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Chapter One
~BETTY~
“Dangit!”
I flipped the coffee pot on with as much frustration I could manage without breaking it, then hurried back to my bedroom. I’d accidentally programmed it for 6 p.m. instead of a.m. on top of hitting the snooze button twice.
Welcome to Monday morning.
After stripping off my sleep shirt in my walk-in closet and pulling on a pair of pants, blousy tank, and requisite cardigan—thank you, inventor of wrinkle-free clothes—I rounded the bed toward my bathroom.
“Ow!”
Jerking my foot off the floor, I hopped to my bed, rubbing my heel where I’d just stepped on…
“There you are.”
I picked up the earring I’d lost over the weekend after my sister Emma and I had done aSchitt’s Creekmarathon with a pitcher of margaritas. In expected tipsy fashion, I’d undressed—jewelry and all—en route to my bed, dropping them as I went.
Giving myself 2.5 seconds to recover from the earring injury because that’s all I could spare, I rushed into the bathroom, got one glimpse of my hair and realized it was a messy bun day.
That was pretty much every day, truth be told. Even when I wasn’t running twenty minutes behind. But until my principal complained, this was part of my uniform.
After brushing my teeth, putting on deodorant, then applying minimal make-up so I wouldn’t terrify the teenagers I taught—or hear,what’s wrong, Ms. Mouton, are you sickon loop all day—I slipped into a pair of flats and grabbed my laptop bag.
After quickly pouring a cup of coffee into my favorite travel mug that readTears of My Students—thank you, teacher appreciation day gift card—I grabbed my lunch from the fridge and headed out the door.
The nippy breeze coming off the sugarcane field across the road from my new house lightened my mood just a tad. We’d gotten an early cool front. Of course, a Louisiana fall and winter was like an old junker. It took several starts and stops before it finally got going.
Right when I smiled at the break in the heat, I spilled a drop of coffee on my pants as I slid into my car.
“Ugh.” Grabbing a napkin from my glovebox, I tried rubbing it, only to spread the brown stain wider on my khakis. “This day can’t get any worse,” I muttered.
Note to self: never say things like this. The fact that I did, opening up the universe to further kick me in the twat was proof that I deserved to be.
I sped my Toyota sedan the short distance into town, then suddenly had to brake when I was still a mile out. I was now sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a country road that never,everhad traffic.
“What now?”
Did a sugarcane truck fall in the ditch?
As I rounded the curve, I could see a commotion about a half-mile up ahead at the intersection onto Evangeline Drive. Whatever it was, the traffic thinned out at Evangeline.
I shot off a text to Finn to tell him to let my hall buddy Lily know I might be late. We were supposed to be standing at the door in the hallway at the bell each morning. One of Principal Burke’s rules to prevent students from dragging ass, PDA, and so on.
It didn’t prevent it. It forced us to yell a lot and witness teenage hormones in full force, all before 7:30 a.m.
“Finally.”
The cars were moving again. When I eased closer to the corner, I craned my neck like everyone else holding up traffic and gaped at the packed parking lot on the corner with banners and balloons flying. It was then that I sawhim.
Bennett Broussard stood in front of his brand-new store, Broussard’s Fresh Market. He wasn’t hard to miss since he stood taller than just about everyone in the crowd, his radiant smile charming his captive audience. The wind tousled his wavy, chestnut hair, making him look like a hair model stepping off set. The morning sun caught him in a single golden ray, like a freaking spotlight from the heavens. Even the sun showered him with love and adoration. It was ridiculous.
Look, there were a number of reasons Bennett annoyed the hell out of me. He was conceited and bossy, and everything in life was served to him on a silver platter. He was the perfect prince and could do no wrong in the eyes of the whole damn town.
Then, of course, there was therealreason he’d become one of my least favorite people.
The glitter booby bomb.
