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Well—except for when they weren’t. I put a pin in my internal whining. Coop made conscious choices to be zen, and I knew why, so better to just respect than be an ass about it.
“Tell you what,” Coop said as he pulled the door open for me. The ancient air conditioning must have been in a good mood because a wall of cool air greeted us. After a couple of thousand students arrived, it wasn’t likely to stay that cool. “I’ll go with you to Fajardo’s room. You can kiss up to teach, dazzle her with your awesomeness, andthenyou come hang out with me in the cafeteria.”
I didn’t say anything at first. What did it matter if I hung out or not? Being seen wasn’t going to get me a date. If anything, the end of last year proved my involvement, or lack thereof, in the social scene wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
“Frankie,” Coop dragged out my name like every syllable was a hint of him pleading. “Say yes. C’mon. You know you wanna. Bubba will be there. Jake and Archie, too. You haven’t really seen them this summer.”
I scowled. “You’re going to be a pest until I say yes, aren’t you?”
“Well, duh,” he said, smirking. “If you’d come to one party this summer, I might cut you some slack.”
“I went to one of the parties.” I’d gone to Bubba’s birthday party two weeks ago. His eighteenth. The first of the group to hit it. Coop was next. Archie closer to Halloween and Jake at Christmas. Me? I didn’t get the right to vote until almost Easter.
Sucked to be me.
“One.” Dry. So dry and so sorrowful. “One does not count. You only went because it was Bubba’s birthday. You stayed for exactly thirty-five minutes, gave Bubba a present, and slipped out when you thought no one was looking.”
Halting, I stared at him. We were mostly alone, because I’d only seen a few kids and a couple of teachers. In about twenty minutes, the first school buses would be rolling in. “How do you know? You had your tongue down Laura’s throat.”
His smile grew. “I know things.”
“Like what Laura Zaverman’s tonsils look like?”
“Feel, not look. If I were looking at them, that would be gross. And we all noticed you ditched.”
Crap.
I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling. The problem with beingthatgirl. The one they all hung out with, the terminally friend-zoned buddy, was they did notice crap like that.
Everyone at the party had been pairing off. There were kids in the pool making out, kids on the lawn furniture making out. At least three of the cars had been rocking when I headed down the hill to my own. “Fine,” I conceded. “But I need to walk my schedule first and talk to Ms. Fajardo.”
“Then the cafeteria?”
Gripping my backpack straps, I made another face. “Yes, then the cafeteria. Can we go now?”
Coop pivoted and started walking, his longer strides outpacing me almost immediately. “C’mon, slowpoke,” he called over his shoulder. “Stop dawdling. We got teachers to see and classes to find.”
Torn between laughing and groaning, I shook my head and hurried to catch up. It was almost impossible to get mad at Coop.
Almost.
I’d done it.
At the end of last year, but I’d taken the summer to get over it.
When he smirked and bumped me, I had to fight the urge to bump him back harder.
I was over it, right?
Most of my classes were on the second floor, which was convenient. I’d spent my sophomore year zigzagging across the school along with Archie. The two of us had the worst schedules. Coop and Bubba had pretty much been on one half of the school or the other while Jake had the opposite of their schedule. The only benefits Archie and I had were we had classes with all of them, but after Freshman year, we’d never had a class including all five of us.
Then again, we were all focused on different tracks. Junior year they’d combined all the lunch periods, so at least we could eat together. Junior year also marked the first year we could eat off campus, though, so the guys ate off more than on for the fall semester. I got used to finding somewhere else to go at lunch. I could afford to eat off campus, I just didn’t want to spend the money.
Coop nudged me when we got to Ms. Fajardo’s room. The door was open and the lights were on. The teacher in question was just setting her purse on her desk when I stuck my head in the room.
“Hi, Ms. Fajardo.”
With a soft laugh, the teacher waved me inside. “Hi, Frankie. Couldn’t even let the first day go by before you checked in?”
