Charming the Cheerleader (The Bet Duet Book 1) Read online

  Or we wouldn’t.

  Either way, I didn’t care all that much. When I’d transferred here freshman year I’d thought being popular and accepted by the cool kids would be a dream come true. The funny thing about getting your dreams? They’re not all they’re cracked up to be. Dreams, like fairytales, are childish and stupid. The only things I cared about these days were plans.

  My plans.

  Plans for my future, which meant getting good grades and getting through high school with the minimum amount of drama. I was officially over popularity contests and I was through with boys. Maybe in college I’d meet a guy. Maybe by the time boys got to university they were mature enough to be trusted.

  My mind flashed back to the-scene-that-shall-not-be-named. I shuddered at the memory of my dad with his hands all over that near-stranger and his tongue shoved down her throat.

  Ugh.

  Maybe some guys could be trusted once they got older… But probably not.

  “Well, I heard he did time in juvie,” Allie was saying.

  I blinked as I tried to keep up.

  Erika scoffed. “That’s just a rumor.”

  Allie shrugged. “All I know is, the guys don’t like him.”

  ‘The guys’ were the male royalty of Talmore High. I was sure some high schools were all progressive and normal, but this school? It was stuck in another decade. One where there really were all the cliques you hear about. My last school hadn’t been like that—maybe it had been too small for that sort of thing. But this school had a very distinct social hierarchy. For a little while there, I’d been at the very tippy-top, at least within our class.

  Danny had been a hottie sophomore when I’d met him as a new freshman and for some reason I’d never understand…he’d taken to me. He’d sought me out. For a shy girl in a new school, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. With Danny came all of his friends—guys and girls.

  In a heartbeat, I’d gone from a quiet loner to the belle of the ball.

  Until Danny cheated on me, dumped me, and told everyone he did it because I was a heartless snob who thought she was too good for everybody else at this school.

  Everyone believed him, which was why I knew better than to believe these rumors just because ‘the guys’ said it was true.

  “Well, duh,” Erika was saying. “Of course the guys don’t like him. They probably hate the fact that there’s a new hottie in town ready to steal their women.”

  I wrinkled my nose at that. “Steal their women?”

  Erika laughed. “You know what I mean.”

  “If he’s as hot as everyone says he is, he can steal me any day,” Allie said, her tone a funny sing-song that made me and Erika grin before exchanging a knowing look. For all her talk, Allie would never ditch her boyfriend Kyle. Not because it was some great love match or anything but because they were an ‘it’ couple. She’d be at risk of being alienated and talked about like yours truly if she were to dump Kyle.

  Erika was the one who said it. “Please. You’d never ditch Kyle for some new guy who doesn’t play for the team.”

  The team was the football team. As far as the majority of Talmore High was concerned, the team was everything.

  “Oh my gosh.” Allie slowed her pace as we drew close to my locker. “Don’t look now.”

  This, of course, had me and Erika looking. “What am I not looking at?” But just as the last word escaped my lips, I knew.

  I saw.

  Oh holy cow, did I see. Somewhere in the distant recesses of my mind I heard Ace of Base singing I saw the sign. He wasn’t just a hottie, he was…he was like a movie star or something.

  I didn’t need Erika hissing, “There’s the new guy” in my ear to know that this guy was new. There was no way I would have missed him before. Tall, dark, and handsome. Cheesy and clichéd, I know but that was the way my brain initially categorized him.

  He was definitely tall—a little taller than Danny’s six-feet, by the looks of it. He wasn’t as stocky and broad as Danny, but he clearly had muscles. Tanned muscles that bulged beneath the short sleeves of his faded gray T-shirt as he held a sheet up in front of his face.

  Even from a distance, I could see the sharp angles of his jaw, his aquiline nose, his cheekbones. He had the look of aristocracy about him…or maybe that was just the confident air he wore like a second skin.

  The guy wasn’t even looking at me but I could see it clear as day.

