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Zachary Goode is hiding something, she's sure of it.. so yes, she is following him.
But can you blame her for being suspicious? The whole premise of her school is to blend in the background and avoid attention (like a good spy), Zachary Goode checks none of those boxes!
He's flashy—undaunted from catching attention; hence why she's following him into.. their P&E Barn?
Cam abruptly stops herself just behind the back door of her school he just came out of. There are only three things out there, and she doesn't think he's much of the religious type for the estate's church and nor does he seem to fancy a swim this early in the morning.
A simple peek wouldn't hurt, she thinks. She's been quiet, with no sign of him noticing her on his tail. She inches the door open slightly ajar to see him.
Except she didn't expect to see-see him—at least not this close.
"If you keep on following me like this, I'll start thinking you like me." He says with a grin on his face as he opens the door fully.
Who'd have thought he was actually just on the other side waiting for him? Evidently, not her.
"Do you, Gallagher girl?"
She should be retching right now. But with a grin like that on his face, she can't bring herself to do anything other than admire. The others are right, he is very swoon-worthy. BUT swoon-worthy or not, she still finds him infuriating and very suspicious.
"No," she shakes her head, her lips forming a thin line, "No, I don't."
"Then what's a pretty girl like you doing up this early?" He may not have said it outright, but he may as well have: What are you doing following me?
A Cameron Morgan that doesn't stand her ground isn't a Cameron Morgan—"I could ask the same of you, Zach."
"Well, if you're so curious," Zach opens the door just enough for her body to get through. She takes it as a sign to come with him off their main campus. (a very bad decision, by the way! A spy should never go to a second location naked!)
She follows his shadowy figure out, always a few paces behind—like a good agent. This felt wrong, not the bad kind of way wrong, but rather the Josh-era type of wrong. It's the same story all over again, with just a few tweaks: the fact that Zach actually does know about her family business.
They only walked for a short time before Zach stopped in front of their P&E barn, "You promise you won't tell on me, Gallagher girl?" He looked over his shoulder, and even with the distance and the barely risen sun, she could see a glimpse of teeth from the grin she's come to know all too well.
"Depends on what you're planning to do."
She sees him shrug and push open the door to the barn, leaving her with the choice to keep following. She does.
Cam looks around the familiar barn; it looks different under the minuscule morning dawn the skylight provides. "Why here?" She speaks up.
She hears him chuckle as he answers, "Where else?"
Cam feels annoyance rise at his answer, "That's not an answer." She shot back.
"Okay, you're right. Sorry." But he didn't look very apologetic. "I come here every morning to get early exercise in. Back in my school, every student had to endure early morning training, and I guess old habits die hard."
…
Oh.
The shock must've been clear in her face as he breaks out in a laugh shortly after, "What? Did you have something else in mind?" He teased.
"Actually," she scowls, "I did. And if you were in my place, you'd have thought the same."
Another laugh, this time smaller—quieter—like what she had just said was a funny jest that'll end up as an inside joke for them in the future; like it was intimate.
"This is stupid," Cam huffs, turning around to leave.
She hears shuffling from behind and feels a hand on her wrist a second later. "Let go," she hissed, trying to wriggle her way out.
But he doesn't let up; instead, he pulls her back closer to him and whispers, "Can't you stay just a little longer?"
Cam swears she felt shudders run down her spine. His taunt overrode everything and anything that had been instilled into her from the very beginning. It felt akin to a system breach, and a defense mechanism was triggered as she maneuvered Zach into (consult the game plan)
He blinks once, then twice, and then three times. "Wow, I knew you liked me, but I didn't think you were this bold." He said, looking her figure up and down.
The audacity? Cammie lets out a scoff, "No, you asked for this," she pushes herself up, "I told you to let go."
"And I didn't, so why would you think I'd let you go now?" In the blink of an eye, it was she who was under, not him.
Instinctively, she pushes him away. "Get off." She knows he's harmless—if anything happened to her in her school, it would be easy to track down the perpetrator—but he was too close.
The last boy she had let this close to her was Josh—and it felt too close to home.
It was almost like he had let her push him away on purpose as he eased up almost immediately at her words. "Here," he extends his hand for her; she doesn't take it.
"I'm sorry," he immediately blurts out, successfully earning him a glare from the girl.
It will only be later in the day that he earns her forgiveness.
—
"Cammie!" She stops dead in her tracks as she turns around to see her mom all dressed for the day at the bottom of the staircase. Shoot. "Good morning to you to!" Her mom greets her with a small smile.
Oh.
"Uh, good morning too, Mom." She greets back tentatively before turning away to climb back up to her dorm, "Wait."
Is she in trouble? Surely, not.
"Mhm?"
"Why're you up so early?"
"I got hungry."
"Okay," her mom purses her lips, "So, you didn't bump into Zach?"
She'll take that as a surely, yes.
Her head whips back so fast she thinks she might've heard it crack, "What?" There's a smile on her mother's mouth.
"He got my permission the first week they got here to use the P&E barn in the early morning," she shrugs, "So I thought you might've bumped into him. but I guess not." But before Cammie can answer, her mother is already walking away.
Zachary Goode had no good reason to hide the fact that he had permission from her, and he most definitely had no reason to paint it into a secret he had let only her in on. He had just wanted to play with her.
What a jerk.