Rise Like The Sun

CHAPTER TEN

NICK

"They're saying you broke a chair, tore down a Picasso, and tried to stab Madison with a butter knife," Theo says as he kicks the ball towards him.

Nick splutters and stops. "What?"

Will is shaking his head. "I heard it was a fork," he puts in helpfully, tackling him easily and taking the football from him. "Apparently, you tried to stab her with a fork, first and then you tried to break the chair."

"Which doesn't make sense," Theo adds. "Because why would you try to stab her and then break a chair?"

"You know what also doesn't make sense?" Nick says, attacking Theo and Will both, using his heavy frame against them, and tearing the football away in triumph. "Me breaking a chair and ruining a painting, when all I did was flip a small table."

"What about trying to stab Madison?"

Nick pauses, looks tempted. "Well, much as I'd really want to –," He breaks himself off, snickering at Will, whose eyes widen like saucers, as he shakes his head. "No, I didn't stab the bitch."

Though God only knew she deserved it.

He's never been so infuriated by a single person so much before.

Not even Mitchell has achieved such a feat but Madison Sutton, with her designer wardrobe and her ice-cold gaze, her barbed words, infuriates him. For all her beauty, there's nothing but a manipulative, raging bitch lying underneath the surface, brimming over and dripping with expensive, fancy jewels.

And yet...

He's sure he's gotten under her skin, just as much as she gets under his, but she did save him from a week's worth of detentions from Mr Bates, who is really growing unhealthily obsessed with him. They're no longer snarling at each other but the air between them has shifted, a little, in light of it and so, in the most sensible way, they'd both chosen to successfully ignore each other. He'd saved her and she'd saved him back. They could now go on with their lives, unmarred.

Plus, his mother would not have been happy. She'd even asked him if he had anything to do with the pranks and through the haze of feeling affronted, Nick had had to remind her that he's not been in Redwood long enough to pull off pranks. Plus, his pranks would be slightly more sophisticated and way better than shutting the school down, but Nick had thought better of telling his mother this particular sentiment.

The air between them is still fraught and tangible now, he thinks. His mother is walking on eggshells around him, choosing every word she uses with delicate precision, in an attempt to make him not feel like a file.

Nick is still wondering when she'll give up.

He's so lost in thought that he doesn't notice Theo managing to get the jump on him. The football-mad boy takes the ball from him easily, crowing with laughter as the bell rings. Nick laughs and tackles Theo again, grabbing the ball from him, before they move towards history, through the throng of rushing students.

The students part before him, again, and Will and Theo are cracking up in glee.

"They're all scared to death of you," Will tells him, his smile too wide against his face.

Nick rolls his eyes. He's too thick-skinned to let strangers get him and though Madison's attempts at getting him expelled have stopped, the whole thing does all seem ridiculous.

"Do they think I'm going to stab them all?"

"Well, that's just stupid," Theo points out. "You're not that fast. You can't stab them all, not without being stopped."