And yet every beefed-up meathead at this school thought that he was different. That he was the exception.
I scoffed and shook my head as I looked down at my tray. Each and every one of them overestimated his own importance and underestimated just how shallow and flakey Rose Parson could be.
“What’s so funny, Hadley?” he demanded as he leaned over the table, his fists resting on either side of his lunch tray.
“Nothing at all,” I said with a grin.
At that moment, as if I’d planned it—Rose let out a loud laugh that had everyone at our table looking over.
Ryan’s face turned red with rage.
Oh crap. No one liked an angry wrestler. Right now, leaning over the table with his muscles bulging and adrenaline pumping, he looked like a sweaty, veiny version of the Hulk.
I leaned over to Simone who sat next to me on the edge of the table. “Don’t look now but I think Ryan’s shirt is starting to rip.”
She snorted on a fry. “Hulk Smash,” she muttered in a ridiculously low voice.
“You are such a dork.” I shook my head as I laughed but Ryan’s voice interrupted Simone’s response.
“You think this is funny, Hadley?”
I sighed.
“Yeah, Hadley?” Simone whispered beside me.
I hated it when people called me by my last name. It was so cliché and an unpleasant reminder of my father. His buddies called him by his last name and there was no way I wanted to be confused with my dad.
Rose’s lilting laughter hit our table in the silence that followed Ryan’s ragefest.
I winced on Ryan’s behalf. I mean, he was an idiot for thinking he stood a chance with Rose, but even a moron like him didn’t deserve to be humiliated in front of the school.
But that was the thing. Rose hadn’t humiliated him. Not really. She’d done what she always did when she tired of her flavor of the week. She’d taken him aside sweetly and given him the brushoff with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.
The girl was good.
Too good.
Maybe even better than me.
Not that I’d ever admit that. And it wasn’t like there was a comparison, anyways. Because I didn’t play her game.
Unlike Rose, I didn’t play games at all. Every girl I hooked up with knew the score. I was nothing but honest about the fact that I didn’t do relationships.
Ryan’s glare was off of me and back on Rose, who seemed to be oblivious to the hate that was being thrown her way. She was tousling her friend Hannah’s hair which led to the two of them doing this stupid girly slapping hands away thing.
Rose gave a little squeal and a giggle as she shoved her chair away, her hands thrown up in defense.
Her purple hair was a mess, and somehow that looked good on her.
That was the insanity that was Rose. She made anything look good. Even purple hair that was sticking out in every direction somehow looked tousled and sexy. Her high cheekbones and her bright red lips gave the funny face she was making right now a glamorous edge, like she was posing for cameras and not goofing off with her friend.
“What are you staring at, Hadley?” Ryan said.
I turned my gaze back to him slowly. He’d been like this for the past two weeks every time someone looked at ‘his girl.’
His girl.
Ha! He was the only one who hadn’t seen the writing on the wall. She was his, all right, but she was just a loaner. A limited-time engagement. That was how she operated. She’d choose a victim, make him fall head over heels, and then toss him aside when she had her fill of adoration.
“I’m not looking at anything, man,” I said with a sigh.
Ryan and I weren’t exactly close, but we’d always run in the same circles and we got along. We’d never had any issues, and I wasn’t about to start one today. Especially not over her.
I felt Simone shift uncomfortably beside me. Unlike me, she didn’t actually enjoy sitting at the popular table. She didn’t exactly fit in, it was true—I mean, first of all, she was a girl at an otherwise only-guys table. Second, she wasn’t popular.
But what did I care? What was the point of being on the A-list if I couldn’t bring my best friend along for the ride, right?
Ryan’s gaze followed to where I’d been looking—at Rose—and his nostrils flared in a way that made it supremely hard not to laugh at him.
I heard Simone make a strangled noise beside me and just knew she was trying not to laugh, too.
This was why we’d been best friends since we were kids, although the fact that we were both only children and lived on the same block was how our friendship had begun. The fact that we’d both gotten into this fancy prep school on the nice side of town on scholarships was really just overkill. We would have stayed friends no matter what, but being joined at the hip for a lifetime had made us as close as siblings, even though we were total opposites.
But despite her goody-two-shoes, mega-nerd vibe, she actually had an offbeat sense of humor that meshed with mine. The better part of our friendship was spent making fun of ourselves, each other, or other people. Right now? We were both laughing at Ryan…and against all meathead odds, he’d picked up on it.
“You two think this is funny?” he roared.
Andrew, the pitching phenom for our baseball team and the epitome of chill, tried to placate him. “No one’s laughing at you, man,” he said in that lazy drawl of his.
“She’s laughing at me.” Ryan glared at Simone—the lone gazelle at this table full of lions.
But that’s why she had me.
I leaned forward, blocking his view of my friend. “She’s laughing at something I said.”
Ryan crossed his arms. “Let’s hear it, punk.”
Punk
