Free Saving Sloan (Sloan Series Book 2) by Kelly Martin

alarm clock at your locker to tell you when to come to class?”
    Darcy. Of course it was Darcy. Why couldn’t that girl ever keep her mouth shut? Sloan didn’t have anything to say about that, actually.
    “What you and Mr. Hunter do in your own time is your business,” Mrs. Knight added, wiping more of the notes off the board, notes Sloan desperately needed.
    “No. You have it all wrong. Ray and I don’t have any business.”
    Mrs. Knight didn’t stop talking. “But this is school and I have a job to teach you. According to the state, they don’t care if you want to be here or if you’d rather be up in the rafters making out. I’m still responsible for our end-of-course testing. I’m responsible for getting your little mind off of Ray’s chest and on to dissecting pigs.”
    She had it so so wrong. Not to say Aaron didn’t have a nice chest.
    Ray!
    Not Aaron, Ray.
    Ray had a nice chest.
    Blah!
    “But I expect if you are on this campus, you will be in my classroom at the appointed time. Do you understand?”
    Hadn’t Sloan thought the day before that she liked Mrs. Knight’s hard-butt attitude? Not so much now. “Yes, ma’am.” She certainly wasn’t going to argue with the woman.
    “I assume you came for your homework?”
    Sloan nodded.
    Mrs. Knight laid the dry eraser down on the rail. “Your assignment was on the board.”
    She walked away, leaving Sloan dumbfounded. Second period folks started filtering in, and she could tell from Mrs. Knight’s body language, she wasn’t going to hand her an assignment.
    That meant find someone in the class.
    That meant talk to Darcy.
    Sloan’s head started to pound behind her eyes. Maybe it was time for another over-the-counter pill.
    “Oh, and Sloan,” Mrs. Knight called when she was almost out the door. “You were turned in on the absent list. You and Mr. Hunter. You mother will be called. I hope she doesn’t worry too much about you. See you in class tomorrow.”
    Sloan wanted to crawl into a hole. She might not have to wait for Mr. ICU to make her fall. She was doing a pretty good job at it herself.
    Perfect.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    B Y LUNCH, S LOAN HADN’T SEEN D ARCY . It was both good and bad. Good, because, hello, she hadn’t seen Darcy. And bad, because she really needed to talk to her. She needed notes, and she needed information on if, if, she was Mr. ICU. Sloan didn’t think she was, but if she could prove it, it would shut Ray up, wherever he was.
    At lunch, Mackenzie snapped her fingers in Sloan’s face. “Hey, you even in there?”
    Honestly, no she wasn’t. She was way off somewhere in la-la land where frogs jumped in lovely ponds and unicorns frolicked in the blowing wind. Anything sounded better than Chapel Hill at the time. “Sorry.”
    “You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Zoning out. Everything okay?”
    No. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” Sloan took a drink from her water, not sure how much nervousness she was showing. She hoped not much. She hoped she was showing calm and cool. But Mackenzie, always observant Mackenzie, would probably see right through her.
    “I don’t know. Something’s off with you this week.” She leaned back and studied her.
    “Your eyes are going to stick that way if you keep furrowing them like that,” Sloan observed as she moved a few pieces of food around her plate. She so wasn’t hungry.
    “Does anyone actually use the word furrowed in real life?”
    “They would if they looked at you.” Sloan grinned. It was so hard to be serious around Mackenzie. The girl always had a face or an expression or a joke or even just a snort that made a person feel better and laugh. Laughing was good. Mackenzie had been hurt after Travis had left due to his involvement with Boyd attacking Sloan. Sloan knew she liked him more than she let on. She’d driven him to school for a few days, after all. Mackenzie never talked about him now, but Sloan knew it had to be hard on her. Sloan wondered every once in a while