If this was what being popular was all about, you could stick it.

Fifth year at high school was turning out a lot different than my last few years. My old friends had become scarce as I’d opened up and grown more confident, and my new friends were outgoing – they participated in a lot of extracurricular activities at school, but mostly they were utterly, completely, and totally boy crazy.

I was only crazy for one boy, but he’d graduated.

“Eh, Hannah?” Kieran, one of the guys in our group, walked over to me, looking a little nervous. “Can I talk to you?” He nodded toward a corner where we’d have a little privacy.

Sadie grinned mischievously. My stomach dropped a little when I realized where this was going.

Reluctantly, I followed Kieran over to the corner.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looked back at our friends, and then turned to me with a shaky smile. “So… I was, eh… I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me sometime?”

Crap. I hated this. I hated rejecting anybody. “Oh, Kieran, I’m really flattered.” I smiled with a shrug. “But I think we should just be friends.”

He frowned. “That’s it?”

I nodded, wondering what else I was supposed to say.

He made this snorting, huffy sound and turned on his heel, striding angrily back to the guys. Whatever he said had them looking over at me in puzzlement.

I gritted my teeth, two seconds from deciding to walk away from every single one of them, when Sadie came hurrying over. She looked pissed off.

“What is your problem?” she asked, arms crossed over her chest. “Three of the guys have asked you out in the last two months, Hannah, and you’ve said no to every single one of them. They think you’re a lesbian.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course they do. It’s easier to believe that than the fact that I don’t fancy any of them.”

“Kieran is hot.” Sadie pouted. “Do you think you’re too good for him?”

Why were we friends again? “No. I just… I think I like older boys.” It was mostly true and I was hoping it would get her off my back.

Thankfully, this was the right move. It was something Sadie could understand. Her expression cleared and she was just about to open her mouth to say something when a tall, familiar figure caught my attention.

My heart immediately started pounding.

Standing by the window, near the escalators, was Marco. My eyes followed the broad planes of his shoulders, then moved upward to his profile. My heart raced harder, a sharp ache piercing my chest as I realized he had a girl pinned against the railing near the window. The pain intensified as he bent his head to kiss the girl.

Really, really kiss her.

I think my heart shattered into a million pieces.

I looked at the floor, attempting to unsee things while I tried to catch my breath.

Marco and I had kept in touch since he’d graduated and moved on to Edinburgh College. He was working part-time at his apprenticeship while he did the carpentry and joinery course. I knew this because we still hung out. We talked on Facebook, texted each other, and every now and then he’d call me and I’d go meet him somewhere, like I’d done that night at Douglas Gardens. Nothing romantic ever happened, and he never said anything as sweet to me again as he had that night, but I had been beginning to hope the sexual tension I felt between us was mutual. I was sixteen now. Guys told me I was pretty and I knew I looked older than a lot of the girls my age because of my height and my figure. I was hoping Marco would see me differently. But nothing had changed.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew there were other girls, because some of them had bragged at school about hooking up with him.

It was different seeing it with my very own eyes, though.

Sadie snapped her fingers in front of my nose. “Did you not hear me?”

I blinked, trying to breathe through the pain of unrequited torturous idiotic love. “What?” I asked sharply.

“I said I heard a rumor that Scott Wilder fancies you. He’s older.”

“Scott Wilder? The sixth-year?”

Sadie nodded excitedly. “He told his friend Jamie and Jamie is Amanda Eaton’s big brother. Jamie told Amanda, who told Vicky, and Vicky told me. Scott is so hot, Hannah. You’d be so lucky!”

And so it was with the burn of disappointment in my gut that I found myself saying, “Yeah. He is.”

Sadie’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God! I’m totally telling Vicky to tell Amanda.”

Disappointment turned to anger, and I lifted my gaze and looked over at Marco as he put his arm around his date and walked her onto the escalator. “Don’t bother,” I told her. “I’ll friend Scott on Facebook. We’ll go from there.”

I swore Mum and Dad to secrecy when I told them I was going out on a date. My family – as in Braden and Adam – could get really overprotective and I didn’t know how they would react to the fact that I was dating. To my surprise, Mum and Dad were okay with it, and despite Dad’s glaring an alarming amount at Scott when he picked me up for our date, they acted cool enough about the whole thing. Well, Mum did.

“You look great.” Scott beamed at me as we walked away from my house.

It didn’t feel right using Scott to get over Marco, but we’d talked a little lately and Scott actually seemed like a really nice guy. And I’d have to be dead to think he wasn’t hot. He was good-looking and he was taller than me. That was always a plus. I’d decided to give tonight a real shot and since he was taking me to D’Alessandro’s for dinner, I also decided to dress up a little. I was wearing a shift dress that came to just above my knees and I’d looped a belt around my waist to give my figure definition. Heels would have worked with the look, but I’d gone with flats so I didn’t end up towering over Scott. It felt a little strange going to Marco’s uncle’s restaurant for my first date, but since he didn’t have a great relationship with his uncle, I knew there was no chance of bumping into him.

“Thanks. You too.” And he did look good. He was wearing a pair of suit trousers, a shirt, and a waistcoat. Very dapper.

He grinned at me and I wished, oh, how I wished, it had made my stomach flip like Marco’s grin always did. “I’ve wanted to ask you out for ages.”

