Lineage

Chapter 6

Tatum

    Colton Barrett is one of the hottest guys at school. I am the envy of several girls at Wilkes Hall and I know it. I am getting a mixture of snide looks and genuine smiles. Colt and I have been texting as often as our classes allow and I've already secured a ride to Charleston Security with him right after practice tonight. I can't wait to be alone with him. It isn't an official first date, but I'm looking at it as an off-the-record date. I'm carrying my lunch tray to my table wishing Colton had the same lunch as me when someone bumps into me 

    "Watch where you're going cow!" snaps Leslie Parker. The whole lunchroom goes quiet waiting to see what is going to happen. 

    "Hey Leslie, I love what you've done with your hair. How'd you get it to come out your nostrils like that?" I sneer. The lunchroom explodes with laughter. Leslie's face turns red. I turn around and walk to my table to sit down with my friends. They congratulate my quick comeback. I am feeling pretty good about it, but my insides are quivering. I've never been one for confrontation, but I am not going to take any s**t from Leslie Parker. I expected some sort of retaliation from her. She'd dated Colton off and on for a good part of two years until he finally kicked her to the curb last year. I knew she still kept trying to open the lines of communication with him. He wouldn't budge. He was done with her and that just ate Leslie up. She'd even semi-stalked him for a while but had seemed to give up recently.  Somehow Colton has already found out that Leslie tried to start some s**t and is firing off text after text. My friend, Elise gives me a heads up that Leslie is on her way to our table. I put my phone down and prepare for whatever she is bringing. 

    "You think you're it, don't you little girl?"  Leslie hisses. 

I turn around in my seat and just look at her as she continued to hurl insults,     "All that money from Granny and Grandpa you can buy whatever you want can't ya? Well Colton will get tired of it after a while and come back to me. He always does!" she eyes me angrily.

    "You done?"  I ask?

    "Not with Colton!" she snaps.    

 "Honey, Colton thinks of you like the end pieces of a loaf of bread. He may have touched you before, but he doesn't want you!" I smother back a laugh when Leslie's face turns bright red. For a split second, I think she is going to punch me, but her demeanor changes all at once. She turns around and stalked off. I realize why when Colton takes the seat next to me, taking my hand in his.    

  "Are you ok?    

  "I am fine", I assure him.  

    "Are you kidding me?" Elise laughs. "She tore her a new one!"   

"It was magnificent!"  another friend agrees as she plays the video she'd recorded on her phone. Colton roars with laughter. 

    I sit back in my chair feeling pretty good about how I held my own. Colton is smiling with pride. I look up and see  Theo rushing into the lunchroom. Guess he got the message too. The look of relief on Theo's face when he sees I'm fine is more than apparent. I can't help but grin at my two knights in shining armor. My phone dings with a text from Teagan. So, she knows too,  I chuckle. I tell her that I'm just fine and will tell her all about it soon. 

    "I thought you handled that?" Theo accuses Colt as he sits down across from me.  Colton starts to respond but I interrupt, "Hey now, I don't need anyone handling anything for me. Show him the damn video!"       My friend Caitlin pulls up the video she recorded and shows Theo just how awesome I was.  He snatches a fry off my tray and starts munching. I can tell he is impressed.    "It still doesn't change the fact that it had happened!" He looks at Colton and I'm sure some unspoken bro conversation has taken place when Colt nods to Theo. 

  "Are you going to be here for a while?" Colton asks him.       "Yeah, I'm good", Theo replies. "Go on back to Civics before they decide you're taking the longest s**t in the history of ever."         The table erupts in laughter. Colton drops a quick kiss on my hand before he heads back to class. My insides quiver. I can't wait until this evening. Being alone with him is going to be amazing. I turn my attention back to my brother. I tell him he needs to chill, but he just grabs some more fries from my tray and stuffs them in his mouth.         After lunch, I fill Teagan in on the whole lunchroom debacle during our dance flex block.  We are just going over some uniform changes, so we have time to talk. She keeps playing the video on repeat and laughing obnoxiously.     "Give it a rest Tea!" I tell her.     "Are you kidding? This is Gold!" she snorts.     I have to agree.         Colton has kept a running conversation since lunch. I guess it is his way of keeping a check on me. I know he feels bad that Leslie was trying to start stuff, but it's not his fault and I was prepared because I kind of thought she'd do something. I mean, we already knew she was cra cra! What he saw in her is beyond me anyway. She's not even that pretty. She definitely doesn't have a pretty personality, so I'm just perplexed that he even went out with her. Oh well, he's mine now so she can just move on. The rest of the day passes uneventfully. I am sure that I haven't heard the last of Leslie Parker, though. Especially since the video of our lunchroom altercation has gone viral. I've been tagged in so many videos I have to turn my notifications off to keep from getting in trouble because it is literally going off non-stop.