“Don’t even think about it,” the cashier says.
My attention whips to the front of the store. She has her phone in her hand, but her eyes are locked on me.
“I’m tired of teenage brats always ripping me off.” She glares at me. “So unless you intend on paying for that, I suggest you get the hell out of my store before I call the police.”
My cheeks flood with heat as I put the candy bar back on the shelf and rush down the aisle with my head tucked down. “I’m sorry,” I mutter as I pass by the cashier.
“Don’t come back here again,” is all she says.
I quicken my pace and run out the door. Only when I make it to my car do I breathe again.
Oh my God. That was close. Too close. Just like Benny’s.
Things are getting out of hand. I need to stop. Need to break this addiction. I just wish I knew how.
“Please put me out of my misery if I ever look that stupid while I’m dancing,” Wynter mutters under her breath as we watch the cheerleading team try to get everyone amped up for tonight’s game. “I can’t believe we have to miss second period just for this.”
We’re sitting on the highest row of the bleachers in the school gym, munching on licorice and gummy worms. Willow and Ari are with us, arguing about something they read in the news this morning. Beck is stuck sitting in the front row with his team, and he looks bored out of his mind.
Now that I’m at school with my friends, I feel a little better than I did this morning. But getting caught trying to steal weighs heavily on my mind. I do my best, though, to focus on my friends and keep my worries hidden from them.
“Since when do you care about missing class?” I ask Wynter as I prop my boots onto the bench in front of me.
“I’d rather go to class than watch this crap,” Wynter complains as she slumps against the wall and folds her arms. “It’s such a stupid tradition.”
I pick at a hole in the knee of the frayed, black skinny jeans I’m wearing. “Yeah, it kind of is, but we still need to be here.”
“We could always cut,” she suggests with a hopeful look.
“If I’m going to the party tonight, then I’m not going risk cutting class.” I offer her a stick of gum, and she snatches it from my hand. “Now chill out. It’ll be over in, like, forty-five minutes.”
“Fine. I’ll be good, but only because you’re going to the party with me.” She stuffs the stick of gum into her mouth. “What time are you coming over tonight?”
I drop the pack of gum into my open backpack by my feet then lean back against the wall. “That all depends on when my grandma falls asleep.”
“The party starts at eight, and I want you to come over early enough that I can pick out an outfit for you.” She pops a bubble. “I have this really, really cute, black, flower dress that would rock with a pair of knee highs and those boots you’re wearing.”
“I might be later than eight.” I slide the strap of my navy blue, silky top higher as it starts to slip off my shoulder.
“Beck hates when we’re late to his parties.” She avoids my gaze, messing around with a zipper on her skirt.
“Since when do you care so much about Beck?” I question. “Or is this about Theo?”
She gives me an innocent look. “I just really want to be there for Beck. That’s all.”
I’m not buying it, but I let it drop. “You can go early, but there’s no way I’m getting out before eight.”
“I’m going to be late, too,” Willow says, pulling her hair into a messy bun and fastening it with an elastic band. “I have to work until nine.”
“I can’t make it until nine, either,” Ari tells us as he digs through his bag for a pen. “I have this thing with my dad.”
“See? It works out,” I tell Wynter. “We can all be late together. And Theo can wait.”
Willow starts to laugh, but then her amusement fades as her gaze swings to something beside me. “Oh, hi, Grey.”
I glance to my right just in time to see Grey sit down beside me. The air gets trapped inside my lungs when he leaves barely any room between us, sitting so close our shoulders touch.
Why is he sitting so close to me? And why do I like it so much?
Grey’s gaze drags up and down my body, lingering on my lips for a split second before he focuses on Willow. “What’s up?” he says and then gives Ari one of those chin-nod things guys do.
Ari waves back, tucking a pen behind his ear. “Hey, how’s that stuff coming along with the Biology project?”
“Good. I printed up some info,” Grey replies, putting his feet up on the bench in front of him. “I’m not sure if I totally understood everything I read, though.”
“That’s okay. We can go over it in class.” Ari pulls out a grey, knit cap from his bag and tugs it on his head. “You don’t need to stress too much over it. Beck was right when he said I’d get us an A yesterday. I have a habit of taking over sometimes and I can’t . . .” Ari’s expression floods with panic for an instant. “I have to get good grades no matter what.”
“I’ll try my best not to mess that up for you,” Grey says, resting his arm on his knee.
“I’m not worried about that.” Ari’s focus drops to his phone as the screen lights up.
I stare at Grey perplexedly. Since when do he and Ari chat like that? The last time I saw them together, they could barely get out heys.
Grey turns to Wynter, seeming as though he’s struggling not to smile. “Wynter, I see you found your way to the gym.”
“Only because I was forced to,” she replies with semi-amusement.
Grey shifts his weight, scooting closer to me. I struggle not to note how amazing he smells, like soap and cologne, but I can’t help stealing an inhale.
“Why aren’t you up with the team?” Willow asks Grey as she slips on a black and red hoodie.
“Yeah, that’s an excellent question.” Wynter crosses her arms. “Why aren’t you up there with the rest of your douchebag friends?”
