Midnight Runes (The Bestowed Ones) by Celeste Buie Read Free Book Online Page B

embarrass me…I mean, set me up.
    I flashed a nervous smile. I had to hand it to her, she never lost her directness. It was a great quality, especially since she had wanted to be a journalist since middle school and searched for the story beneath the story. But it wasn’t nice when I was the story she focused on. It left me sweating bullets.
    She’d already insinuated enough, and I didn’t need her going into specific details of my personal life, which bordered on the pathetic, and I could feel the conversation going there. The last thing I needed was for her to like Landon.
    “She may not want to help me,” he correctly guessed.
    “He’ll do just fine on his own,” I countered Elyse, ignoring Landon.
    “I don’t think Brynn thinks very much of me,” he said mockingly.
    “Sometimes it takes her a while to warm up to someone new. What’s not to like?” she flirted for my benefit. It was her way of letting him know that if he wanted to ask me out, she’d support it.
    I’d had enough of them talking about me like I wasn’t there. “Okay, well Mr. Newland asked me to show him to his locker—check—and also to his first class, which happens to be the same as mine. We’ve got to go.” As I walked away, I called over my shoulder, “I’ll catch up with you at lunch, Elyse.”
    I swiftly walked toward the stairwell, leaving Landon behind. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Hey, sink or swim
, I thought, but Landon caught up to me in a few strides. I had to think of a new topic quick because I didn’t want to continue the same one I had left behind.
    “Are you always this abrupt?” he asked.
    “No,” I shot back.
    He laughed.
    “I’m not always this abrupt. I’m capable of expanding my answers, but at this particular time, I choose not to.”
    He laughed again. “Look, I get it if you don’t like me.”
    “I don’t know you enough to decide if you’re likable or not. So far, you’re not off to a good start.”
    “Exactly. You should give me a chance. We have a lot in common.”
    “The only thing we have in common is that we know the same person,” I retorted. “And if I remember correctly, he wasn’t all that excited to see you and your friends at his house, so that makes me not want to give you a chance.”
    “At the risk of sounding obnoxious, we also go to the same school and we’re in the same grade, so those are some other things we have in common. But that’s beside the point. In reference to the party, they are associates, not friends, and he didn’t do what he said he would, so we had to follow up.”
    “That is obnoxious.”
    “That’s alright. Trust is something that has to be earned.”
    Since I didn’t feel rude enough to tell him that it only mattered to me that I trusted family and friends with my personal thoughts, not random people—the category he fell into—I took in the atmosphere of the busy hall. I guess when you see the same people day after day, year after year, you really notice someone different. In this case, I happened to be walking next to that someone different, and it attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Groups of girls looked at him in awe and turned to each other to smile and whisper. Their excited looks irritated me more than they should have.
    I glanced at him to see if he was smug and loving it…or embarrassed and not wanting it at all. Surprisingly, he was completely unaffected.
    I don’t know why, but that earned him a tiny bit of credit with me. I resigned myself to be somewhat welcoming. As much as I could be. After all, there was information I wanted, and you get more flies with honey than vinegar.
    “You’ll like Mr. Lewton. Each year he’s voted one of our favorite teachers. He runs his English class as a Socratic seminar. He encourages us to discuss our views and opinions on current events, then write about them. But he’ll probably make you introduce yourself in front of the class.” I glanced up at him to see if I could