He kept seeing that image in his mind over and over again, thousand times over, like a fucking reboot in his brain against his will. Sky, smiling and laughing at something Demetri said, and then tiptoeing in her high heels to hug him.

She'd been so damn good looking in her tiny little skirt, that Hawk couldn't have drawn his eyes off her narrow waist, her perfectly round backside, her bare legs that seemed to go on forever.

All things he had already started to think belonged to him, that were his to touch, to kiss, to want. But now–

Sky had been hugging Demetri! After she had told Hawk to sod off and had shrugged his arm off her shoulder as if it had disgusted her.

Thinking about that felt like something was breaking in Hawk's chest, every breath hurt, every agonized beat of his heart was strained, painful.

He was tapping the floor under the table with his sneakered foot, restless, angry, desperate. He wanted to jump up on the table and fucking scream, he wanted to punch his fist into the wall, into that teacher's stupid face. He wanted not to think, not to feel, he wanted oblivion but this fucking lesson was never gonna end - he was trapped in here, when he should have been out there, finding Demetri and—

And what? You actually gonna hit him?

That's what an alpha would do, and I'm done with being a pussy.

Some small voice in Hawk's mind tried to remind him that Demetri was his friend, his brother, but he silenced it the best he could.

Demetri had been flirting with Sky, and Sky was his, not Demetri's! It was Demetri's fault that Sky was angry at him now, that Sky had told him to walk away and was instead hugging Demetri, laughing at his stupid jokes.

Something painful switched and turned in Hawk's chest when he thought about that. Sky had liked him when he'd still been Eli... so maybe she had a thing for pathetic nerds? Maybe she was switching him for Demetri, because Demetri sure as Hell was the most pathetic nerd there was, and he always would be.

The class didn't end a minute too soon. When the school bell rang, Hawk sprinted out of the classroom, his fists gripping the straps of his backpack so hard his knuckles went white.

He found Demetri by the lockers.

"You—" he spat out, and slammed the locker door in front of Demetri's face. "Can't you keep your hands off my girlfriend?"

Demetri's eyes widened, he took a step back - and for the shortest moment, Hawk felt the pure, raw energy of having the power to make someone afraid of you.

It had a sweet taste, and he realized he could get used to it.

He took a step closer to Demetri, pushed him in the chest, almost making him fall and Demetri's eyes widened as he fought to keep his balance.

"Eli, come on—!"

"It's Hawk!" He managed through clenched teeth. "What the fuck, man? She's mine!—"

"Hawk!" a shocked voice called his name, and he spun over just to realize Sky was standing right behind him. Her eyes were wide, her face was pale and she looked at him with such a shocked expression that Hawk froze on his feet.

Sky rushed past him, and positioned herself between him and Demetri - as if to protect Demetri from him, just like in the classroom when she had said that Demetri was right, which - of course - had meant that Hawk was wrong.

"What the fuck?" she asked, tilting up a stubborn chin. "Why are you yelling at Demetri?"

He swallowed, cleared his throat. "I saw you," he managed. "If you liked him better than me, all you needed to do was to fucking say so—"

"You are an idiot!" Sky shouted, clearly not even caring that everyone could hear her now, and people were stopping to watch the scene, someone was already filming with their phone. Hawk had never seen Sky this angry, her eyes were blazing, her hands were trembling with barely contained anger. "I gave him a hug! A hug! That's what friends do, you fucking moron!"

Hawk blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his thoughts. He was distracted by the crowd, thought about saying something about it, but Sky stood in front of him, her hands on her hips, demanding an answer.

"But you... you told me to go away."

"Because you were being a fucking aggressive asshole!" Sky yelled. "And I didn't want to deal with that shit. I wanted to talk to my friend. Because that's what I want Demetri to be, you idiot - I want him to be my friend—" Sky paused to take a breath. "A friend! Because I have, oh wait, zero of them left! And you, you idiot have your head so deep in your ass that you can't see what that means to me? That you get jealous of him?"

Hawk swallowed, his throat felt thick, like there was a lump in it, a lump that just wouldn't move.

"You want him to be your friend?" He asked, his brows furrowing. "What do you want from me, then?"

Her eyes flared up, he could almost see the flames in her irises when she pulled him into a kiss.

