The Race

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When we got through the doors, I pulled my hand from Kier’s.  “What is wrong with you?” I asked.  “Do you know how much trouble you could get into when you did that?”

“No,” he said.  “And I don’t really care.”

We walked toward the elevators and everyone was looking at us.  Kier’s face still looked like he wanted to go back and do more damage to the guy by the pool, but instead he reached back and grabbed my hand again.  I didn’t pull away.

“But still,” I said.  “You could get kicked out for doing that.  I’ve seen it before between two contestants and they got kicked out an hour later.”

“Well, then, it’d be good for you, right?”

“Kier,” I said as we stepped into the elevator.  “You yourself told me that you wanted to make a better life for yourself.  You don’t want to jeopardize that, do you?”

Kier turned to stand in front of me.  I felt Isla step back as he did, watching us intently like something was going to happen.

“I don’t care.  He shouldn’t have been doing that to you,” he said, looking down at me.  “I had to get you out of there somehow and if that was the way to do it, then so be it.”

I stared up at him with wide eyes.  “I don’t need protecting,” I said quietly.

“Sometimes even you do,” he said just as quietly.

Kier turned back just as the elevator doors opened up and he walked down the hallway to his room.  He looked back over his shoulder at me and then went inside.  Isla and I stood there for a moment before we started toward our room.

“Oh, my God,” Isla said.  “Why can’t you just make those rumors true?”

“Isla,” I said warningly. 

“Lennox, do you seriously not like him?  Even a little?”

I pulled our room key from the front pocket of her bag and opened our door.  She stood outside the room looking at me with a confused expression on her face as to why I’d rushed in so fast.  I gestured for her to get in and, when she finally did, I closed the door behind her quickly.

“God, Lennox, what’s wrong?” she asked, putting her bag down on the floor.

“Why do you think you can ask those questions out in the hallway?” I asked, walking toward the couch.  I sprawled out across it and covered my face with my arm. 

“It’s not like cameras can…hold on,” she said in a voice that made me look at her.  “Where you worried that Kier was still by his door and could hear?”

“No, I…”

She squealed and rushed to stand in front of me on the couch

“You really can act like a teenage girl!  You like him, don’t you?” she asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. 

“Isla, I do like him, just not like you think,” I said.  “Are the rumors starting to get to you, too?”

“Lennox,” she said in a serious tone, though her eyes were anything but.  “You can tell me whatever you want and I won’t go blabbing to the tabloids.  You know I’d never do that.  I’m your friend.”

Isla was my friend, pretty much my only one outside the Race.  I knew she loved gossip, but she wouldn’t go around spreading it, even if it was juicy.

“Fine,” I groaned.  “I like him a little too much for my own good.”

Isla squealed again, a little too high-pitched for my liking.  “I knew it!” she gasped.  “I knew from that moment when I watched you look at him when he was going to sit beside you at the assembly!”