RAMSAY.

I walked into the class and saw two empty seats. One was in the front, and another was in the back next to the cool guy in the group, my cousin. He was laughing at what two guys in front of him were saying, but once he saw me, his laughter died down and he straightened in his seat. Here was my dilemma.

Yes, Alex was right. The whole keeping-the-cousins-quiet thing had been dumb, and it was already shot. Alex hugging me and putting his arm around my shoulders had cemented that. If our relationship weren’t already around school, it would be by lunch. My cousins were seniors and they were top shelf. But Clint and I? That was a whole other dynamic.

He got me in trouble.

I got him in trouble.

We got each other in trouble. We were the trouble twins.

But today, right now, I didn’t want trouble. So I hugged my laptop tighter and headed for the seat in the front. He harrumphed as I passed. “Chicken shit?”

The guys all choked. “Dude. Why?” one asked. I swung around because, goddamn it, he’d already lit the fuse attached to my Clint bomb. It was permanently inside of me. “Excuse me, dipshit?”

The room went silent.

“Damn!” The same guy laughed.

Clint rotated on his stool so he was facing me, the same height as me standing. The tables were high-top chemistry tables.

He smirked.

“You’re new. Why the fuck are you going to sit up front? Sit here. We’re the cool guys.” I smirked right back. “Funny. When you have to explain that you’re cool, it makes you not cool.”

His eyes darkened, but I saw the flash. Clint loved this, loved when we fought. He leaned forward, placing a hand on the empty stool between us. “You’re scared. Don’t think you can handle hanging with us?”

The class was silent, listening. I had no doubt we were the new entertainment. Alex had been so right it wasn’t even funny.

I glared. “I can hang, honey. I just don’t want to.”

To our credit, the words weren’t really controversial or particularly mean for us. If we wanted to, we could really go at it. We had a complicated relationship, but everything was more dramatic since Clint was popular and no one knew who I was. If they knew this was a family dispute, half the people would’ve already gone back to their daily programmed conversations.

Just then, the teacher entered the room and sighed. “Clint, this is the new girl. Are you already flirting with her?” Clint’s face screwed up in disgust.

I whirled around. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want to vomit in my first class here.” A few kids gasped, but Clint snickered.

His friends laughed too. One whispered, “She’s sassy. I like it.”

“Don’t go there.” Clint’s voice cut off on a growl.

“What?” The guy was confused.

“Miss . . .” The teacher looked at his attendance sheet. “Williams?” He looked up for confirmation. I gave a quick nod. “I’m Mr. Leonard,” he said. He looked behind me and scanned the room. Then his eyebrows pulled together, and he went over the list again. “Where is Mr. Raiden?”

No one said a word.

“Clint, where is Mr. Raiden?”

Clint glanced at me. “I don’t know. He had a fight last night, so he might not be in today.” The teacher let out a frustrated sound before returning to his current problem: me.

“You can have a seat with Miss Harthorne in the front.”

“What?” the girl in front protested. “I sit alone, Mr. Leonard. You know I have claustrophobia. I don’t know her. I’ll be claustrophobic if a stranger sits next to me.”

Another frustrated sound gurgled from Mr. Leonard’s throat. His eyes went flat. “Then sit with someone who won’t give you claustrophobia because you won’t be claiming an entire table to yourself and forcing three other students to share. Choose.” Her mouth fell open, but when the teacher didn’t change his mind, she squeaked, shoved up from her seat, and looked over the class. She looked at Clint.

I looked at Clint. He looked at me, a plea in his eyes. He did not want her to sit with him.

Just then, the door swung open, and I wasn’t prepared. Someone should’ve told me because the guy who walked in was the most gorgeous specimen I’d ever seen, on or off screen. I got a little light-headed. He was tall and lean, with a strong jawline. His shirt was kinda tight, but not embarrassingly so. More like tight in all the right places. His biceps were delicious. He had a tribal tattoo running around his arm, and when he raked his hand through his hair, I could see the same line on the underside as well. There was a peak of it under his sleeve.

His chin had a dimple in the middle, and his cheekbones were high, shaping his face so his lips were fucking mesmerizing.

Golden. That was the best word to describe him.

A golden god.

I’d thought my cousins were golden, blond triplets, but not like this guy. His eyes were dark and piercing, his hair a dirty blond and the kind of messed up that showed he didn’t give a fuck, and it worked because it made everyone want him. Like, immediately. I felt punched in the face, followed by another hit to my chest, a third to my stomach, and a knee to the vagina. It was . . . not a reaction I wanted, and because of that, I hated this guy. I shouldn’t be scowling, but I was. I couldn’t help it. He also had a decent black eye, and the right part of his face was banged up. The side of his mouth was cut and swollen as well.

“Ah, Mr. Raiden,” the teacher said. “You have graced our school with your presence this morning.”

I waited for the teacher to comment on his bruised face. He didn’t.

“We have found ourselves in a dilemma here. We have two empty seats. You and Miss Williams both need to claim one of them, but we also have Miss Harthorne who claims she’ll be claustrophobic if she sits with someone she doesn’t know.” He looked at me. “Please don’t take this personally. You’re new. Miss Harthorne is having a temper tantrum. This is common—”

“It is not!”

As the teacher spoke to me, I felt Mr. Raiden’s gaze come my way. Most times, I wouldn’t have been affected by such a casual glance, but this guy’s eyes trailing over me flooded me with feelings and sensations and shivers I did not want to experience. It only made me more pissed, and by the time he got to my face, he checked my lips, then checked my hostility. His eyes flew to mine, and his blatant interest was masked as he scowled back. I relaxed. Good. As long as we’d gotten that settled—I didn’t like him, and considering the fuck-you look in his eyes, it seemed he didn’t like me either. I really only had one option because no way I was letting the Harthorne girl take Clint’s seat and force me to sit with this guy.

“I’ll sit with Clint,” I announced and dropped abruptly onto the stool behind him. Or I would’ve. Clint pulled the stool away. It happened in slow motion. I heard the class gasp and then the laughter. I locked eyes with my cousin and saw him smirking at me. And as I was falling, I grabbed him. If I was going down, he was going with me. Once we both hit the floor, he shoved upright, but I twisted and kicked his feet out from under him. He fell back down, and then I was up, and I took his stool instead.

He jumped to his feet. “Get off my stool, Rams,” he growled.

My answer? I kicked out the one on the floor and said, “Go fetch.”

He glared at me but didn’t make a move to take me off his stool. He knew better. I’d grown up with this kid. We didn’t spend our time playing with stuffed animals, like I had wanted. We wrestled. We played football. Foosball. We did everything the boys wanted because they were the majority. I didn’t love it, but I’d learned to hold my own. Clint knew this. He and I had tangled the most, but we weren’t in one of our backyards right now. We were in his school, and he had a reputation to uphold.

I raised an eyebrow, and he grabbed my stool, slammed it back in place, and then scooped me up as if I weighed nothing. I made some sort of sound, and then he deposited me back on my stool. He returned to his with a huff. I’d forgotten how strong he was, and—I noted to myself—how strong Alex and Trenton would be too. We weren’t little kids scrapping anymore.

Everyone was gaping at us. Even the teacher. I didn’t look at Mr. Raiden. I already knew I’d be ignoring him forever and ever, but then Clint announced, “We’re cousins. It may not look like it, but I love this piece of shit.”

I found a good chunk of his underarm and twisted. He cried out before squashing my hand and wrenched his arm back.

“Don’t call me that,” I said hotly.

He sighed.

Tit for tat.

This time he gave in. “Fine. Sorry.”

The teacher had the last word. “Detention for both of you.”