A Good Boy Is Hard to Find (The Naughty List #3)(15)
Author: Suzanne Young

Instead, Joel stepped forward and took my hand from my crutch, holding it in his. “We should probably talk.”

I stayed mostly silent as Joel led me to my house, held the front door, and let me in. The inside still smelled like last night’s lasagna, and it was almost calming. But it wasn’t until I was sitting (un)comfortably at the kitchen table that Joel actually began speaking.

“How bad was school?” he asked quietly, sitting across the linen-cloth-covered table from me.

“Badly bad. People where calling us all sorts of horrible names.”

He winced and looked down at his fingers as they twisted the tablecloth. “Damn. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Why weren’t you there? You were part of the reason I went.” Well, that and the fact that I didn’t want to look defeated.

“I … just didn’t feel like going. After I heard about your accident, I was out of my mind with worry. Then I started getting the calls. People are very angry with you.”

“Are you angry with me?” In a way, I’d wished I’d told him myself. But it was too late for that now. I needed to accept whatever he said.

“Do you really spy on people?” he asked.

Sheesh. I wasn’t expecting him to dive right in. “Sometimes.”

He shook his head and looked away from me. “Ever spy on me?”

“No.”

“What about your ex-boyfriend?”

Uh-oh. “A couple of times.”

Joel scrunched his face as if he didn’t like the sound of that. “You know that most of the school hates you right now?”

“I got the picture. You know, with all the name-calling and messages. But feel free to elaborate if you need to.” I admit I was getting a bit snarky. I mean, yes, Joel was upset hearing about my double life, but he didn’t need to rub it in.

“Don’t be like that,” he said quickly, spreading his hand across the table. “I just got dealt a huge blow here, Tessa. I mean, you’re a f**king spy. That’s kind of crazy.”

“Could … could you not swear?”

He stared at me for a second and then laughed. “Don’t be cute,” he said. “Right now I want to decide what to do about you, and I can’t think clearly if you’re being adorable.”

I smiled, my anxiety easing. “You think I’m adorable?”

“So adorable.”

“That’s nice. Thank you.”

Joel stood up, slowly walking around to bend down in front of me, checking out my cast. He ran his hand down it slowly, as if it were bare skin. I felt my breathing catch.

“I don’t like what you did,” he said quietly, continuing to caress my calf. “I think it was completely unethical.”

“So does my father.”

He flicked his eyes toward mine, a small smile on his lips. “Guess that’s something he and I have in common.” I nodded. He grabbed a pen from the table, his fingers grazing just above my cast, behind me knee. He put the pen on the plaster and began to write something.

But his touch. Good gravy, it felt nice. My eyes closed as he continued to hold me there, continued to press against my skin.

“Did you know that my parents are divorced?” he asked offhandedly.

My eyelids fluttered as I looked at him. The blue pen was scrolling across my cast, writing something I couldn’t see. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

“I live with my mom during the week but stay at my dad’s on the weekends. It really sucks, splitting my time like that. They hate each other.”

I swallowed hard. “My parents are divorced, too,” I said. Joel stopped writing and looked up at me.

“What? Don’t … don’t you live with both of your parents?”

“Yes. But they got divorced when I was in seventh grade. I think my father was seeing another woman.”

Something flashed behind Joel’s eyes, but he looked away and wrote a final word on the cast before standing up. He paused there, really close. Then as if rethinking it, he tossed the pen onto the table and backed away before going to sit across from me again. I was out of breath. I missed him touching me.

“What’d you write?” I asked as I tried to lift my heavy cast to read it. It took a bit of head twisting, but I was finally able to make it out.

“In 3 months, the leg under this cast will kick your a**, so don’t even think about messing with me. Oh, and Joel is cute!”

I burst out laughing. He even drew the stars to block out the bad word! “People aren’t going to think I wrote on my own cast,” I said, grinning over at him.

“No, but they will know that you think I’m cute.”

He had me there. I sat back in my chair, glad he was flirting with me. At least, that way I knew he’d overlook my newly destroyed social status. He was a keeper.

“So,” he drummed his fingers on the table, “what’s the deal with school? Are you expelled?”

“Leona is skilled in the art of negotiation. We’re suspended for two days.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“She is skilled.”

“I know!”

“I’m glad. It’d be really boring at school without all the cheerleaders flitting around in short skirts.”

I raised my eyebrow. He coughed and then cleared his throat.

“I mean without you there with your perky attitude?”

“Thanks.” I smiled, but I saw his face grow more serious as he looked back at me.

“Tess,” he asked. “You are done spying, right?”

I froze at his question. No, we were definitely not done spying, but that was level-one top secret. “Yes,” I lied. “Completely done.”

“I’m glad. It’d be hard to defend you if you still were.”

Would I ever learn? Keeping things from the men in my life always came back to bite me in the backside. It was just that this time, it was really important. I was torn.

“Are you still going to cheer?”

I flinched. “Flying monkeys! Of course, I am. Why would you think that?”

“Broken ankle?”

I straightened my posture, ignoring the fact that there was not only a bright white plaster cast on my leg but also an unsightly black boot over it. “I am perfectly capable of leading a cheer squad. Besides, most of it’s spirit and not physical.”

Joel’s eyes widened like maybe he thought I was crazy.