Buried secrets, two girls with the same face, and a boy who loved too much.
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When Travis and Nicole meet on a bus for the first time, he thinks she's his ex, Rachel, who broke his heart two years ago. But he doesn't understand why she's pretendin...
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MY SCHEDULE changed.
Right after school, Merlinda drove Jahdiel and me to my house to begin our preparation right away. The study session was intense, but Jahdiel kept up with me. Beneath all that quiet gentleness, she was as smart as a whip.
Two hours later, I was at the Connors.
I couldn't focus on the moves Cornelia taught me. My mind was troubled. It was still on Jahdiel, on what had happened earlier.
Even though sometime during our studies I'd tried telling her again she should reach out to Heath, she'd merely smiled and nodded. And from the faraway look in her eyes, I knew she wouldn't.
That wasn't my only distraction. The boy that swam shirtless in the backyard pool also had a piece of my mind in his pocket.
I couldn't help but sneak occasional glances at him as he moved effortlessly through the water. His movements weren't sharp and angry like they'd been at the beach house, but there was still a restlessness I could detect that unnerved me.
Guilt. Sadness. Anger. Longing. They crawled up my throat like ants.
Jolting myself back to the present, I tore my eyes from the window and watched closely as Cornelia did the coolest layback spin I'd ever seen.
"How do you move your body like that?" It was impossible to keep the envious whine from my voice. She was fast, agile, and graceful as fuck.
"Practice," she said simply, shrugging. Then squinting at me, "You're not really focused today."
"Boyfriend problems," I said dryly. She snorted. "You think I don't have a love life?" I clutched my chest. "I'm insulted."
Huxley strutted in just then, looking like he owned the goddamn place. I made the mistake of trying to reach out to pet him. He shot me another of those nasty looks that proclaimed losers-are-not-allowed-to-touch-this-million-dollar-fur and dashed to Cornelia.
"Boy, I save your life, and this is how you repay me?" I sneered at him. "Maybe I should've let you join your ancestors after all."
He didn't even spare a loser like me a look as he rolled over to get his stomach scratched.
Cornelia laughed, a genuine one, and it was so unexpected I couldn't even tell which one of us was more surprised. She'd never laughed around just me before, except for a few condescending chuckles here and there.
She immediately cleared her throat and reached down to scratch Huxley. "I have homework today," she said. "I'm afraid we won't be able to do two hours."
