Read Online Last Stand by Niki Burnham - Free Book Online Page A

for one day. Want a coffee for the road?”
     
    I tell her I need to wait for Griff, but I’ll take an iced coffee with milk. As she preps it, I take a seat alongside the counter and ask, “Has it ever occurred to you that you never want to accept help from anyone, yet I’m constantly trying to help everyone?”
     
    She takes the milk out of the fridge, then talks to me over her shoulder while she adds some to my coffee. “Put us together and we might balance out to one normal person.”
     
    “I guess.”
     
    Griff walks up, as if on cue, and tells me that while Keira has hopes of normalcy, I’m a lost cause. He orders an iced coffee for himself, then we walk back toward Rocky Knolls as we drink. He’s still in his running gear, though he usually changes and showers at school before heading home.
     
    “You know you’re in trouble with Coach Jessup,” he says once we’re out of earshot of the coffee shop.
     
    I nod. “Amber. Long story, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
     
    “Just grovel appropriately tomorrow, all right? I don’t want you to lose your spot on the team.” When I assure him there will be an abundance of groveling, he asks if I want to blow off homework for awhile and come over to his house to play video games. “It’s an anti-Amber treatment,” he explains.
     
    I shrug and follow him home. For once, I don’t feel like being responsible.
     

Chapter Six
    I think every single person at West Rollins hates me. As I walk out of second period and head toward my locker, people either steal peeks at me or turn away and whisper back and forth about how I look—am I angry? sad? happy?
     
    Do they think they’re being subtle?
     
    Being the center of attention is makes me twitchy.
     
    “No need to tell me that long Amber story,” Griff mutters in my ear as he strolls next to me. “If you couldn’t guess from all the stares you got during Spanish, Amber’s been telling her own story.”
     
    “She didn’t have to,” I reply, careful to keep my voice down and a grin on my face, like Griff and I are talking about some great joke we just heard. “She ensured she had plenty of witnesses yesterday.”
     
    “Sucks, man. It’ll blow over soon.” When we get to my locker, he asks if I want to meet up for lunch.
     
    “You pack one?”
     
    He shakes his head. “Hit the snooze button this morning and had to run. Gotta buy.”
     
    “Me, too,” I admit. Slept in to make up for the night I spent up with Stewie and reading the Alamo book. I realized on the way to school, however, that I should’ve taken the extra minute or two to pack a lunch so I could avoid the fishbowl of the cafeteria. “I may just buy a sandwich and scoot to the library, though. Don’t feel like eating in the caf today.”
     
    “I’m shocked.” He smacks me on the back. “Meet me here at the lockers and I’ll run the gauntlet with you.”
     
    • • •
     
    Griff’s his usual laid-back self when we get into line for lunch, doing a great job of making it look like the two of us are jabbering away about something interesting and are oblivious to what’s happening around us.
     
    “Not so bad,” he says, discreetly surveying the room. “No one’s paying much attention to you. They’re all looking at Little Miss He Done Me Wrong.”
     
    My back’s to Amber, but I saw her when I came in. Couldn’t miss her. She’s wearing her favorite purple V-neck top, one I once told her makes her look fabulous. I meant her eyes at the time, since I was kissing her when I said it, but it also highlights her other assets big time. (So to speak.) And she knows it. “Holding court, huh?”
     
    “Yep. The usual minions are gathered at her table. Meghan, Christy, the whole group. And Annabelle Gatskowsky is at the front of the lunch line waving for them to save her a seat. She has another girl with her. Another band type, I think.”
     
    “Hmmm, wonder what they could all be talking about?” Yep, that was