Victor: Her Ruthless Crush by Theodora Taylor (beach read book TXT) 📕

always used in the past tense. Never in the present tense if one wanted to sound on-trend. And it was the perfect description of her expression right then.

She didn’t just look shocked. She looked shook.

“Can I talk to you?” she silently signed after a few very long, tense moments. “Alone?”

A new feeling rattled through Victor. One he recognized as fear.

But only vaguely. After what had happened with Han’s original father, his emotions had made a permanent shift from normal to a cold baseline. One that never spiked with anxiety or fear. For the worse had already happened, why should he be scared of anything else?

Yet, his heart thrummed with that only dimly recalled emotion as he thanked Phantom for his assistance and instructed Donny to escort Byron to the school gates and wait with him there.

Would she rebuke him once the others had left the room? Tell him to leave her alone and never talk to her again. It was only now occurring to him how crazy this might all appear from her point of view. How crazy he might seem….

Another new feeling he couldn’t quite label filled his chest. Remorse? Regret? Whatever it was, it made Victor shift uncomfortably as everyone else cleared out of the locker room.

All too soon, they were gone. Leaving just Dawn and him. Alone for the first time since she told him what happened in this very locker room.

After the door closed behind her brother, Donny, and Phantom, she turned back to face him.

“I can’t believe you did that!” she said with extra emphasis on her signs.

Victor’s stomach curdled, and he found he could no longer hold her gaze. He had given her a glimpse of the monster that lurked beneath his usually cool surface. Just a tiny glimpse, and now she would reject him—

“Thank you.”

The two words brought Victor’s gaze up. And in her eyes, he saw what he hadn’t dared to hope for before. Happiness. Pure delight. Directed straight at him!

“Thank you so much,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I want to hug you. Is it okay if I hug you?”

Victor stood there. The future dragonhead. So strong. So powerful. He tried to respond. But his hands were frozen. He couldn’t work out how to answer her in CSL or ASL.

However, in the next moment, any answer he would’ve given her was rendered mute. She pitched forward and threw her arms around him, pressing the side of her face into his chest.

And suddenly, that was what they were doing.

Hugging.

This was a first for him. Hugging and open signs of affection were perfectly acceptable in China. Especially among the Red Diamond who considered themselves family. But he’d never been hugged by a woman before.

At least not one he could remember. He faltered for a few panicked moments, unsure what to do with his arms.

But eventually… they found their way around her. He was stiff at first, but he relaxed the longer she stayed in his embrace.

She sighed as he held her. Maybe he was doing this right. He hoped he was doing this right.

He liked the feel of her soft body inside his hard arms. Liked it so much that another strange instinct came over him. He cupped the back of her head and pressed it into his chest. Pulling her in closer and even deeper into his embrace.

As first hugs went, Victor suspected this was a good one.

10

DAWN

There was a rule about changing back into your school uniform before you left the locker room. But if Victor knew about it, he didn't care.

He led me out of the boys’ locker room, and we walked down the hallway together. Side-by-side, but still awkward as hell.

I guessed some things never changed, even if a guy transferred into your school and beat up your brother's bullies because…

Why exactly had he done that? I still wasn’t sure.

I peeped sideways at Victor after we walked out of ToProg’s front doors. I still couldn’t believe he was actually here. At my school. With me. Questions swirled inside my head as we approached the school’s black iron gates.

But I stopped short before I could ask any of them.

Byron wasn’t waiting for me outside the gates. There was only a shiny black Bentley idling at the curb, most likely waiting for one of the Richie Rich kids from some after-school club that still hadn’t let out.

Maybe Byron went home without me? But why would he do that? He had to have as many questions for me as I had for Victor.

Donny chose that moment to climb out of the driver's side of the Bentley. He rushed around the front of it to open the back door. And there was Byron in his bright yellow basketball uniform, already seated inside the car, waving at me like a maniac.

I looked up at Victor. Who looked down at me, like, What else did you expect? I’m rich, bitch. Then he waved me forward, extending a hand toward the car.

The Bentley’s back cabin was larger than large. I mean, old-school, with two rows of elegant leather seats facing each other.

I tentatively slid into the seat next to Byron. And Victor dropped down into the one directly across from me like he owned the place—which I guess he technically did.

“This is how you roll, V?” Byron asked-signed after Donny closed the door behind us. Then he hit Victor with his totally made-up sign for “Noice!”

Victor merely nodded in a way that conveyed, I'm used to this, and you need to calm down.

It was a quiet ride over to our side of town. I don't think any of us knew what to say after all of that.

The adrenaline drop must have hit Byron hard, though. After a few more thank yous to Victor, he nodded off beside me, his head lolling until it ended up on my shoulder.

“Thank you,” I signed to Victor silently to keep from waking up my brother.

Victor wasn’t nearly as gracious about accepting my extra thank you