The table in the back had steaming pots of food on it, and we headed to it. I piled some eggs, toast, and fruit on my plate, then walked across the room to where team seven was sitting. I slid into the empty seat across from Patrick. Noah was on one side of him, a girl I didn’t know on the other side. She was Black with chin-length straight black hair and large square glasses.
“Really?” she asked Patrick. She had a British accent.
Dorsey plopped down in the seat next to me.
“Nope, I don’t date guys who smoke. Strict rule,” Patrick said. “Clara, this is Naomi. UK team nine.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. I eyed Patrick. “Who smokes?”
“One of his many admirers,” Naomi said, gesturing vaguely to her left.
“I don’t have admirers,” Patrick said with a laugh.
“Uh, yeah, you do, and you know it,” Priya said as she and Laila joined us. Patrick shrugged like maybe he really did know it.
Priya extended her hand to Naomi. “Priya. Nice to meet you. I thought all the UK teams were in London.”
“Yeah, they are, but they sent some of the bad teams here,” Naomi said.
“That’s why I invited her to sit with us,” Patrick said. “They’re the British version of Team Loser.”
“Would you stop calling us that?” Zoe snapped. She sat on the other side of me.
“Where’s the rest of the team?” I asked Naomi.
She gestured to her right. A girl with long purple hair approached a table and roughly shoved a teenage boy wearing a baseball cap. He said something, and everyone laughed.
“They’re a young team too,” Noah said, glancing at Zoe. She nodded her approval.
“Young, loser, whatever,” Naomi said. “If we do all right in training, we can go back to the UK. That’s what our leader said, anyway.”
“You definitely want to go back to the UK,” Noah said.
“I mean, if you want to die, sure,” Priya said.
I stopped with my toast halfway to my mouth. “Is it bad there?”
“Yeah, it’s bad,” Naomi said, looking at me like I was an idiot. I ducked my head.
“They say the UK scrabs are the worst,” Patrick explained. “But there’s some disagreement.”
“There’s no disagreement,” said Naomi.
“There are more of them,” Laila said.
“And they’re smarter,” Naomi added.
“Debatable,” Patrick said. “How do you measure scrab intelligence?”
“Talk to me after you’ve been to London, mate,” Naomi said.
“No. Thank. You.” The drawn out words came from behind me, and I turned to see Madison. “Julian wants us in the gym.”
I shoved another bite of eggs in my mouth, got up from the table, deposited my tray in the dirty dish bin, and followed the team to the small gym.
Julian stood in the middle of the floor, breathing heavily, like he’d already started working out. He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face, flashing us his abs. He worked hard on those abs. Those did not happen by accident.
He caught me watching him as he lowered his shirt. One side of his mouth quirked up. I quickly looked away. I hadn’t been alone with him since the macarons two nights ago, and I was trying to pretend that I wasn’t sad about it.
Julian’s eyes flicked to Noah, who was holding up his phone like he was taking a picture.
“Noah, what are you doing?” Julian asked wearily.
“I’m taking video of you. Everyone loves you. On YouTube, I mean. They want to see more of you.”
“Everyone loves—” Julian’s lips had started to turn up in a smile, but he cut himself off with a shake of his head. “No. Put the phone away. We’re training, not filming videos for YouTube.”
“They only love you because they don’t know you,” Madison said, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. She was always saying vaguely mean things to Julian, like she was trying to get a rise out of him. Or at least get him to pay attention to her. It was a strange way to flirt with someone.
He ignored her. It was true that everyone on YouTube loved him. I’d seen the comments. He was already kind of famous for being part of the New York rich people scene or whatever, so I guessed it made sense that he was the most popular team member.
It made me feel kind of stupid for having a crush on him, though. Everyone had a crush on Julian. I glanced at Madison again. It did make me feel a little bit better that he seemed to have zero interest in her. He never played along or let her get under his skin.
“OK, guys, we’re—” Julian stopped suddenly, a flash of annoyance crossing his face. I followed his gaze to the far gym wall, where Edan was lying flat on the ground, holding a book over his face. “Edan!”
“What?” He glanced over and spotted us all standing around Julian. “Oh.” He hopped up, bringing the book with him.
Like me, Edan didn’t seem to be bonding with anyone else on the team. Wonderful. Edan and Archer. I was in such great company. The thief and the weird kid who never talked.
“Did you eat?” Julian asked Edan, a bit wearily. “You all had instructions to eat before eight a.m.”
“Yeah.”
Julian gave him a look like he didn’t believe it.
“I did! It was just really early. I can’t sleep. I’m jetlagged, I guess.”
“Fine,” Julian said. “But you need to get your
