My fresh blush begins to ebb as I sweep the pile of torn packets and fine sweet powder into the trash.
“Get used to it,” David says.
Startled by his complete sentence, I pause mid-sweep and stare. “What?”
“Getting treated like the help,” he says, peering out from behind his shaggy bangs. They cover his forehead, but constellations of pimples cluster around each side of his prominent nose.
“Oh,” I say, straightening and brushing off my hands. It occurs to me that I have a goldmine of information right here beside me. Yes, he’s only said one word to me in the past five hours, but to be fair, I haven’t exactly brought the conversation to the next level.
“You know them?” I ask, not sure where to start. I’ve been working at Juice King since June, and I’ve never had a single conversation with this guy.
“Everyone knows them,” he says with a bitter sneer. “The jerks who think they’re god’s gift to Faulkner High because they honored us with the privilege of their services when they could be at Willow Heights like the rest of the rich bitches.”
“Okay, then,” I say. “Not your friends, I take it.”
He snorts. “Like they’d be friends with anyone outside their incestuous little circle jerk.”
I’m beginning to regret opening myself up for conversation. I decide I like David’s silent state better than his angry one, so I drop the line of questioning and finish my shift in silence, thinking over his words.
That explains why Chase was at a party that Meghan said only college kids and rich kids would be at. And why Lindsey expected me to know about her family. I just don’t know why they chose public school, or why Chase wasn’t partying with everyone else that night. I don’t know why he was sitting on the bank of the lake alone, drinking by himself, until I came along and interrupted him. And I don’t know how he got under my skin so thoroughly… or how to get him out.
*
I’m about to sit down at lunch the next day when a hand slips under my elbow and pulls me up. Without time to be surprised, I find myself staring into the always smiling face of Chase London.
“Hey, Sky,” he says, and I’m swept up in the atmosphere that surrounds him wherever he goes. Giddiness rushes through my limbs.
“You weren’t in class today,” I blurt.
Because he probably didn’t know that...
“Yeah, that class is boring. I was researching in the library.” For a second, I think maybe I pissed him off last night. Why is he pulling me across the cafeteria? Am I about to be publicly humiliated in front of the whole school—my worst nightmare come true?
“Are we allowed to do that?”
I feel like a square the second I say the words, but I have to say something so I don’t expire in the middle of the room. Suddenly I picture him jumping onto a table and telling the whole school what I told him on the shore that night. I want to die.
“I am,” he says in a way that makes it clear he knows he’s getting away with something. He stops at a crowded, boisterous table on the far side of the cafeteria from my usual one. “This,” he says, gesturing grandly, “is where the cool people sit.”
“And I’m herewhy?”
For once I think of a somewhat witty thing to say. Good job, me.
“Because you, my friend, are a very cool girl.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. There is no way I’m sitting with these people. They will eat me alive. One look at them, and I’m pretty sure I just found the mean girls Meghan warned me about. “Um, since when?”
“Since I said so,” he says smugly.
Am I dreaming? It’s impossible that this is real life, that an insanely popular guy I’m stupid about just towed me over to his side of the world and plopped me down in it.
Am I supposed to look around for hidden cameras or something? Because this is way too good to be true. I’ve never really felt I belong anywhere, and I definitely don’t belong in the world of Chase London. But how can I say no? I can’t turn around and walk back across that crowded room and say I don’t want all that he’s offering me.
Though I clearly don’t belong here, I’m not going to shut the door in the face of the first chance I’ve ever been given to besomeone, or even be someone who’s met someone. I don’t know what’s happening, but being told by Chase that I belong somewhere near him is enough for my lonely, damaged heart. It seizes onto the chance, the dream, and won’t let go.
Before I have time to protest, Chase takes my lunch and plops it on the end of the table and sits down, patting the seat beside him. I sit, still dazed, my mind not quite caught up to what just happened. One minute I was at my usual table with an assortment of loners, and now I’m sitting across from a football player with a buzz cut and a neck twice the size of my thigh, with Chase London beside me.
That’s when I notice that he’s not so good with introductions. In fact, he seems to have forgotten all about me as he talks to Lindsey on his other side.