece smiled back. They
could b
e friends, at least. Couldn’t they? He thought they
should be able to be. It made more sense to be friends with someone you’d given a
year of your life to than it did to pretend they didn’t exist at all.

Even if
they weren’t together, he
still wanted her to be happy.

He realized then how long it had been since he had seen Cleo actually smile. He had
seen her a few times that
week outside of this class. Twice in the morning
s while they were walking
in the halls
. A
nd a few tim
es after school. Even when she was
with Emma, sh
e never looked
all that happy.

Reece wondered if maybe she and Ethan we
re havin
g problems. For a nanosecond he was surprised that he felt bad about that; that he
felt
bad at
the thought of Cleo feeling bad. R
egardless
of the reason
. Then he
reali
zed it should be a relief for him. So he
kicked t
he whole thought right out of his
head and tuned back in
to Mr. Jessen.

Everyone sense
d
that Mr. Jessen wa
s about to w
rap things up so the room started to
buzz with noise.

“Listen up!” he shouted.
He stood there and waited until the room had settled back down. “We’ll do this outside.”
The classroom erupted again
. H
e made a motion for all
of them
to be seated. “T
here are a few things you should be taking into account when you make your sign up
choices. One, if you choose to drive yourself to your destination you must have a
signed permission slip. Two, these slots are limited so have more than one choice
in mind. Three,
remember that these
assignments will be on a first come, first serve basis! We’ll have this side,” he
motioned to
Reece’s
side, “sign up. And so it’s not so crowded at the sign up table, this side can proceed
to the lawn,” he pointed to Cleo’s side of the room.

With that, the class rose like a tidal wave as they spilled out into the hallway.
Cleo, being closest to the door, should’ve been the first person out of the room
. Natalie had darted out of her
desk. She
dodged in front of Cleo
to “accidentally” slam into her as she was walking by. A pile of papers spewed from
Cleo’s folder
. They cascaded down
onto the floor.