  He was cocky. Entitled, no doubt. This was a guy who was used to having his way, used to girls fawning all over him, and familiar with being the center of attention. Particularly girls’ attention.

  How did I know? I’d dated a guy just like him last year.

  I knew the type well.

  The halls were crowded and everyone was staring. There was no way he couldn’t feel all the stares. As someone who was also incredibly familiar with that sort of attention, I knew exactly how well he could feel it. Like needles pricking your skin, those curious looks were the bane of my existence. But if this guy felt it—if he was even aware of the fact that he was the center of attention—he didn’t let on.

  Not until he looked at me.

  Like, directly at me. He half turned and his eyes clashed with mine as if he’d seen me standing there out of his peripheral vision and was calling me out on the fact that I was staring.

  Two things made me freeze like a deer in headlights, my brain growing too fuzzy for words to form and my mouth turning painfully dry.

  His eyes. That was the first thing I noticed. They were golden and…beautiful. There was no other word for it. They seemed to glow with warmth. The second thing? His smile—if you could even call it that. It should have a different name because ‘smile’ sounded way too benign. This?

  This was lethal.

  He had full lips that curved up on one side, slow and sexy, like we were in on some secret. It was the combination of that lethal grin and those warm eyes that was truly terrifying. His eyes said ‘come closer’ and his lips said ‘Run!’ It was amazing, really. The guy was like a walking contradiction. He looked intimidating yet approachable. Cocky yet humble. Terrifying yet so utterly compelling.

  And just like that, I had a whole new understanding of that phrase—a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  He stuck the folded up paper in his back pocket and slammed the open locker door shut without looking away from me. “There you are.”

  I blinked. His voice was low and just as sexy as his smile, but the fact that he was talking to me managed to drag me out of my stupor. He leaned one shoulder against the locker, seemingly oblivious that a handful of people were slowing down to watch him talk to me.

  Me. The ice queen. Danny’s ex. The silent snob, the heartless witch. There were many names for me in this school—none of them good.

  “You must be my welcoming committee,” he said. My braid started to take note of other things now…new reasons he was dangerously, mouth-wateringly hot. His dark hair was too long and mussed, and that sharp jawline sported a hint of a shadow that gave him an edge.

  He had an edge—a sex appeal. A grungy rocker vibe that had never been seen at our oh-so-preppy Talmore High. At least, not in the two years I’d been going here.

  The eyes were on me now, watching, waiting. They were waiting for me to respond. He was waiting for me to respond. I froze again. This time it had nothing to do with his smile and everything to do with me.

  See, I had problems. Not like real problems, just normal problems. Or at least, the therapist my mom forced me to go to a couple years ago assured me my inability to speak when nervous or scared was perfectly normal. I’d always been shy but the older I got the worse it became. I had no problem talking to family and close friends, but since my only real friends were currently standing right next to me, my conversational skills were somewhat limited at school.

  Danny knew that. I’d been so dazzled by the handsome football player that it had taken me three dates before I could utter a coherent sentence. He’d
said it was cute that I was so nervous around him.

  It didn’t feel cute right now; it felt like torture.

  Everyone was waiting for me to speak. The crowd of people watching were waiting for a witty retort. Just when I was about to go into a full-blown panic, this stranger kept talking, not seeming fazed by the attention or my silence. “I’m Conner, by the way.”

  I stared.

  I felt Erika and Allie shifting beside me. Impatient with me for not speaking? Or maybe nervous on my behalf. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Conner to truly gauge their reactions.

  Conner straightened away from the locker and took a step toward me, his eyes holding mine captive as the crowd in the hallway slowed and stopped altogether to watch the show we were putting on for their benefit. He took a few steps in my direction, his brows arching slightly as if amused by my continued silence. “And you are?”

  My breath hitched and a painful heat rose up in my cheeks as I tried in vain to utter my own name.

  Allie beat me to it. “Out of your league, loser.”

