Finding Cinderella (Hopeless #2.5)(7)
“Oh, my bad,” Sky interrupts. She points back and forth between Ice Cream Girl and me. “Six, this is Dean’s best friend, Daniel. Daniel, this is my best friend, Six.”
I’ll never get used to hearing Sky call him Dean, but her introduction gives me an excuse to look over at that spoon again. Six pulls it out of her mouth and points it at me. “Nice to meet you, Daniel,” she says.
How in the hell can I steal that spoon before she leaves?
“Why does your name sound familiar?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe because six is a fairly common number? Either that or you’ve heard of what a raging whore I am.”
I laugh. I don’t know why I laugh, though, because her comment really wasn’t funny. It was actually a little disturbing. “No, that’s not it,” I say, still confused as to why her name sounds so familiar. I don’t think Sky has ever mentioned her in front of me before.
“The party last year,” Holder says, forcing me to look at him again. I’m pretty sure I roll my eyes when I have to look away from her, but I don’t mean to. I’d just much rather stare at her than at Holder. “Remember?” he says. “It was the week I got back from Austin and a few days before I met Sky. The night Grayson pummeled you on the floor for saying you took Sky’s virginity?”
“Oh, you mean the night you pulled me off of him before I even got the chance to kick his ass?” It still irritates me just thinking about it. I could have had him if Holder hadn’t stepped in.
“Yeah,” Holder confirms. “Jaxon mentioned something that night about Sky and Six, but I didn’t know who they were at the time. I think that’s where you heard her name.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Sky says, waving her hands in the air and looking at me like I’m crazy. “What do you mean Grayson pummeled you because you said you took my virginity? What the hell, Daniel?”
Holder puts a reassuring hand on Sky’s lower back. “It’s cool, babe. He just said it to piss Grayson off because I was about to kick the idiot’s ass for the way he was talking about you.”
Sky is shaking her head, still confused. “But you didn’t even know me. You just said it was a few days before you met me, so why would you be pissed that Grayson was talking shit about me?”
I stare at Holder, too, waiting for his answer. I never thought about it then, but that is odd that he was pissed over Grayson’s comments when he didn’t even know Sky at the time.
“I didn’t like how he was talking about you,” he says, leaning in to kiss Sky on the side of the head. “It made me think he probably talked about Les the same way and it pissed me off.”
Shit. Of course he would think that. Now I really wish he had let me kick Grayson’s ass that night.
“That’s sweet, Holder,” Six says. “You were protecting her before you even knew her.”
Holder laughs. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Six.”
Sky looks up at him and they smile at each other, almost like they have some sort of secret, then they both turn their attention back to the pictures on the floor in front of them.
“What are those?” I ask, inquiring about the pictures they’re looking through.
“For the yearbook,” Six says, answering me. She sets the bowl of ice cream on the bed beside her, then pulls her feet up and sits cross-legged. “Apparently we’re supposed to submit pictures of ourselves as kids for the senior page, so Sky is going through the pics Karen gave her.”
“You go to the same school as us?” I ask, referring to the fact that she included herself in the explanation of the assignment. I know we go to a huge school, but I have a feeling I would remember her, especially if she’s Sky’s best friend.
“I haven’t been to that school since junior year,” she says. “But I’ll be there once Monday rolls around.” She says it like she’s not at all looking forward to it.
I can’t help but smile at her reply, though. I wouldn’t mind having to see this girl on a recurring basis. “So does that mean you’ll be joining our lunchroom alliance?” I lean forward and grab the bowl of ice cream she didn’t finish and pull it to me, then take a bite.
She watches me as I close my lips around the spoon and pull it out of my mouth. She scrunches up her nose, staring at the spoon. “I could have herpes, you know,” she says.
I grin at her and wink. “You somehow just made herpes sound appealing.”
She laughs, but her bowl is suddenly ripped from my hands by Holder and he’s pulling me off the bed. My feet hit the floor and he shoves me toward the window. “Go home, Daniel,” he says, releasing his grip on my shirt as he lowers himself back to the floor next to Sky.
“What the hell, man?” I yell.
Seriously, though. What the hell?
“She’s Sky’s best friend,” he says, waving a hand in Six’s direction. “You’re not allowed to flirt with her. If the two of you mess around it’ll just cause tension and make things weird and I don’t want that. Now leave and don’t come back until you can be around her without having the perverted thoughts I know are going through your head right now.”
For the first time in my life, I think I’m actually speechless. Perhaps I should nod and agree with him, but the idiot just made the biggest mistake he could possibly make.