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Blue-haired boy points a fork at me. “Who’s the new girl?”
Carter answers, “Kerry Hill. She fell for Jax’s setup.”
Blue looks me over and shrugs. “Score.”
I want to bury my face in my mashed potatoes and die. “Why doesn’t the school hire models? Like, real models who don’t care about taking off their clothes in public?”
Sitting across from me, a girl wearing a solid black outfit laughs, “Like that’ll ever happen. They’re tightwads and don’t want to pay for it. So we get to draw the same old geezer over and over. Frankly, it’ll be nice not drawing wrinkles for a change.” She glances up at me and points her fork at my chest. “Don’t you dare back out of it.”
Carter answers, before I can explain. “She can’t. Kerry made a public declaration that she was up for whatever he could dish out.”
Goth Girl’s eyes widen slightly. “You poor kid. He really suckered her that badly?” Carter nods. “What an asswipe. Did he ask you to leave?” I nod. “Yeah, he did the same thing to me a couple of years ago.”
“You modeled?”
She laughs, like I’m adorable. “Hell no. He needed a sucker to rebuild the class parade float in two nights because some asshole got shitfaced and torched it to the ground.” She stuffs a piece of hotdog into her mouth and adds, “It sucked.”
Carter looks over at me. “It won’t be that bad.”
“Yeah, for you,” I say tightly. My world is spinning so fast, my body feels like it’s on the Gravitron at the county fair.
Carter’s face turns red with embarrassment and he looks away. Oh, my God. This is not happening. To make matters worse, Josh chooses this moment to join the conversation. “Hey, Kerry! How’d your conquest go? Did you nail him?” Josh puts his hand on my shoulder before sitting down next to me.
Goth Girl snorts, watching the embarrassment visibly spreading across my face, like fire on a dried out Christmas tree. “Fuck it.” I toss down my silverware.
“That’s what he said,” Josh jokes, before putting his hand over mine. “Come on, there’s no way it was that bad.”
Carter’s eyes are on the side of my face, reassessing what he thinks of me based on this new information. No wonder Beth wants to kill her brothers. I elbow Josh in the ribs and try to stand up.
“Rebound guy,” I explain to the table of strangers. Oh, my God! I want to drag Josh outside and let the oddly large collection of campus cats eat his face off. “This one told me it’s the fastest way to mend a broken heart.” I jab my thumb at him.
“No one thinks you’re a slut, Kerry.” Josh offers. “That’d be shallow. They don’t even know you.”
What the hell is he doing? “No, they don’t—at least they didn’t. So, thanks for sharing my messed up love life with a group of strangers. Appreciate it.” My tone is getting sharper and sharper, because the wounds are still too new. It might be funny in a month, or a year, but not right now.
Goth Girl kicks Josh under the table. “Stop being a dick, Josh.”
Josh makes a face. “I am not a dick, Emily. She didn’t know any of you—well, except for him, and let’s face it, he’s Carter—there’s not much to know.” Carter presses his lips together like he wants to kill Josh, but he doesn’t say anything. “Now you guys like her and it’s all because of me.” He smiles his flashy, pretty-boy grin, and jumps up. “Catch you later, surrogate little sister.”
When he leaves, I slam my head on the table. “Oh shit, he adopted me.”
“He likes you,” Carter says tightly.
Emily taps the table in front of Carter. “No, he doesn’t. He’s doing the same shit to her that he does to his little sister, Beth.” Emily makes a face at him and then chugs her container of milk.
Carter scowls at her and I realize there’s more story here that I don’t know. Lifting my face a little more, I ask, “You guys know him?”
No one answers. Finally, Emily rolls her eyes and huffs. “Yeah, we know him. Carter and Josh used to be best friends.”
“What happened?” I ask. Normally, I wouldn’t have, but they all know a crapload of stuff about me and I still know very little about them.
“We’re not friends anymore.” Carter gets up without looking at me, collects his food and walks off.
The table is too quiet and I just lost my only connection to this group of people. An uneasy swirling in my stomach leads me to say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Emily offers a half smile. “It’s not you. Josh stole Carter’s girlfriend. They cheated for a while without telling him. It wasn’t pretty when Carter found out. No one talks about it, so whenever Josh is around, that’s the elephant in the room no one will acknowledge. So, New Girl, what’s your next class?”
“Uh, Art History III.” The table looks at me weird, so I shrug. “I’m kind of an art nerd.”