  Snickers surrounded us at her rude comment, but Conner’s easy smile never faded. His gaze didn’t even acknowledge Allie, which had to be killing her. She hated when she wasn’t the center of attention, and she hated even more when I was.

  His eyes raked over me from head to toe, taking in my cheerleading uniform with a glint of amusement that made me want to run and hide. I looked good in the uniform, I knew that. I might have been on the short side, but after years of ballet and gymnastics, I had great legs, which the short skirt didn’t hide. I might not have been giving Allie a run for her money in the curves department, but I filled out the uniform just fine, thank you very much.

  Even so, his eyes unnerved me. In the short time it took him to scan me from head to toe, I got the sense he’d catalogued every last inch of me, flaws and all. And then his gaze lifted to meet mine, a little darker and filled with intent. “Is that true, princess? You think you’re too good for me?”

  He didn’t have any malice in his tone, just amusement. He was waiting for me to give as good as I got. To say something snide and catty. Something like Allie would say. But for the life of me I didn’t know what that was. Like every other day of my life, I had this overwhelming feeling that I’d been cast in a play but hadn’t been given my script.

  Erika stepped in this time, moving forward slightly so she was inching in front of me, physically protecting me. Allie did the same on my other side. I knew they were protecting me, but I also knew that to everyone else they looked like my guard dogs. Like I really was the princess he’d accused me of being.

  He looked to them and back to me with an arched brow. A challenge.

  My chin tilted up in response, but I still couldn’t find any good words to end this awful scene. I wished I could crawl out of my skin at the feel of all those eyes on me. I hated this part of myself that always wanted to flee. I despised the fact that I still couldn’t seem to stand up for myself, not to Danny and his friends, not to my dad who still didn’t know that I knew about his affair…and now I couldn’t even defend myself to this stranger who was openly judging me when he didn’t even know me.

  “I see how it is,” he said, still no derision in his tone, just mockery. Playful teasing. His eyes caught mine and yet again I got this sense that he was treating me like I was in on the joke.

  If I was, I didn’t know why and it wasn’t funny.

  He straightened and shoved his hands into his jean pockets, slouching like he was so comfortable standing there in the middle of the hallway, the object of scrutiny. “And here I thought cheerleaders were supposed to be all…peppy.”

  Peppy sounded like an insult when he said it. Erika tossed her hair, a move I knew well. She was not a fan of anyone putting down cheerleaders. “And here I thought the losers from the projects went to school on the other side of town.”

  Everyone laughed. I should have been relieved, I supposed, that they were laughing at him and not me. But I stiffened at the crude insult. She didn’t mean it. I knew that. Erika might have come from money but she wasn’t a spoiled brat, she was just really good at playing the part of cold and heartless ringleader.

  Most people in this school would have cowered in the face of her now. I didn’t have to look over to know that she was wearing her nastiest sneer—the faintest hint of a smile making it that much scarier. One perfectly waxed brow would be arched as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  I’d seen her pull this pose on the poor, hapless underclassmen who ever dared to defy her at cheer practice. I’d seen her whip it out at parties on occasion when one of the guys had too much to drink and tried to get too handsy with any of the other girls on her squad.

  I was terrified whenever she pulled out the royal witch act, even though I knew her better than to be fooled by it. But this guy? He cast her a quick look, smirked like she was a silly joke, and then turned back to me with a wink and nod. “See you around, princess.”

  Not if I can help it.

  He headed in the opposite direction and I took off with Allie and Erika, my head held high like none of it fazed me either. Like my heart wasn’t racing erratically in my chest and adrenaline wasn’t coursing through my veins.

  There was no way I’d get near that guy again…not if I could help it. I mean, our school wasn’t that big that I could avoid him forever, but as I walked toward biology with Erika and Allie, the crowd in the hallway going back to their normal business, I knew that I could try.

  Heck, after that lovely interaction it’d probably be easy to steer clear. There was no way he’d be seeking me out now…right?

  Good.

