Oh, shoot. I turned just as Ryan rounded the corner. He was holding his cell phone in one hand, a look of total confusion on his face.

“Ryan,” I said, trying to make myself smile. I guess I thought if I just smiled a lot, Ryan wouldn’t think there was anything unusual about me arguing behind the chapel with David.

But Ryan wasn’t even looking at me. He was glaring at David, towering over him by at least four inches. “What the hell is going on?”

David dropped his hand. “Nothing, man,” he said to Ryan. “We were just talking about the paper. That’s it.”

Ryan was looking between us, an unfamiliar expression on his face. It took me a second to realize that he was angry. More than angry, really. He was furious. And Ryan never lost his temper.

“Why can’t you just leave her alone?” he asked David. Ryan’s jaw was clenched, and I’d never seen his hazel eyes look that cold. “I mean, other than being better than you in every class, what has Harper ever done to you?”

David must have been as weirded out by Angry Ryan as I was, because for once, he didn’t have a smartass response. His skin went a little pale, and I could see the whites around his blue eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. You’re right, I’ve been a dick, but I swear to God, I wasn’t bothering her. I was sitting here first, and she just—”

“Save it,” Ryan said, holding up a hand. “Whatever your little war on Harper is about, it’s over. I don’t want you to write one more damn word about her. I don’t want you to talk to her. I don’t even want you to look at her.”

I knew that Ryan was trying to protect me, and maybe I should’ve been thrilled to watch my boyfriend go all alpha male for me, but instead I felt . . . irritated. “Ryan, I told you I could handle this.”

“But you haven’t,” he fired back, his voice unnaturally loud in the quiet behind the church. The breeze had died down, and there wasn’t even the rustle of leaves. It was hard to believe that only a few hundred feet away, kids were eating lunch, talking, laughing. “This guy is a jerk, and you’ve just taken it for years. I get that you’re sucking up to his aunt, and that you want to be nice to people, Harper, but damn. You don’t have to be a doormat.”

“I’m not sucking up!” I said, just as David moved forward, saying, “Take it easy, Ryan—”

And then everything exploded.