Alone (6 page)

Mac purses his lips, and it’s completely obvious that he’s trying to fight back a smile. “You’re a dick.”

He shoves me, and even though it makes every one of my bruises from the day before throb, I shove him back.

I open my mouth to say something else, but the words are cut off by the sound of the door opening behind us. I turn just as Jules walks in, and I can’t deny the tightening in my stomach or the fact that my pulse picks up a few notches when our eyes meet.

Damn. This girl is going to be the death of me.

Chapter Five

School

I’m so jittery when I walk through the door that I almost slam right into Roman. He’s standing just inside, laughing with another boy, and I skid to a stop less than a foot from them. They both turn, but for some reason I can’t quite explain, the only thing I can focus on is Roman. His eyes are so...captivating and serious.

“Juliana,” he says.

How does he know my real name?

Heat creeps across my face, which makes him smile, but he doesn’t say anything else. I shuffle nervously from foot to foot, waiting for one of the guys to say something. He just stands there, though. Looking cool and relaxed. Hot.

Wait. Hot? Why did that pop into my head?
Roman is not my type. Not at all.

“Jules,” I finally manage to squeak out. That’s how it sounds. Like a tiny, insignificant animal making a noise.

“Jules.”

His voice is thick and smooth, and the sound of my name on his lips sends a shiver shooting down my spine. The corner of Roman’s mouth turns up, and his eyes trail down my body. Slowly. More heat moves through me, and once again I find myself squirming. The look he’s giving me is too intimate. Almost as like he’s been here before and is giving in to the memory.

The boy next to Roman clears his throat, and I focus my attention on him, eternally grateful for the distraction.

“You going to introduce us?” he asks with a teasing smile.

Roman returns his grin, and I get the impression I’m missing something. Like they’re laughing at an inside joke.

“This is Mac.” Roman tilts his head toward the other boy. “Jules is the daughter of the new JO from D.C.”

Mac bows in an exaggerated way, giving me a second to size him up. These two don’t seem to fit together at all. While I have Roman pegged as a juvenile offender, Mac seems more like a nerd—for lack of a better word. He’s tall and thin and carries himself with an exaggerated awkwardness. Like he knows his social status and has decided to embrace it. His hair is on the long side, like Roman’s, but it’s clear by the way he constantly flicks his head to the side that it’s new and he isn’t quite comfortable with it. Even the tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve screams nerd. It’s the Apple symbol. An odd choice, considering the company is now nonexistent and obsolete.

“All set for your first day of learning?” Mac asks in mock seriousness.

I smile despite my continued discomfort under his friend’s piercing gaze.

“Mac should really be teaching the class.” Roman’s voice is flat, almost bored.

I study him as he flicks his head, moving his hair out of his face. The gesture looks different than when Mac does it. It seems like an unconscious action, while Mac acts almost irritated by the hair being in his eyes.

Roman’s hair moves to the side, revealing an ugly bruise by his left eye, and without thinking, I let out a gasp.

“Where'd you get the black eye?” Mac asks.

Roman leans against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. “Kyle and I had a disagreement last night.”

“Over what?” Mac snorts, but he doesn’t seem surprised. Odd. Kyle seemed nice to me…

Roman’s answer is a shrug.

He leans his head back and stares up at the ceiling like he’s avoiding Mac’s gaze. Like he doesn’t want the other boy to know why he and Kyle were fighting.

Mac lets out an exaggerated sighs as he shakes his head. “How many times have I told you to just let the whole team Edward thing go? You’re never going to change Kyle’s mind.”

Roman looks at Mac with a raised eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I mean, at the risk of getting punched in the face, I’m going to have to side with Kyle on this one. I’m team Jacob all the way. Edward was dullsville, but Jacob kicked some serious vampire ass.” Mac turns to me. “Don’t you think so, Jules?”

My mouth drops open and my cheeks grow warm at the sudden attention. Mac lifts his eyebrows while he waits for my response, and every inch of him looks totally serious. Like this is an issue that has torn families apart, not a silly thing from the past that never really mattered to begin with. At Mac’s side, Roman studies me with a little half-smile on his face.

I focus on the floor.

Yes, I’ve read the
Twilight
books. Even saw the movies. My mom and I always went together. But did I have an opinion on this…

“Um…” I gnaw on the inside of my cheek while I search for an answer, then tear my gaze away from the floor and say, “Edward in the books and Jacob in the movie?”

Both Mac and Roman smile, and fire spreads across my cheeks.

You are the biggest nerd in the world, Jules!
I scold myself.

Mac was joking, but I’d answered him seriously anyway. Why couldn’t I have come up with something funny to say? Something like: Jacob, but only if he puts a bag over his head.

Mac doesn’t even bat an eye. “Roman is a huge
Twilight
fan. He’s read all the books and at least once a month he makes us all get together for a movie marathon. He even has a team Edward shirt that he sleeps in every night.”

I blink, trying to decide what to say to all that, but Mac doesn’t let up. He goes on and on about Roman’s obsession, and the more he talks, the more I find myself relaxing. Next thing I know, I’m laughing.

