Jealousy Best Served Devious (Clash Of Cliches Book 1)

Chapter 2- A Twist in the Tale

Chapter Two

A Twist in the Tale

Hastily, and as quietly as I could, I backed up till I was hidden by the neighbor's hedge, gaping at the Shelly and Vince make out show through a hole in the hedge. It was the lab partner thing all over again, of course. I knew that was gonna be trouble. Why, didn't I tell Brandon as we walked out of class after being assigned to our various partners- 'this is gonna be trouble'?

Ever the sensible one, (or so she says) Shelly rubbished my claim, saying that I had an overactive imagination. And now, a mere two days later, she's smooching Vince in her own driveway and I'm the one with an overactive imagination? Oh, hell no.

The crazy thing is, I should have known that this was going to happen, or guessed or something! After all, wasn't that the most popular cliché of them all? Guy and girl hate each other for most of their lives, get assigned to do a project together and end up falling for each other?

I covered my face with both hands, sinking to my knees in drama queen mode. How was I supposed to know that cliché would one day apply to Vince and Shelly? And why hadn't she breathed a word about this to me? Wasn't I supposed to be her bestie?

Not that I was entirely sure exactly what was going on there. I mean, sure, they were kissing, but that didn't really mean anything. Shelly kissed guys like she was gunning to win a make out award. It never meant a thing to her, but this new aspect was worrying me. After all, hadn't Vince and Shelly been giggling together in class today as Vince's BFF Tyler (yes, the very same Tyler who is constantly feuding with the love of my life and calls me Aayla Secura because he knows I hate it) snored beside them? Shelly never giggles with guys. She makes out with them and dumps them to the side when she's done. When Shelly giggled with a guy, something must be up. What that something was I didn't know, coz it had never happened before.

Just as I was working myself up into a frenzy, a hard object hit my butt and bounced off. Only divine intervention prevented me from shrieking. I whirled around, ready to give whoever it was who had deigned to bounce a freakin' basketball onto my ass a piece of my mind, and found myself looking into the teasing chocolate brown eyes of Tyler Li.

He smirked at me as he bounced the basketball with his free hand, his tiny black and white dog running over my feet. Show-off. Just because he probably knew I couldn't dribble if my life depended on it didn't mean he had to rub it in by doing it with one hand!

"What the hell, Tyler?" I hissed, rubbing my sore butt and glaring at him.

Tyler shrugged his well-built shoulders lazily, ignoring the fact that his dog was nipping at my ankles, yapping furiously. Stupid creature. Oh, and dumb dog.

"Sorry." He shrugged nonchalantly, making every effort in the world to sound as insincere as possible. "I was aiming for your head."

I rolled my eyes. "Humph." Now was not the place or time to get into a confrontation with Tyler, even though, given the current mood I was in, I would have welcomed it. But I had more important things to do, namely spying on people, and I turned back to the hole in the hedge, hoping that Tyler would take the hint and leave.

Wishful thinking.

He peered over my shoulder just as my stomach let forth an unnaturally loud rumble.

"Damn, Aayla, was that your stomach?"

He snickered loudly in my ear as I heaved a beleaguered sigh. Do me a favor, call me Aayla one more time... Of all the people in the world, I had to cross paths with this sucio imbecile.