“I’m sorry.”
Okay. Didn’t expect that. But after all the shit I’d been through in the last three days, I wasn’t about to let her off that easy.
“For?”
“You know what for,” Emery said.
Nope. Sorry, honey.
I arched a brow, waiting, which she seemed to appreciate.
“I’m sorry for talking shit yesterday,” she said. “And for not speaking up when my friends talked shit.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Do you want to hang out sometime?”
I glanced at her twice. “Are you serious?”
“One hundred percent. Maybe we could go to a movie sometime or grab a coffee milk.” Emery bit her lip. “I mean…if you want. No big deal.”
I was on high alert, positive she was fucking with me. She hung out with Aria, and her boyfriend was Tucker Hill, both Parking Lot Assholes.
“Why?”
Emery recoiled as if I’d slapped her. “Never mind, forget it.”
“No, I mean, why doyouwant to hang out withme? You don’t have enough friends?”
She shrugged shyly. “You seem cool.”
I studied her, searching for signs this was another Richie prank, but Emery wasn’t good at keeping her mask up. Her eyes burned with a desperate desire for me to say yes, and I had exactly one friend so far—Dean Yearwood. And while he was a good guy, he was also aguy. I missed having a girlfriend to talk toaboutguys.
One guy in particular…
“I’m very cool,” I said. “I’m so cool, in fact, that I go all the way off the charts and come back around to uncool. But…okay.”
Emery’s relief was so great it was almost sad. “Great!”
Great, I thought as Ms. Alvarez got down to business, thoughgreatwasn’t how I’d describe anything about my time at Castle Hill Academy so far.
At the bell, Emery gathered her things, shy again. “So, should we exchange numbers?”
“Unless you can speak to me telepathically, yes,” I teased. “Haven’t you done this whole friend thing before?”
She gave me a nudge. “Shut up. Not with someone new. Not in a long time.”
“Me neither.”
We exchanged phones, and I plugged my number into Emery Wallace’s—much newer—iPhone.
This is surreal. Just a bit.
“Great!” she said, as we headed for the door, then laughed sheepishly. “I say that a lot, don’t I?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I sayfucka lot. Yours is safer in mixed company.”
She laughed, this time for real. “You have a good sense of humor.”
