Running From Mercy by Terra Little

School halfway through the school year and stuck out like a sore thumb, with his designer jeans and funny accent. He talked in clipped, rapid tones while everyone around him spoke slowly, almost musically. More than once he’d had to ask for something to be repeated before he fully understood what was being said to him, which made the other kids laugh and shake their heads at him. They were under the impression that he was the one with the speech impediment.
    Finally, Nate Woodberry took pity on him and struck up a conversation with him in gym class. Nate was popular, and through him, Chad gained acceptance. Suddenly, people were coming up to him, wanting to talk, inviting him to sit with them at lunch, and inviting him to come along when they went to their hangout spots after school and on weekends. Apparently, hanging out with Nate meant he was worth the time of day.
    He was introduced to Pam and Paris on a Saturday a few weeks later when he accompanied Nate to a pool party a classmate was hosting. Nate came by to pick him up so they could walk together, and Chad had come jogging out the door with a purple towel draped around his neck, his swim trunks slung low on his hips, and his mind on all the havoc he planned to wreak. He remembered every detail of the moment he first laid eyes on Pam. She was riding piggyback on Nate’s back, whispering something in his ear as Chad crossed the porch and met her eyes. It had taken him a full ten seconds to get around to noticing Paris, who was busy pulling her sister’s hair into a sloppy ponytail and looking anxious about the fact that Pam wouldn’t be still.
    â€œChad, this crazy girl on my back is Pam and the other one is Paris.” Nate grinned up at Chad. He slapped Pam’s bare thigh playfully. “Pam, get down. You’re too big to be riding on my back anyway.”
    Pouting, Pam lowered her thighs and slid down the back of Nate’s body to her feet. Chad thought the contact was uncomfortably intimate and cocked a curious brow. Sensing his thoughts, Pam cocked one in return and they stared at each other as he came down the steps and joined them on the sidewalk.
    â€œHow come I never seen you around school?” Chad asked the back of Pam’s head. She was walking ahead of him, next to Nate, and they were so close that their arms were brushing as they talked back and forth in low voices. He was trying unsuccessfully to catch the drift of their conversation, but he kept getting distracted by other things. Namely, the shorts Pam was wearing—denim cutoffs that were frayed around the hem and riding high on her thighs, almost like panties. And then there was her hair. It was dangling down the middle of her back in a loose ponytail, the ends trailing across the clasp of her bikini top. He waited for her to turn around and answer him.
    â€œWe don’t go to the high school,” Paris said from beside him. By contrast, she was wearing a one-piece swimsuit underneath an open camp shirt and a denim skirt that stopped just above her knees.
    Chad remembered that she was there and looked down at her politely. Her eyes were the same shade as Pam’s, sheer green and weird looking, shining out of a honey-toned face. He blinked from the intensity of them, thinking that Paris was cute and then he thought that Pam still hadn’t answered him.
    â€œWe go to the junior high.”
    â€œOh.” He was shocked, but he thought he hid it well. At least until Paris’s knowing chuckle reached his ears. He couldn’t stop staring at the rhythmic sway of Pam’s hips.
    â€œThey’re best friends,” Paris supplied quietly. “Since Beacon.”
    â€œBeacon?”
    â€œThe elementary school.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œYou’re a freshman, too?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSo you’re what, fourteen, fifteen?”
    â€œFourteen,” he said, scratching the back of his head lazily. In front of him, Nate