“I’m still on academic probation,” he answers, glancing down at where the team is sitting. “It’s okay, though. It’s been pretty interesting seeing all of this”—he gestures down at the gym floor where our mascot, a blue and gold fox, is doing a cartwheel—“from a different point of view.”
“You don’t get to play in tonight’s game?” Willow frowns when Grey shakes his head. “That’s so sad. With how much time you’ve spent practicing in gym class, you should get to play.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugs it off. “I still might get to if I can pass the English exam.”
“The one we took today?” I ask.
He nods, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. “I got a C on the one this morning, but Mr. Gartying offered to let me take it again after school. If I get a B, then I get to play in tonight’s game, but I doubt I will. It’s not like I can learn an entire course within a few hours.” His lips tug into a small, defeated smile that makes the guilt in my stomach knot.
But I’m confused. I had Beck check with Grey to make sure he found himself another tutor, and Beck reported back to me that Grey said he had it handled. Clearly, he was lying.
Wynter jabs me in the side with her elbow.
“Ow.” I grip my ribs. “What was that for?”
“He needs help studying,” she hisses as she nods her head in Grey’s direction. “Hint. Hint.”
“It’s okay.” Grey offers a reassuring smile. “I really don’t think studying for a few hours is going to do any good.”
“You clearly haven’t studied with Luna and Willow, have you?” Wynter tells Grey as she laces up her shoe. “If the two of them help you, you’ll get an A. Trust me. They’ve helped me a ton of times, and I’m a pain in the ass to teach.”
Grey looks skeptical. “And you care because . . . ?”
“I don’t care, but I know someone who . . .” Wynter’s eyes drift to me, and I tense.
Please, please, don’t say anything about me liking him, my eyes
silently beg with her.
“I don’t want Beck to be pissy, and he will if we lose the game,” she feeds him as an excuse, and I relax. “He always is whenever he loses.”
Thank you, I mouth to her.
She shrugs and focuses back on Grey. “And from what Beck says you”—she makes air quotes—“ ‘kick ass.’ And they really need your help to win.”
“Winning’s a team effort,” Grey says. “Even if I do play, we still might not win.”
“But it’d be better if you were there, right?” Wynter continues on with the charade. “It might give the team a better chance.”
Grey lifts his shoulders, shrugging. “I guess so.”
“Then count me in for tutoring,” Willow declares as she slips on her backpack. “I need to practice my teaching skills, anyway. I’m supposed to start tutoring my neighbor’s kids next week.”
“Are you sure?” Grey asks, but he already appears less stressed than he was a minute ago. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I’m cool with just sitting the game out.”
“I want to help, but we should head to the library, like, right now.” Willow hops to her feet. “And meet there at lunch and during any of your free periods.” She jumps up onto the bench in front of her, and then her gaze drops to me. “Are you coming, Lu?”
Wynter observes my reaction meticulously. “Yeah, Lu, are you going to help out a friend or what?”
I shake my head at her sneaky little emphasis on the word friend. I get up, anyway. It’s probably my fault he has to take the test over since I was too scared to face him, too weak to face the truth about myself.
I smile at Grey. “Yeah, I’m in. I should’ve helped you to begin with.”
“It’s not your fault,” he says, leaning in and keeping his voice low. “You’ve had your own problems to worry about. How is everything with your parents and . . . things?”
“It’s fine. Things are fine.” Lies. Lies. All lies. I have the marks on my wrist to prove it.
He nods but appears unconvinced. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to help me, but if you want to, I’d really, really appreciate the help.”
“I want to help you,” I promise him. “I should’ve helped you before. I thought you had help, though. Beck said you were handling it or something.”
“I had my mom try to help me,” he explains with a shrug. “But that didn’t work out so well.”
I give him promising smile. “Stick with me and Will, and you should be fine.”
His smile reaches his eyes, and butterflies flutter in my stomach at the sight of it. Hopefully, Wynter can’t tell I’m secretly giddy. It’ll only convince her more that I like Grey.
Willow and I say good-bye to Ari and Wynter, and then the three of us jog down the stairs.
“You really think you can help me get a B?” he asks us as we reach the sidelines at the bottom of the bleachers.
Willow and I grin at each other.
“You’re going to ace this,” I assure him with a light nudge with my shoulder. “Trust me.”
He doesn’t look very confident, which only makes me hope I can back up my promise. If there’s one thing I’m good at, though, it’s school, so I should be able to.
As we hurry down the side of the gym, I notice an abundance of heads turn in our direction, just like when Grey and I went behind the school earlier this week. Beck even gives a what-the-hell look. Piper also notices, and she even pauses mid-cheer to blast me with a death glare.
Grey swings around to the other side of me and blocks me from her view, placing his hand on the small of my back. “People seriously need to get over themselves,” he mutters as we push out of the gymnasium doors. “It’s like they can’t get over stuff. First, it’s the car, and now it’s this stupid thing with . . .” He trails off, tensing.
But I know what he was going to say. This thing with Piper.