I smiled. “Well, here we are.”

“You’re not like other girls, Hannah. You’re so confident and smart and gorgeous. It’s a little intimidating.”

I made a face. “Believe me, I’m not intimidating.”

Scott didn’t look convinced.

I didn’t want anyone putting me on a pedestal. Ever. “Okay. I snore.” I nodded in earnest. “I can’t lie flat on my back if I’m sleeping in company because of it. And not normal snoring. It’s this weird, breathy kind of snoring that’s almost as annoying as elephant snoring. I know because my sister once recorded a video of me on her phone. I’ve been afraid to sleep in a room with another human being since.”

He threw his head back laughing, just as I’d intended him to do.

“When I was little I called my dad’s great aunt Virginia Aunt Vagina the whole time we were visiting her. My parents were mortified and had no idea how to explain my inappropriate error to me, so I pretty much called her that until I understood the difference.”

By this time Scott was choking on laughter. We reached the restaurant and he held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m no longer intimidated.”

“Good.” I smiled at him as he held the door open for me and we stepped into the warmth of the restaurant.

Scott gave his name to the hostess and she led us through the front dining room and into the back dining room to a cozy table for two.

There was a little awkwardness when we sat down so I resorted to my fallback – teasing. “So, cradle snatcher, how does it feel to be on a date with a sixteen-year-old?”

“It helps that she doesn’t look sixteen. And anyway, a little birdie told me you’re seventeen soon.”

“In a few months.”

“We’ll be seventeen together then. Late birthday,” he explained. “I don’t turn eighteen until my first semester at uni.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve applied to all the usual, but we want St. Andrews.”

“We?”

“My parents are really involved in my academic career.”

“That’s good. Sometimes —” I stopped talking, the words deserting me as my eyes clashed with Marco’s.

What the hell?

My gaze drank him in, taking in the stained apron tied around his waist and the tray of dirty dishes in his hands. Marco was a busboy for his uncle? Since when?

I moved my lips, curling them into a smile that quickly disappeared as I processed Marco’s expression. His gaze flicked from me to Scott and back to me again.

His jaw clenched, and his knuckles turned white as his grip on the tray tightened. There was unmasked fury in his eyes.

My mouth fell open in shock as he turned on his heel and marched out of sight.

“Hannah?” Scott asked, drawing my gaze back to him.

“Sorry. I thought I saw…” I smiled weakly. “Never mind. What were we saying?”

I worked my arse off to remain present in the conversation because Scott was nice and charming and down-to-earth. He wasn’t some huge, brooding American who kept throwing me dirty looks anytime he had to come into the dining room.

After the main course, Scott excused himself to go to the restroom and as soon as he was out of earshot, I twisted my head to look at Marco. The restaurant was too busy for me to shout his name, but I waited until he felt my gaze. He looked at me and I waved him over.

He gave me a slight shake of his head and walked out.

I felt that rejection so acutely I lost my breath for a second.

I never saw him again for the rest of the evening and any attempt at not being distracted was lost to me, as I was lost to thoughts of Marco. I didn’t understand what had happened. Was he jealous? And if he was jealous, then why on earth hadn’t he asked me out a long time ago? It wasn’t like I hadn’t made it clear I liked him. Right?

Scott walked me home and I managed some one-word answers. At my door, I gave him a distracted kiss on the cheek and disappeared inside, feeling confused, guilty, and more than a little bit tired of the whole thing.

CHAPTER 5

“Miss?”

“Miss Nichols?”

“Miss!”

I jerked my head up, my unfocused gaze refocusing on the class in front of me. They all stared at me in question.

Shit. I’d completely zoned out. Unfortunately, that had been happening more and more lately. Ever since I’d found that bloody photograph of Marco and me, I kept being assaulted by memories of my time with him. It was beyond distracting and annoying.

I blinked a few times, trying to shake the specter of Marco as I searched my desk and attempted to remember what the hell I was talking about.

Right. Of Mice and Men and symbolism.

Pretending I hadn’t just taken a nap in the Halls of Forgotten Youth, I pushed on like I was perfectly aware of my surroundings and what we were doing. “So?” I sat down on the edge of my desk. “To end our discussion on symbolism in the book, why do you think Steinbeck titled it Of Mice and Men?”

Looking around the room at my third-year class, I saw a lot of brows furrowed in thought. The one brow that was usually furrowed in thought, however, today wasn’t. Tabitha Bell was one of my students who continually answered questions. She was bubbly and clever and I could usually count on her to fill any awkward silence. During the parts of the class when I had been fully present that day, I’d noticed that she was just looking down at the table and I didn’t hear a peep coming from her. I’d decided not to force her to participate. Something was clearly up.

“Come on, guys, think about it?” I urged.

The bell rang.

“Okay,” I said over the sound of their packing up and rising chatter. “Listen,” I called out, drawing their attention back to me. “I want you to come in tomorrow with an answer to my question. Why do you think Steinbeck titled it Of Mice and Men?” I was more than a bit annoyed with myself. We hadn’t been able to discuss it in class because of me, and I knew at least ninety percent of them would Google it and seize on a multitude of right answers they hadn’t come up with themselves.