“Yes, but I thought I would make lunch, just for Ryan’s first day,” she explains, handing us each a paper bag from the fridge.Then she looks me up and down. “Oh, Ryan. Are you comfortable in that?”
That’s got to be a Southern way of sayingYou might want to rethink your wardrobe choice.
Luckily, when I nod and smooth my tank top over my hips, she lets it go. “Well, great.” She rubs my shoulder. “Have a fabulous day, darlin’. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“Thanks.”
“And, Jasmine,” she calls as Connor opens the screen door to step out onto the porch. “Remember what I told you.”
Jasmine glances back and rolls her eyes, and I catch my aunt shooting a meaning-fraught look at her daughter. I don’t need to be a psychic to know that whatever she told Jasmine has to do with me. Probably something about how she needs to take me under her wing so the wolves at Crockett High don’t attack me. At least I don’t have to worry about anyone at school recognizing me from childhood. My father homeschooled me, so I never really had any friends in Starling. Lucky me.
We start down the driveway, Connor walking ahead of us in impossibly long strides so that I lose sight of him almost instantly among the pines. Jasmine doesn’t say much; I get the feeling she was excited to introduce me to everyone until she discovered I planned to dress like this.
About halfway down the drive, she says, “Don’t worry. Most people at Crockett are nice. At least to your face, they’ll be.”
That’s reassuring. “So it’s a bunch of two-faced backstabbers? Great.”
“Not everyone’s like that. I’m not. Nikki and Everett aren’t. They’re more—”
My shoulders tense. “Everett?” I interrupt.
“My best friend Nikki’s brother. The hot one I told you about. The quarterback?”
Of course he is. I should’ve put two and two together. He looks like the all-American popular jock. “Right. I met him already.”
She stops dead in her tracks. “You did?”
I know she’s probably thinking I’m insane, since the only place I’ve been since I got to Starling is their house. “Yeah, he was jogging on the trail.”
“Oh. Makes sense. He’s always working out,” she says, sounding a little deflated that she couldn’t be the one to make the introductions herself. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing really. He welcomed me to town and said he’d see me around. That’s all.”
Her face crumples. “God! Nikki didn’t even tell me! She tells me everything!”
“Maybe Everett didn’t tell her. It wasn’t that big a deal.”
She snorts. “For him, maybe. But you have to admit…he’s hot. Isn’t he?”
I keep my voice as neutral as possible. Jasmine seems like the type who’ll pounce at any sign of a crush. Not that I have a crush. I don’t even know the guy.
“He’s all right.”
“All right?”When I don’t say anything in response, she adds, “It’s not up for debate, cousin. He’s like one of those guys. You just know, when he gets out of school, he’s going to be famous. Somehow. If he was on a reality show, he’d be the fan favorite. No matter what he does, he’s going to break hearts everywhere.”
“Dude, he’s notthatgood-looking.”
Jasmine opens her mouth to argue, but then we both spot a flash of school-bus yellow through the trees. “Shit!”
We have to run the rest of the way. When I climb onto the bus, there are a few students talking, but most are wearing earbuds or headphones and peering out the window, minding their own business. Nobody even looks at me twice. It gives me comfort as I slide into the seat next to Jasmine. Maybe I can just blend.
But then, as I’m about to put my own earbuds in, I notice a guy with a patch on his denim jacket that has a black outline of my father’s mug shot. It saysgabriel thorn fan clubon it.
Jasmine catches me staring and whispers, “See what I have to deal with?”
“I don’t get it. Fan club?”
She grimaces. “Somepeople think it’s cool to worship serial killers. But most people think he should burn in hell.”