Roman, who is the butt of Mac’s joke, doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t look pissed off either. He just stands at his friend’s side with a smirk on his face and his arms crossed over his chest as Mac describes in detail Roman’s man crush on Edward Cullen.

Watching Roman stand quietly off to the side while Mac talks makes me understand him just a little bit more. He’s evolved. Things are different since the infection, and Roman has somehow figured out how to stay himself but fit it into this new life at the same time. Mac is part of that.

Carmen appears in the hall behind us and crosses her arms, putting on a mock frown. “Shouldn’t you guys be heading up to class?” She’s staring right at Mac.

Mac’s cheeks turn bright red and he tries to form a few words, but they don’t quite make it out of his mouth.

Roman laughs and slaps him on the back. “We’re going. Come on, Jules, we’ll take you up to the biggest waste of time you’re ever going to experience.”

Roman walks off without looking back, and Mac trails behind him. I smile at Carmen before running up the stairs after them.

Roman was right. School is a huge waste of time. It’s basically just Roman, Mac, Viki, and me sitting around, talking and pretending to read whenever the teacher comes back to check on us.

“Is this what we do every day?” I ask Viki.

She nods and shrugs at the same time, rolling her eyes. “Yeah. They have like, two teachers who go back and forth between the classes. It’s stupid.”

“How many classes are there?”

She purses her lips and looks up for a few seconds while she thinks. “There’s one class for kindergarten through third grade, and then another for like, fourth through sixth grade. I think. Then they have seventh, eighth, and ninth together. And then us. I think. Whatever, there are four.”

I have to fight back the smile that threatens to break across my face when Viki talks. It isn’t easy. She’s really nice and bubbly, but a total ditz. I have her pegged as the perky cheerleading type. Every time she gets up from her chair and bounces across the room, I find myself imagining pompoms in her hands.

Ms. Lloyd pops her head into the room, her eyes scanning the group like she’s counting to be sure no one has left. Since there are four of us, it seems a little like overkill. “Everyone working?”

We all nod, and Ms. Lloyd mimics it before hurrying off to teach the younger kids. I had the assignments she gave us at the beginning of class done in less than thirty minutes. I’m not sure if I’m done for the day, but I do know she is not qualified to teach high school students.

To me, Ms. Lloyd looks more like an old school librarian than a teacher. She has her brown hair pulled back in a bun—an actual, real-life bun. It would be completely out of place on her since she can’t be more than twenty-eight years old, except that she dresses like she’s in her forties. The denim skirt she’s wearing goes down to her ankles, and the pink, hideous cardigan looks like something straight out of a movie from the 1980s
—
complete with shoulder pads—and her glasses are way too big for her thin face.

My first thought when she walked into the room: cat lady. I find myself smiling as I picture the scene. Ms. Lloyd curled up on her couch on a Friday night, holding a glass of wine and a book while her fifty-two cats roam her one-bedroom apartment. Calling them her
babies
and making them little dresses in her free time.

“What’s so funny?” Roman asks, making me jump.

I turn to face him, and the second my eyes meet his, the butterflies take off, beating their wings against the walls of my stomach. I didn’t realize Roman was watching me.

I shrug as warmth creeps up my neck to my cheeks. “Just daydreaming.”

“About Cate?” He raises an eyebrow and glances toward the door Ms. Lloyd just disappeared through.

“Not like that.” I roll my eyes. Why are boys so gross?

He smirks and leans closer to me. “I’m not going to believe you unless you tell me what you were thinking.”

I sigh but can’t hold in my smile. There’s something about Roman that isn’t the least bit intimidating. Instead, I find being near him relaxing. Even with the butterflies attacking my insides.

“There’s this thing I like to do,” I begin.

“Now I’m really curious.” He tosses his head to the side to get his hair out of his face.

My cheeks are on fire, and even though his brown eyes are intense, there’s something warm and inviting about the look he’s giving me.

“Lately, when I meet someone new, I can’t help wondering what their lives were like before the infection. So, I turned it into a little game.” The scrape of chairs against the floor distract me from Roman’s gaze, and I turned to find Viki and Mac watching me as intently Roman is. “Um…so, I make up backstories for them based on what they look like or how they act.”

The butterflies’ wings flap at full speed, and to my horror, my armpits grow moist. They’re all watching so intently. What will they think? Maybe telling them isn’t such a good idea. What if they want to know my impression of them? What if they get mad?

“Sounds like fun,” Mac says.

Roman is still watching me intently. “What about Cate? How do you see her?”

I hesitate, worried that he might be friends with her and will think I’m a jerk. For some reason I can’t quite explain, I find myself blurting it out anyway. “Cat lady.”

Roman raises a pierced eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitches.

“Cat lady?” Viki says, her face scrunching up as she tilts her head to the side.

Mac elbows her. “You know, crazy single chick with hundreds of cats.”

Viki still looks lost, so I smile and describe the image that went through my head while Ms. Lloyd was giving us our assignments.

A smile breaks out across Viki’s face as understanding dawns on her. She giggles and nods, her blonde bob bouncing with the movement. “That is
so
her! Now do me!”