“And pretty sure you now know I could kick your behind, so why don’t you let me handle this?” I whispered back. That wasn’t true, of course. If David hadn’t been rattled, he would’ve remembered this morning, when I hadn’t even been able to slap him. But at least I got a little satisfaction out of seeing him go pale.

“Fine,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Thank you,” I huffed back.

“David!” Saylor called again, and this time, there was a definite edge to her trill.

“Tomorrow,” he said again, pointing at me.

“Tomorrow,” I agreed.

Chapter 10

“SO ARE you mad at me about yesterday?”

I gave a shuddery sigh as I slid into the passenger seat of Bee’s car the next morning. Thank God, she’d made a Starbucks run before coming to pick me up. I took a scalding sip of my latte, then nearly choked on it.

Bee always got me a skinny vanilla latte. This was a triple espresso that was so strong, I was surprised my teeth hadn’t melted. Then I noticed how rigidly she was sitting in her seat, and that the rap music she liked was especially aggressive today.

For a second, I sat there, trying to figure out why I would be mad at Bee. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, worrying about why Ryan wasn’t answering my calls. I must have called him at least ten times, but he’d never picked up. And when I hadn’t been worrying over that, I was thinking of Saylor Stark, the look on her face when she’d seen me grabbing her nephew. God, what if she’d heard me use the F-word?

Then I remembered. Bee had done the Cotillion prayer for me yesterday, and she’d sent like three texts last night that I hadn’t responded to.

“Of course I’m not mad at you,” I said, but I must not have sounded very convincing.

“You seem like you are. Harper, you always answer my texts. And a couple of people said you had a big fight with Ryan yesterday and ditched school.”

My heart stuttered in my chest at that. Oh God, had Ryan told someone what happened? Did the entire school know I’d flipped him like a freaking omelet?

But no. No, if Ryan had told anyone, it would have been Brandon, and Brandon would’ve told Bee, and Bee definitely would’ve mentioned that first. I tried to keep my sigh of relief quiet before replying, “I told you, I was sick.”

I reached out to turn the radio down, but Bee slapped my hand. “No touching my tunes until you ’fess up. Were you really sick, or did you have a fight with Ryan?”

“I was sick,” I insisted again. “Remember the night of the Homecoming Dance? I . . . I must have some kind of bug.”