He bent to meet her lips, burying his fingers in her hair. Their mouths crashed together, angry, desperate, and the instant he felt her lips on his, Hawk was seeing stars, he was fucking freefalling through space and time, his heart swelled in his chest so that he couldn't even draw in a breath–

Her lips opened for him, so soft, so hot, their tongues tangled. He gasped in the air she breathed, and her taste filled his lungs, his bloodstream. Her lips were so fucking smooth on his, her tongue was stroking the rough scar tissue on his upper lip, the insides of her mouth were so sweet, so slick, and forgetting who he was, where he was, Hawk could only think about wanting more, more, more–

He didn't even care that people were watching, that Demetri was standing right next to him. His heart was so loud in his ears and Sky's small hands were in his neck, pulling him even closer and he wanted to give her fucking everything.

Let Demetri see, let the fucking world see that Sky wanted him, that it was his touch, his lips that made her shiver, made her breathe this fast and shallow, that they were his arms that held her when the world around them collapsed and ceased to exist–

And then, suddenly she was pushing him away, breaking their contact, and Hawk couldn't help the throaty moan that fell off his lips as Sky stepped away from him.

"That's what I wanted from you, you dumbass!" she hissed, her eyes burning.

Wanted - as in past tense?

Hawk couldn't form a reply. He was still struggling to catch a breath through his thick and swollen throat. How could one fucking kiss leave him like this? This shattered, this crumbled in pieces?

"Sky—" he tried, and reached a hand to touch her hair, to cup her face, but she was shaking her head, her fiery red curls bouncing around her pale face, and he let his trembling hand fall back down.

"No, I'm still fucking mad at you!" She snapped.

"But—"

"No buts! You acted like a jerk—"

"Come now, friends, Romans, countrymen—" said someone, and only then did Hawk remember that Demetri was even there, and he swallowed - suddenly embarrassed that Demetri had seen him like that, practically begging for a girl to kiss him. That everyone had seen him like that--

But Demetri seemed unaffected, he spread his arms and gave an awkward smile to both of them.

"Eli—"

"It's Hawk," he corrected, instinctively.

"Right. Hawk," Demetri said and continued. "This beautiful girl here is Sky - my friend and your dream girl, isn't that right? And Sky, this is Hawk, the most badass guy in the Valley and also a big softie and a good guy at heart. You like him, you told me that yourself!"

"And now I'm regretting it," Sky said and glared at Hawk with daggers shooting from her eyes, her lips still red and swollen after the kiss.

"Can't you guys just make up?" Demetri asked, giving puppy eyes to first Sky and then Hawk. "I, for my part, am willing to forgive all that annoying and sloppy romance talk and the aggression towards me, and I have to say that even if they sucked I much preferred them both to this nuclear warfare."

Sky rolled her eyes at Demetri and crossed her arms on her chest.

"No! Because I'm fucking mad at you," she hissed at Hawk. "For thinking I'm slutting around the minute you turn your back."

And then he remembered all she had said last night, how she had feared he would think she was a slut, because she had cheated on her former boyfriend - that asshole Matt, who totally had deserved to be cheated on. But still, Sky had told Hawk that in the end he too would think she was a crazy slut, and–

Oh, crap.

So that's why she's so mad!

"It's not like that! I didn't think that you--" he tried to defend himself, but Sky interrupted him mid-sentence.

"Hell it isn't!" She said, her eyes suddenly sad and deep, and with a jolt Hawk realized she was holding back tears. "And we're not going out tonight, asshole. You can forget about the tacos!"

Hawk felt like she had punched him, felt his whole fucking life dripping through his fingers.

Demetri, who was still standing right next to him, took one look at his suffering face and gave a long sigh.

"Please?" Demetri said to Sky. "What happened to you guys being Kitty and Levin?"

"I thought you didn't get that reference!"

"Hello? I can Google," Demetri replied. "The point is, that you wanted for all of us to get along, you wanted Eli— Hawk — to be your boyfriend! You can't just walk away like this—"

"Watch me," Sky said forcefully and turned her back to them.

She didn't look back once as she strode for the front doors and rushed out of them, her hair flying in the air behind her. Watching her leave felt like dying. It was as if Hawk's rib cage was torn open, his beating heart ripped off his chest and fed to a pack of wild dogs. The pain was blinding, it took his breath away.

"Well, she seems totally stable," Demetri commented. "Like, not crazy at all."

"Shut up," Hawk replied. "You know nothing about it. And I'm still tempted to hit you in your stupid face."

"Please don't do that." Demetri said with a frown. "My mom would totally freak out. Besides, I am apparently Sky's best friend now - don't you want my help in winning her back?"

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