A shy high school senior jock and a closed-off girl battling an immune disorder fake a relationship to win a social media contest.
Being shy isn't easy, especially when you're the new kid at school. Scotts Valley's football program is subpar compare...
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"Brody." Two arms hung over the back of my bus seat, accompanied by Pierce's smug voice. "You know you could have any girl at school, right?"
"Huh?" I frowned and lowered my phone to hide my conversation with Paige. His look, for once, wasn't teasing or arrogant. "No?"
"Just saying," he replied. I had no fucking clue what he meant until he added, "Why the fuck are you dating Patches? What if you catch it?"
It. He didn't know what "it" was. None of them did, but Paige's condition wasn't contagious. I searched for psoriasis until my eyes strained and my brain turned to mush from the medical details. She was cursed with bad genetics, and "it" was very uncomfortable.
I glared at Pierce, whose ignorance stunk up the entire bus. The coaches sitting up in the first three rows ignored us.
"Brody should date whoever the fuck he wants," Nico muttered. My grateful smile dissolved as soon as he shuddered. "But, what does she have, bro?"
"If she hasn't told you, it's none of your fucking business," I snapped. "If it's contagious, wouldn't someone else have it too?"
Their collective silence was ridiculous. No one at school had what Paige did.
Pierce shoved a phone under my chin. "Consider this a favor since you're new."
I shoved his phone away until Paige appeared on the screen. In front of a row of tan lockers and a cloudy glass block window, she was in the girl's changing room. Lifting her arms overhead, she pulled off her shirt.
Heat burned my cheeks. She was so thin. Her rib bones pressed into definition when she sighed. Her hair wasn't pink, but a honey blonde.
Paige's bathing suit was modest but didn't hide anything. My heart thumped faster at seeing her bare back. She went from intriguing to hot in one trip to the beach, but in some weird way, I was glad no one here saw her exposed. She didn't deserve their gawking, which also made me a total creep during her moment of vulnerability. She showed me the most personal part of herself—the source of her discomfort, reasons for hiding herself, and daily harassment—and all I could think of was she hid a seriously banging body under those baggy clothes until other people stared at her.
This video though...churned anger in my gut the longer it played in front of me. A larger patch of pink spread across her back. She looked over her shoulder with a sad look in her eyes. The comments roasted her as being disgusting and contagious.
I wanted to break the phone or toss it out the window. Paige wasn't disgusting, but this video was. It was a violation of privacy, probably illegal, and these idiots laughed or acted grossed-out from a patch of pink skin. Forget the phone; I wanted to throw my whole damn seat out the window, followed by Pierce's stupid ass.
"What the fuck?" I slapped his phone onto his seat. "That's an illegal invasion of privacy."
"I didn't post it." He shrugged, inspecting his phone and closing the video. "Or take it."
