Etched in Skin

5. Fucking Excuse Me?

There he sat, calmly sipping from his beer. Everything about him made him stand out from the crowd. The lawn was covered in either dancing teens or red solo cups, yet he was sitting alone on the deck. No one dared to go near him at this point, no matter how drunk they were. He sent goosebumps over my skin. He wasn’t even looking at me this time!

Calv opened my door and raised a perfectly trained eyebrow. It had shaken me out of my thoughts. I didn’t even realize that he had already parked and turned off the blasting music. I stepped out of the vehicle and nodded my thanks. Jax wrapped his arm around my waist and pressed a light kiss to my cheek.

“Hey, Ly you okay?”

I felt a hand on my shoulder and my head slowly turned to face Calvin, my eyes sticking to the stranger who hadn’t even noticed I was there. My eyes snapped to my friend and I straightened my posture, suddenly aware of everything he was saying.

“Huh?”

“You okay? You’ve been acting weird all day?” He slowly rubbed my arm, probably sensing that I needed some sort of comfort.

“Oh yea,” I chuckled and shrugged off his hand lightly, “I’m fine, just thinking.” I gave him a short smile and turned to my boyfriend on the other side of me. “Hey meet me inside okay? I think I saw Ruby around and I want to talk to her about something.”

He gave me a quick nod and I returned it with a short peck. He stepped in front of me with Calv following in pursuit. Once they were a fair distance ahead of me, I made my way to the deck, my eyes trained on the blue eyed teen. He still hadn’t noticed me, as he was looking down at his drink.

“Who are you? Why do you keep staring at me?”

He gave a chuckle, not looking at me as if I wasn’t important enough for me to be graced with his attention.

“Principessa, no one was looking at you.” His thick Italian accent was a surprise to me. Yes he was tanned but I wouldn’t have guessed his ethnicity from that alone. Maybe I’m just borderline racist? Not important.

 
“What the hell is a Principessa?” My eyebrows furrowed and I cross my arms. I had a feeling that it would be the obvious answer.

 
“Didn’t you take Italian in intermediate?” He finally decided that I was good enough to be looked at, and turned to face me. His features were harder than I realised and the scar on his face was deeper than I thought. “It translates to Princess.”

 
Yep. Just as I thought. The goddamn most obvious answer.

 
“Why can’t you be normal and just add an ‘a’ at the end?”

 
“You ask a lot of questions don’t you Principessa?”

 
“Don’t call me that.”

 
“Whatever you say.” He paused. “Principessa.”

 
At that point I wanted to slap him. This idiot was getting on my nerves and it took all my strength to not lash out. Instead I settled with a look that just screamed ‘answer the fucking questions’ and sat next to him.

 
He rolled his eyes and sipped his beer. “I’m Asher. No one really knows who I am. Unlike you, Lyra Parsons.”

 
I stiffened. He knew my name. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised because of who I hung out with but the fact that he knew mey last name gave me chills down my spine. And I would at least recognise him if he was in any of my classes. He had noticed my frigidness and grinned. The grin looked good on him, but it just made me more afraid than before.