A Fresh Start by Trisha Grace

locked.”
    Justin tried to hide his grin, angling his face away from Paige.
    That habit reinforced his belief that she was from New York. Not only did she lock her car each time she stepped in and out of it, she always locked her house’s door whenever she went over to have breakfast or dinner over at the Seymours.
    She would still lock the door even when he was there with her in the house.
    She frowned when she saw his smile but didn’t question him. “I’ll be right back.”
    He had barely gotten back into his seat when he heard a series of click-clops getting louder.
    “Hi, Justin. The new girl finally let you out from the house?”
    Justin’s nose twitched at the overpowering sweetness of Gloria’s perfume. His hand curled into a fist and he moved it under his nose, hoping to filter out some of the stench.
    He peered out from the booth and toward the door, not bothering to reply Gloria.
    “She’s trying very hard to snatch you up, isn’t she? She pretended to be all protective over you when we were talking to her the other time.”
    “You mean when you were gossiping about Justin,” Mrs. Seymour corrected.
    He turned to Mrs. Seymour. Since Paige always went to church with Mrs. Seymour, how did the Bradleys and their allies manage to sink their claws into her? “What happened?”
    “We were merely asking about you when she behaved as if you were her property.” Gloria moved to sit beside him.
    He remained seated where he was, refusing to move in to make space for her.
    Unable to balance from the lack of space, she stood and adjusted her tight dress. “I’ll leave you all to your dinner, then,” she said curtly.
    “What happened?” he asked when Gloria turned to leave.
    “She’s back. You better take her here before Gloria descend on her,” Mrs. Seymour commented.
    Justin stood just as Gloria went over to her. Paige smiled politely, but had twisted to the side, hoping to step away from Gloria.
    Gloria moved to block her, but he reached his arm across, stopping Gloria and taking Paige’s hand. “What took you so long?” he asked, pulling her toward him and leading her back to the booth.
    “One of Mrs. Seymour’s friends saw me and chatted with me for a while.”
    “Are you two dating?” Gloria asked, following them back to the booth. “You’re fast. You pretend to be all sweet and harmless, but you’re actually a sneaky little thing.”
    “Enough,” Justin said, finally looking up at her. “Go have your dinner, and we’ll have ours. Leave us alone.”
    Gloria shot Paige a glare of contempt, then went back to her own seat.
    “That was mean.”
    Mrs. Seymour laughed at Paige’s comment. “You look like the studious type. Don’t tell me you’ve never been bullied in school.”
    “You’d think so, especially since I was in advance placement. But no, not really.”
    He wasn’t surprised about Paige being in advance placement. She seemed to love learning. When she was painting, she had her earphones in and were apparently learning some language. He didn’t know it was Italian until he asked.
    Then, he found out she’d learned Spanish in school and was going to learn French after.
    She was the kind of over-achieving student that most kids would hate.
    “How’s that possible?” Justin asked.
    “My brother was very popular in school.” She paused as the waitress served their food. “And he was huge, even at his age. He’s bigger than Justin now.”
    That explained why she was so comfortable around him since the first day they met. “So by relations, you were protected.”
    “It wasn’t just him. Drew’s a born leader, so he’d this group of loyal friends who were really nice to me, too. The girls were always nice to me. I guess they were hoping that I’d say something nice for them. And after the flag pole incident, no one in school dared to bully me.”
    “Flag pole incident?”
    She laughed softly. “Once, this boy, I don’t know why, came up to me in the hallway and