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Okay. So now, I’d forever think of him as Todd, Ryder Yates’s staring friend. Still not sure where all my social skills—or my brain—had gone, I offered him another one of my smiles, pretty sure by this point, I looked like I’d just come from the dentist and had a little too much laughing gas flowing through the bloodstream.
“Hi, Todd,” I said, and turned my attention back to my homework. Feeling as if I should write something, I scrawled in my name across the top, misspelling Indigo as I forgot to jot down the N.
“So, where’d you move from?” Todd persisted in talking to me. Guess he didn’t catch on to how nervous or shy I was.
“Hillsburg,” I answered, not even bothering to glance up. I hadn’t left a whole lot of room to fit an N between I and D, but I managed to wedge in a tiny, misshapen one.
“A Viking, huh? What made you come here?”
Finally, I looked up. Todd continued to stare at me. He wasn’t bad looking. In fact, if he wasn’t always sitting or standing so close to Ryder Yates, I might label him attractive. But compared to number forty-two, he ranked a measly four or five with his hazel eyes, blond hair, and scruffy start at a goatee.
It puzzled me why high school boys tried to grow facial hair. I’ve only ever seen a limited few manage anything past peach fuzz. Todd, Ryder’s staring friend, did not belong in the limited few.
“My mom got married,” I said, trying not to concentrate on the pimple embedded in his chin he was probably growing his peach fuzz to cover. “My new stepdad lives here so we moved in with him.”
He nodded. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
I blinked, taken aback by his question. I’m sure some teens really resent the fact their parents remarry, but it startled me he was so open about questioning whether I was one of them.
I shrugged. “It’s good. I guess. I mean, my mom’s happy. And my stepdad’s nice. He bought me a new laptop for school, so I can’t complain.”
“Yeah? That’s cool.”
“Oh, and he gave me this,” I added. I wasn’t sure why I put in that information, just to keep the conversation going, I guess. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Ryder lift his face to see what I was showing off. And as soon as he did, I glanced his way. I’d been holding out the heart necklace for Todd to examine, but my eyes slid toward Ryder.
As soon as I caught his gaze, he immediately lowered his face again and went to scratch the back of his head as if he wasn’t at all interested in seeing what I showed his friend.
Across the aisle from me, Todd leaned closer to take hold of the necklace, surprising me with how easily and thoughtlessly he invaded my personal space.
“Pretty,” he said.
“I think so,” I told him with a smile in my voice, though I knotted my fingers with anxiety because he had yet to back off.
To avoid thinking about the nerves rattling around in my abdomen, I lowered my chin to examine the necklace too. I was so busy gazing down at the gold, I didn’t notice how Todd had hooked his thumb over his shoulder and was pointing out the guy sitting behind him until he said, “This is Ryder, by the way.”
I zipped my head up, my eyes wide with shock, only to discover Ryder lifting his face with the same mortified expression I knew I had to be presenting.
He scowled at Todd. Then he slid his gaze to me. “Hey,” he said quickly and returned his attention to his homework.
Far cry from the chatty, personable ball player he’d been at the basketball game only a few short weeks ago. Made me wonder what had changed. Maybe he worried I’d tell his girlfriend how he’d flirted with some stranger from Hillsburg. Except, oops, I wasn’t from Hillsburg anymore, was I?
I managed a quiet, mumbled, “Hi.”
“But I guess you’ve already met him, haven’t you?” Todd said. His eyes glittered with glee, the kind of evil glee only a high school boy who had just goofed on his best friend could muster.
I wanted to send him some kind of dirty hand gesture or tell him off for bringing Ryder into the conversation. But I chickened out and looked down at my assignment as I gave a negligent one-shouldered shrug. “Sort of.”
Todd snickered. “You know, you’ve become my hero.”
I lifted my face, utterly befuddled. “Huh?”
He motioned behind him toward Ryder again. “For putting him in his place that night at the Hillsburg game. I love it when a girl turns him down.”
Ryder lifted his head to glare at Todd and sneer. “Thanks a lot, bud. I love you too.”
Todd only laughed harder.
I cleared my throat, clutched my pen tighter, and sank a little lower in my seat as I pressed the tip of my Bic against the sheet of paper.
