LITMIR.BIZ

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angry gorillas at the zoo. And they’d probably look better in this,” I said, holding up one of the plastic-wrapped dance tops.

      Peyton glared at me for a second, then shook the insult off and shrugged. “I just thought you should know what everyone else is saying. But you can still turn it around. It would go a long way toward convincing people you still have the team’s best interests in mind if you were to help Laura see the light. Think about it, Sophie. Think hard.”

      She stood with her box under one arm, and I tried to make her trip over her wedge heels with the power of my hatred alone. When the door slammed shut behind her, I took a deep breath and stood with the remaining box, already plotting how best to bring Peyton down.

      Clearly, I’d sheared the wrong friend….

      When I was sure Peyton was far enough ahead of me that I wouldn’t have to stare at the back of her head, I lifted the last box and tucked it under my arm. It wasn’t heavy, but it was big and awkward, and it seemed to poke me in all the wrong places. Like Peyton’s mouth.

      At the end of the hall, I rounded the corner, thinking of all the reasons I deserved to be team captain and she didn’t. I was up to “Peyton thinks better on her back than on her feet” when a classroom door flew open in front of me and smashed into the entire length of my body. An ugly grunt of pain exploded from my mouth and the hall tilted around me as I went down on my butt, and the box of uniforms slid across the floor.

      “Oh, shit, are you okay?” A guy knelt at my side, and I blinked, stunned, trying to draw reality back into focus as my vision doubled, then threatened to multiply.

      “That depends. Are you triplets?”

      He laughed. “No, there’s only one of me.”

      And one was plenty. As my vision merged, his eyes were all I could see—dark brown, with tiny flecks of green and gold in his irises, like jewels had gotten caught there. They were beautiful.

      Or maybe that was the concussion talking….

      He brushed a strand of hair from my forehead and frowned. “Looks like it’s gonna bruise. I’m sorry ’bout that.”

      I’d never seen him before. I would have remembered those eyes.

      “How do you feel?”

      “My face hurts. And I’m a little dizzy,” I admitted, surprised by the dazed, echoey sound of my own voice.

      He grinned, and his smile was as nice as his eyes, and suddenly I was even dizzier, but I couldn’t blame that on my fall. “Well, that’s what you get for walking into open doors.”

      Irritation flared inside me, and his face zoomed into clear, crisp focus. Straight nose. Strong chin. Smooth, dark skin from some exotic heritage I couldn’t pinpoint. “I didn’t walk into anything. You—”

      “I’m kidding. That was totally my fault.” His smile widened and I kind of forgot what I was saying. And that I was still sitting on the floor. “Before I put you back on your feet, we better make sure there’s no permanent damage. Do you remember your name?”

      I rolled my eyes. “Sophie.”

      “And what day of the week is it?”

      “Tuesday.”

      “Good. I think you’re okay, Sophie, but just to be sure—and this is for purely medical purposes—what’s your phone number?”

      I laughed out loud. “Does it usually take blunt-force trauma for you to score a phone number?”

      “This is a first, but a potential concussion does seem to be an icebreaker.” He stood and reached for my hand. I gave it to him, but instead of pulling me up, he frowned, and his eyes narrowed, staring into mine like he was looking for more than just irises and pupils, and tiny red veins.

      “What’s wrong? Am I bleeding?” I touched my nose with my free hand, desperately hoping it wasn’t swollen from impact with the door. That would be just my luck. A beautiful boy literally knocks me off my feet, and it turns out he can’t stop staring because I look like the loser in a boxing match.

      “No, I just thought I felt… Nothing. Never mind.” Then he blinked and finally pulled me to my feet. “There’s no obvious damage. In fact, you look pretty damn good for someone who just got smashed in the face with a door.”

      His hand lingered in my grip until I reluctantly pulled mine back.

      “What’s this?” He knelt to pick up a dance shirt that had fallen out of the box and half escaped its plastic wrapper. Then he held it up in front of me, obviously trying to picture me in the skimpy, snug halter top.

      “It’s a uniform. I’m a dancer.”

      “I could tell by how gracefully you crashed to the floor.” His mischievous grin widened. “You wear this?”

      “Yeah. Well, I haven’t worn this one yet, but I will.”

      “And you’re going to dance around in it? In front of people?”

      “I don’t ‘dance around.’ I perform. It’s a sport. It takes a ton of discipline, and practice, and stamina.”

      “That sounds more like football. I thought dance was about grace and beauty, and self-expression through movement.”

      I blinked, surprised, and he laughed. “It’s written on the side of your box.”

      I glanced at the box on the floor. Beneath the manufacturer’s label, the definition of dance he’d quoted was printed in a pretty, scrolling font.

      “So which is it?” He raised his brows in challenge as he watched me with a quiet smile. “A sport or an art?”

      “It’s both. An athletic art.” Although, at the competitive high school level, it was usually just a bunch of choreographed jumping around and gyrating to recorded music. “You have to have perfect control over your body in order to make it say what you want to express.”

      “So, you’re saying that you wear this—” he held the top up by one strap, and for the first time, I realized how little material was actually there “—while you express things with your perfectly controlled body? And you have a lot of stamina?” His brows rose suggestively. “I think I’m gonna like this school.” Then he offered me his right hand to shake. “Did I mention my name is Luca Tedesco?”

      I shook his hand briefly, and too late, I realized his smile was contagious. “You’re new?” I said, taking the uniform top from him.

      “I start next week.”

      “Senior?” He was tall. Nicely built. He could be a senior.

      “Junior. You?”

      “Sophomore. But only for the next couple of months.” Then school would be out for the summer, and I’d return as the first ever junior-year captain of the Eastlake dance team. “So, what were you doing in there?” I asked, glancing past the door that had nearly killed me into the empty history classroom beyond.

      “Looking for a little excitement.”

      “Did you find it?”

      “I have now.” He looked right into my eyes again, and again I wondered what he was looking for. “I feel bad about nearly killing you with a door. Let me make it up to you? I could carry this box full of hard-core sports attire…wherever you’re taking it.”

      “No, that’s okay.” Like I was gonna let the pretty new boy anywhere near Peyton before I’d had a chance to thoroughly stake my claim.

      “Since I’m the one who gave you this bump…” He brushed hair back from my forehead, and I winced when his fingers touched a tender spot just above my temple. “I think you should let me do the heavy lifting, until you’re fully recovered.”

      Well, if you insist… My afternoon was looking better already.

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