“So they finally noticed you got rid of your truck, huh?” I ask as we start up the hallway, heading for the library.
“Logan noticed the moment I pulled up in my new car,” he answers then wavers. “Or new old car, anyway.”
“I saw you had a new one.” My boots squeak against the floor as we slow to a stop in front of the doors that lead to the library.
He finally moves his hand away to open the door and lets Willow and I walk in first. “Yeah, I got it a few days ago. It was my dad’s . . . It’s old, but at least it runs. And it’s all my family can really afford right now.” He looks away, seeming embarrassed by the admission.
I’m a little surprised by it. Grey’s family was always so well off. He had a nice truck—which, yeah, I guess he sold—nice clothes, and they live on the wealthier side of town.
Suddenly, some of the stuff he’s said to me makes more sense, like the fact that he hasn’t had a phone for weeks now.
“I think old cars are cool,” I tell him, not wanting him to feel embarrassed in the least bit. “They have so much history, and just think about how many amazing things happened in that car. How many people learned how to drive it. How many people had their first kisses in there. A baby could’ve even been born in the back seat.”
Grey’s face twists in disgust as the door bangs shut behind us. “Okay, I really hope the last one didn’t happen.”
“It probably didn’t, but still, it’s cool to think about all the stuff that happened in a car that old.” I drop my books onto an unoccupied table in the back corner by the computer stations. “If it could talk, think of all the stories it could tell.”
“Most of my stories would be about my dad.” A shadow of a sad smile rises on his lips. “My dad owned the car for, like, two decades or something. From what my uncle says, he used to race it a lot and do all sorts of crazy things with it.”
I find it almost fascinating to watch Grey talk about his dad. While he gets emotional, there’s also so much happiness in his eyes. I wonder what that would be like to have happy memories with my parents.
“It sounds like he was an adventurous man,” I say.
“He is—was.” He softly laughs, shaking his head. “There was this one time when I was, like, ten, and he tried to outrun a cop to avoid a ticket, which probably would’ve worked better if he wasn’t driving a minivan. He ended up getting a ticket and bribed me with a baseball game if I didn’t tell my mom what happened.”
“Did you ever tell her?”
“No way. I would’ve kept my mouth shut even without the bribe. It’s guy code not to rat out your best friend.”
“Your dad was your best friend?” The idea seems crazy to me, but with how highly Grey speaks about his dad, I’m not that surprised.
He nods with a sorrowful look in his eyes. “He really was.”
“I couldn’t imagine being best friends with either of my parents.” I absentmindedly fold my fingers around my wrist.
“I don’t blame you. You’re parents . . . They’re intense.” He rubs his hand across his forehead. “I saw you at the store the other day with your mom.”
My mood goes kerplunk. “You did?”
He nods with a look of remorse. “I wanted to come up to you, but I was afraid your mom might rip my head off.”
I duck my head and let my hair curtain my face as my cheeks heat. I’m mortified that he probably saw my mom pat me down when I came out of the store. She didn’t even let me get into the car. She made me stand in front of the car and spread my legs and arms out like a criminal while she searched my pockets.
“You don’t need to be embarrassed.” He brushes my hair out of my face and lowers his head, leveling his gaze with mine. “Your parents should be, not you. They’re the ones who made the scene, and they should be grateful that you’re nice enough to put up with their shit instead of making more of a scene.”
“Maybe, but it’s still hard to be the one standing there while they’re doing the embarrassing stuff.”
“I know it is. I wish it wasn’t that way for you. I wish I could somehow make
it better.”
“I wish I could make it better for myself and finally stand up to them, be a stronger person.” I bite my lip at my unexpected confession.
“Maybe one day you will. And it doesn’t make you weak because you haven’t yet. You’re not weak, Luna, at all. Some of the stuff I’ve seen you put up with over the years . . .” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows hard. “And you’re so forgiving about it.”
We exchange a look of understanding, and I can tell he wants to say more.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly.
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not.” Another swallow. “There’s so much I want to say to you.”
We stare at each other intensely until a group of people walk in, making a lot of noise and crushing the moment into smithereens.
I realize his fingers are still in my hair a split second before he does. He looks at his hand, and then our gazes collide as his fingers tangle through the locks, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away.
Willow coughs as she sets her bag and books down on the table. The noise startles me, and I jump back, leaving Grey blinking in shock.
I hurry and plant my butt in a seat. “What’s up?” I ask Willow.
“Nothing’s up with me.” Her tone carries an underlying meaning, but she doesn’t overload me with questions like Wynter would. She just sits down in the chair across from mine and looks up at Grey. “You wouldn’t happen to have your test from this morning, would you?”
“I have it in my locker,” he says, gripping the back of the chair.
“Would you mind getting it?” she asks. “If I can see which questions you missed, I’ll be able to get a better feel for where we should start.”
“Sure.” Grey flashes me a smile before he saunters off for the doors with a spring in his walk.
I watch him until he vanishes out the doors then turn back to Willow. “What was with the strange look when I sat down?” I ask as I take out a pen from the spine of my notebook.