Possess

Bridge,” Hector panted, trotting up alongside. “Why not just commit hari-kari on the front lawn? That was social suicide back there.”
    Like she had a social life. “Don’t care.”
    “Bridget, slow down.” Peter, with his overloaded backpack plus the four textbooks cradled in his arms, struggled after them.
    “Maybe if you weren’t taking twenty classes so you can graduate early, you could actually keep up.”
    Peter’s eyes welled up. Ugh, why was everyone such a pain in the ass today?
    A car horn made her jump. Matt’s truck pulled alongside, pacing her.
    “Bridge,” Matt said through the open window. “Can I give you a ride home?”
    “Nope.”
    “Please?” He smiled, exposing perfect rows of sparkling white teeth.
    Bridget stopped and Matt slammed on the brakes. “Why don’t you drive Alexa home? You guys looked pretty cute and cuddly back there.”
    Matt flinched. “There’s nothing going on between Alexa and me.”
    Bridget shrugged, trying to look casual. “Don’t care.”
    “Liar,” Hector said under his breath.
    “Come on, let me give you a ride home.” Matt leaned over to the passenger window. “Please?”
    Bridget thought of Alexa and set her jaw. “What part of ‘no’ do you not understand?”
    “Bridge,” Hector whispered from behind her. “Let the man drive you home. Maybe he’ll give me a lift too.”
    “Walking to the library,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, “is the only exercise you get.”
    “I have a bad back.”
    “You have a lazy ass.”
    Hector rested his chin on her shoulder. “Do it for me, lady.”
    “Well?” Matt asked.
    Yep, this clinched it. The day was made of fail.
    “Fine. But my friends need a ride to the library.”
    Matt’s face lit up, then clouded again immediately as Peter went straight to the passenger door, yanked it open, and started to climb in.
    “Dude,” Matt said, giving Peter a frat-boy-in-training staredown. “No.”
    Hector grabbed his friend by the backpack and dragged Peter to the truck bed. “This way, lover boy. Haven’t you always wanted to ride in the back of a truck?”
    Bridget stared out the window and tried to ignore Matt’s fidgeting while they waited for the light to change. In thirty seconds he had adjusted his rearview mirror, turned on the radio, checked his cell phone, readjusted the mirror, and changed the radio station. Twice. Now Coldplay was blasting through the subwoofers. Really? Coldplay? Holy crap, this was her own personal nightmare: trapped in a pickup truck with Matt Quinn and Coldplay. Add some spiders and a porcelain doll or two, and she’d be curled up on the floor of the cab in the fetal position.
    “I’m sorry, okay?”
    She refused to look at him. “There are a lot of things I can forgive, but bad taste in music isn’t one of them.”
    “Coldplay?”
    Bridget wrinkled her nose.
    “Will you forgive me if I change the station?”
    “I’ll try.”
    Matt switched to the local indie station as the light changed. “Perfect. So you forgive me for getting you grounded. Awesome.”
    Bridget swore under her breath. She had walked right into that one.
    “You know,” he said, turning onto Sunset Boulevard. “You know, if you weren’t so much trouble, I wouldn’t worry about you.”
    “If I weren’t so much trouble?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And how would you know anything about my life?”
    Matt shrugged.
    “Because unless you’ve been talking to the two dorks in the back of your truck, I’m guessing you don’t know jack about it.”
    “I’ve heard about where you go on the weekends. Clubs and stuff.”
    Clubs and stuff? She and Hector hit the occasional concert south of Market or in Berkeley, but it was hardly “stuff”—and not on her mom’s radar. What the hell was he talking about?
    Bridget shifted her hips to face him and immediately noticed the flush spreading up his neck. Suddenly she knew exactly who had been spreading the rumors about her. Bridget dug her fingernails into the faux leather seat. That bitch.
    “For your information, the only words Alexa Darlington’s spoken to me since the sixth grade are the ones you witnessed this afternoon, and as far as her or you knowing anything about my life, let’s just say you’re both clueless, okay?”
    “But that’s what I mean.”
    “Right. I’m sure you’d be perfectly happy if I spent my time beerbonging it at the football team’s latest blowout. Or perhaps you’d prefer it if I just partied with