Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

mouth. Mitzy poked her in the shoulder. "Geez, Lissie, don't be so mean. You get them too. For cripes sake, everybody at our school except that beautiful Japanese boy gets them. I— what was his name again?" Lisabeth turned nearly as red as her hair and her eyes started to sparkle the exact same way Baby Cee's did right before she set to bawling. Peter spoke quickly to try and cut those threatening tears off before they got a good chance to start. "Nah, Mitz, don't give her a hard time. I'd already took to calling it Mount Zitterling—"
    Mitzy and Lisabeth both wore identical expressions of open-mouthed shock for a split second, and then they both burst into peals of laughter. Peter grinned crookedly back at them. After a few moments passed, Lisabeth pulled herself together. "Sorry Peter. I thought you were like Hinata, the boy Mitzy mentioned, and didn't get pimples like the rest of us mere mortals. Lame that you got one on your first day though." She paused to blow an errant strand of hair out of her face. "If you were a girl I'd offer you some of my makeup to cover it up, but… well, you'd just look sillier with a big swipe of cover-up next to your nose, now wouldn't you?"
    Mitzy giggled. Peter glanced over at her to find her holding both hands over her face and her eyes peeking all twinkly and bright over the tops of them. His grin grew a little wider. "I reckon the guys would give me a hard time at football practice too."
    A couple of Mitzy's giggles escaped around the dam of her fingers. Lisabeth thwapped her sister hard with the back of her hand. "Hush, you, or I'll tell Peter all about the last time we rode this bus!"
    Peter lifted his eyebrows up. Turning his attention back to Lisabeth, he gave her a slow wink. "Really? Well, shucks, now you have to tell me. I'm perishing to know." Lisabeth laughed outright, leaning against the side of the bus. The radio crackled up by the bus driver. The man spoke into his microphone, something about additional stops or skipped stops. Peter let the noise fade into the background along with the sounds of the other kids, the traffic noises, and everything except the two girls he thought he might come to love as much as Tater and Rufus. The bus lurched along, stopping at various intervals to allow more students on. The sun climbed higher in the sky, and Peter forgot to worry about the whole new guy thing in the wake of Lisabeth's hilarious story.
    CHAPTER 2
    Hinata sighed quietly as the limo slid past the bus stop. His new driver, Andre, slowed as they passed the bus stop closest to his house. A small smile crept across Andre's face as his wide spaced brown eyes caught Hinata's in the rear-view mirror. Hinata forgot himself long enough to smile back before he dipped his head, his mother's stern tones ringing in his ears. "We are descended from the Kadzoku, the nobility of our people. We do not befriend the servants."
    Her voice was full of yearning when she said the words, though, and Hinata was still trying to work out if she longed to befriend some servant, or— and this was far more likely— if she longed for the days before the Kadzoku were banned. He shivered in the wake of the cold thought, leaning toward the bright sun shining outside the car. Two girls waited at the bus stop, one shifting from foot to foot as though she were about to break into dance. Hinata pressed his face against the inner surface of the window closest to them. They were both red-haired girls. Their features were similar enough to make clear their close relationship. At most distant they might be cousins. Hinata shook his head. No, he believed them to be sisters. His chi warmed at the thought of them standing every day where he could observe them at the stop chattering animatedly to one another. He wished for what felt like the millionth time to be one of them. Well, not a girl, but ordinary: a boy waiting for a bus. Hinata burned to be himself, just himself. He dreamed of doing so without any interference from well-meaning family. But burn as he might, the most compromise he'd been allowed was attending a public school.
    He'd fought bitterly for the concession. And until he refused to eat, nothing he'd done would sway his mother. Only after dropping just over eighteen pounds from his already slender frame and telling their family doctor he would fight every measure to enforce his intake of 'adequate' calories— only then did his mother relent, allowing him to attend school with the other