  Good, that was what I wanted. Better to let them all think that I’m that snotty brat Danny had made me out to be. I didn’t need more friends, and I sure as heck didn’t need another guy. Especially not one like him.

  Eyes still followed us as we walked down the hallway, but nothing out of the norm. This had been my life ever since Danny and I split last spring, although the post-breakup gossip had died down a ton. I still heard some rumors—some snickers at my expense when I walked into a room. I knew I was still something of a joke—but I was also feared so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I wasn’t openly mocked, just whispered about.

  No one wanted to get on my bad side because Danny’s rumors had made me out to be even scarier than Erika, and even if they weren’t intimidated by the blank stare I’d perfected years ago, they all knew that I was still Danny’s girl. Being claimed by him had made me untouchable in a weird way that still lingered. He’d bestowed some of that magical Danny popularity as though it was contagious or something. And with Erika and Allie at my side, I was that much more powerful. I knew what we looked like when we walked down the hallway in a line like we did right now. Everyone scattered, making room for us.

  Yeah, we were those girls. As long as that mean girl reputation kept the wolves at bay, I could deal with it.

  But even Erika and Allie’s presence didn’t stop the whispers that followed us into the classroom now. Tara Slosky was the only one brave enough to confront me. She was on the cheer squad so she wasn’t nearly as intimidated by the three of us as the rest of the school. “So?” she said, her dirty blond curls bouncing as she turned in her seat to face me at the lab table I shared with Erika and Allie.

  “So, what?” Allie asked, her voice laced with impatience that would have warned off someone with less nerve…or more intelligence.

  She looked at me. “Is it true that the new guy has a thing for you?”

  Surprise had me gawking. I shouldn’t have been so shocked, I supposed. I’d been going to Talmore long enough to know that word didn’t just travel quickly here—it traveled at the speed of light. Especially rumors about me and my friends. As Allie liked to say, ‘like it or not we’re celebrities.’

  Personally, I thought that was a bit of a stretch, but I knew what she meant. We were watched, we were analyzed, we were discussed and dissecte
d. We were Talmore High’s version of celebrities.

  Problem was, I didn’t want to be a celebrity. Not anymore. And especially not now when I was best known for being cold and cruel.

  Tara was waiting for a response so I just shrugged. How could I know what Conner thought of me?

  “Of course he has the hots for her,” Erika said, her tone knowing and condescending. Like, how dare you doubt my friend’s appeal?

  “Who doesn’t?” Allie added in a voice that was only a tiny bit bitter.

  Tara tilted her head to consider me and I fought the urge to squirm as she did what Conner had done—take inventory. Like I was some slab of meat to be examined and considered.

  Then she switched her attention to Allie and Erika, her grin growing wide with amusement. “I heard you all put him in his place.”

  “Oh please,” Erika said with a roll of her eyes. “He might be cute, but he’s a nobody.”

  “Right?” Allie agreed. “I mean, it’s his first day and the guy is walking around like he owns the place. Who does he think he is?”

  A threat to the current social hierarchy. I felt a smile threatening to ruin my poker face. It was all so clear now that I’d met him. No wonder the guys hated him on sight and the girls couldn’t stop talking about him.

  “Oh totally.” Tara nodded. “Danny said the guy was a total tool this morning when he ran into them. I heard he was mocking the team.”

  Heaven forbid! I kept from rolling my eyes, but just barely. Not the team! How would those darlings ever survive if one guy didn’t give them the respect they so clearly deserved?

  This was one of the reasons I stayed quiet even when I wasn’t performing my deer-in-headlights routine. If I said what I was really thinking, I’d go from disliked-but-feared to outright hated in a heartbeat.

  I only had two years left in this place and I’d rather not spend them being openly mocked and jeered, thank you very much.

  I tried to tune out the conversation about the new guy and the rumors that were already swirling about him. I tried to focus on the open textbook in front of me, and when that didn’t work I watched the other students file in and take their seats. That was when I spotted an unfamiliar face at the lab table directly next to ours.