Wish by Scarlett Haven Read Free Book Online

girls
says, pouting.
    Wow.
    This is really weird.
    “ Sorry, ladies. I’ll talk to you
at lunch, or something,” Salvador says.
    He follows me over to where Jade is sitting.
She’s got the whole table to herself, which is incredibly sad.
She’s got on a pair of headphones and an open book in front of her.
When she sees us walk up, the pulls the headphones from her
ears.
    “ Hey, Katerina. Alik,” she
says.
    “ Have you met Salvador?” I ask
her.
    “ No.” She face turns pink. “Um,
hi, Salvador.”
    “ This is my cousin, Jade Bello,” I
tell him.
    “ Your cousin kind of looks like
you,” Salvador says, taking a seat in front of her. “So, what are
you listening to?”
    “ It’s just… umm…” she holds out a
headphone for him. “You just have to listen.”
     
    Salvador takes the headphone and puts it up to
his ear. He grins. “Vivaldi. Nice. Which piece is your
favorite?”
    “ Summer,” she answers.
    “ We’re just going to go,” I say,
grabbing Alik’s arm and pulling him behind me.
    Jade and Salvador don’t look at us as we walk
away.
    “ Did you just set our cousin up
with a Russian terrorist?” Alik asks.
    “ Ex-terrorist,” I say. “And he
wasn’t really a terrorist. His dad is. He never had a
choice.”
    “ Whatever,” he says. “Let’s just
eat.”
    I look at my table, where Tristan is waiting
on us. “I don’t want breakfast.”
    “ Why not?” he asks.
    “ Because, I don’t want to see
Tristan right now,” I answer.
    “ He’s your bodyguard and trainer.
You can’t avoid him forever,” Alik says. “And my offer to beat him
up still stands.”
    “ It’s okay,” I say. “It’s not his
fault that he’s not interested in me.”
    “ Why do you think he’s not
interested?” Alik asks, as he walks with me out of the cafeteria.
My brother is sacrificing breakfast for me. He never gives up food
for anybody. I love him for it.
    “ Because, when we were in Russia,
he basically told me so,” I say.
    “ How so?” Alik asks.
    “ Well, I was straight with him and
told him, this is how I feel,” I answer. “And I may have asked him
to be my boyfriend. Then he said it was the guy’s job to ask the
girl. But he didn’t ask. We just stood there awkwardly for a few
seconds and he changed the subject. That’s it.”
    “ That doesn’t mean he’s not
interested,” he says.
    “ Maybe. But then he didn’t talk to
me on the way back,” I say. “And he barely talks to me now that
we’re back on campus. It’s like he changed his mind about me. I
mean, if you’re interested in a girl, you don’t ignore
her.”
    “ I don’t get it,” Alik says. “I
thought he was really into you.”
    I shrug my shoulders.
    I’m not going to pretend to understand
guys.
    And guys say girls are complicated.
     
    The most honest.
     
    Everywhere I go, bodyguards follow me. And I
was sort of used to it, with Tristan following me and Damon’s
bodyguards, but this is different. They’re closer than ever and
really, really obnoxious. Is this what Damon always went through? I
feel bad for him.
    The worst part of it all? Tristan is still
here. And he’s not talking to me. And I hate every second of
silence. But I don’t want to say anything, because everybody is
watching me. Maybe a little because I’m scared of rejection. As if
rejection isn’t bad enough, being rejected with an audience sounds
ten times worse.
    In the student lounge, my bodyguards aren’t
the only ones watching me. So are the other students. I know
they’re curious about what happened to me, but I’m beginning to
feel a bit like an animal in a zoo.
    They’re also curious because Damon isn’t back.
His dad wasn’t comfortable sending him back to school here, not
that I can blame him.
    “ I have got to get out of here,” I
say to one of my bodyguards standing close by.
    He says something into his phone. I hear an
“all clear,” come back through.
    “ It’s safe to head outside,” he
tells me.
    Oh my