Free Beastly (The Ever After Collection) by Noelle Marie

my Lit partner about a massive project we were assigned together. For some stupid reason, however, the unfair jackass is refusing to acknowledge my existence, let alone actually speak to me about the project that’s worth a third of our final grade!”
    Charlie’s eyes widened to the size of saucers and Collette’s eyebrows shot up at Emma’s sudden outburst. Heath, however, didn’t look impressed in the least. He slowly lowered the small pad of paper he was using to jot down their orders, his steely blue eyes finally meeting hers.
    “Maybe,” he pointed out lowly, “the reason he’s ignoring you isn’t nearly as stupid as you seem to think. Maybe he’s just looking out for your best interests since, you know, you seem perfectly incapable of doing such a thing yourself.”
    Emma continued to meet his stare head on, ignoring how Charlie continued to gawk and Collette was suddenly pretending to be interested in something on her phone. She wasn’t going to be cowed by Heath, not when that was exactly what he wanted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    He shook his head in disbelief. “Whatever,” he scoffed, not explaining himself at all. “You wouldn’t understand.”
    Emma threw her hands into the air in exasperation. “You haven’t even given me a chance to understand!”
    Heath pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger in an obvious show of irritation. “Fine,” he suddenly bit out. “You want to work on this project so …fine,” he repeated. “Let’s do it.”
    Emma blinked at his unexpectedly obliging, if not exactly amicable, response. “Um, okay,” she agreed quickly, half afraid he’d change his mind. “Your place or mine?”
    “Yours,” he answered immediately.
    Emma worried her bottom lip, suddenly wondering if he knew that she knew the Potters were fostering him. “Alright,” she agreed, releasing her tortured lip. “Are you busy tomorrow?”
    “Tomorrow is… fine.”
    Apparently everything was.
    “Okay.”
    “Okay.”
    They continued to stare at each other. Not in an effort to soul search as some people might assume. Rather, Emma felt as if they were silently daring each other to back down.
    Neither did.
    Collette cleared her throat. “Well, now that that is taken care of, you were going to order, Emma, weren’t you?”
    Doing her best to ignore the weird tension that descended at Collette’s reminder, Emma offered the menus to Heath. “I’ll take the roast beef commercial,” she ordered as politely as possible.
    “Coming right up,” he bit out before snatching the menus and walking away. Emma made a point not to watch him.
    Heath must have talked his way into a break after that because it was Luca who brought them their food. When they were finished eating, they made sure to leave a generous tip (the meal had been free, after all) before rising from their seats. At the last possible second, Emma grabbed their bill – $0.00 though it was – and quickly penned down two simple words. She wasn’t sure if it would be Heath who’d pick it up or if he’d even “get” it, but she wrote them anyway.
    I’m sorry.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    It wasn’t until the next morning that Emma realized what a thoughtless error she’d made. She had never clarified with Heath exactly what time it was that he would be coming over. Sometime in the morning? The afternoon?
    Not only hadn’t they picked a time, but she didn’t even know if he knew where she lived. Mr. and Mrs. Potter knew, of course, considering she’d been their go-to babysitter before Heath had arrived, but would he think to ask them?
    Emma wasn’t sure.
    Honestly, she wouldn’t blame Heath if he decided not to show up at all.
    Which was partially why she was so embarrassingly relieved when the doorbell rang a little after noon. Quickly cramming the last of three turkey sandwiches she’d made for her father to take to work that night into a Ziploc bag, she rushed to the living room. She