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Yep. I’d been a jerk.
“Convenient, isn’t it?” He winked. “Now, let’s go.” With a light tug, he pulled my ponytail, and I smacked his shoulder. The tension popped and we were just Coop and Frankie. I’d known Coop since kindergarten, we’d been best friends from day one. He’d vanished over summer vacation between 7thand 8th right as his parents were getting divorced. He’d gone to stay with his sister to stay at his grandparents. I didn’t hear from him at all. Then he was back, waiting for the bus the morning eighth grade started, and he’d tugged my ponytail then.
It was like nothing had changed.
Yet, at the same time, everything had.
But it had changed even more in ninth…
There were a lot more kids in the cafeteria. Band kids streamed in from practice, theatre kids acting out—pun intended—on the steps, the ROTC kids checking each other’s uniforms, and then there were the jocks flowing in from the athletics hall. Band and sports got there even earlier than me.
Speaking of sports, Bubba and Jake dropped their backpacks on the table Archie had already claimed. Sipping from a venti cup from Starbuck’s, Archie motioned to the other cups, but Coop’s whistle caught their attention. Archie—Archibald Standish the Third, poor guy. His parents were well off, but his grandfather was stinking rich. There’d been some kind of falling out between his grandparents and his parents, so while Archie could probably afford to go to school at some ritzy place in Europe, he was enrolled in public high school and had been since ninth grade.
That first year had been kind of hard on him, and I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten protective. Rich and pampered didn’t always equal egotistical dick.
No, he’d had to grow into that reputation, but in a lot of ways, Archie was still that same kid who’d looked so hopelessly out of his depth in my freshman homeroom class. I’d taken the seat next to him and spent that first week of school introducing him to everything.
“Oh my god, it must be a holiday. Frankie Curtis is in thehouse!” The announcement sounded a lot louder than it was, but it definitely earned us a few looks from the other tables, including a smirk from Rachel Manning. We shared one of those barely polite smiles at each other before she turned back to her friends and I followed Coop over to the table.
Jacob “Jake” Benton snorted as he checked the coffees on the table, then picked up one and turned it around so I could read theFrankie Goes to Senior Yearon the side of it. Laughing, I shook my head as he held it out. Jake had gone to elementary with Coop and me. But Jake’s dad was military, so when he got sent overseas, off their whole family went. After his parents divorced while he was in junior high, his mom moved them back here.
Ian “Bubba” Rhys straddled a chair and took a long drink from his coffee while Jake handed me mine. Bubba’s eyes were closed, his expression almost blissful. He was a running back on the football team while Jake served as the tight end. That was about the extent of my knowledge of football. They were both big, bruiser-looking guys with wide shoulders, heavily muscled, and every stereotype of fit, buff jock you could think of. While Archie wasn’t a slouch, they made Archie and Coop both look lean and underweight. Not that it seemed to faze them.
Out of all of them, Archie had been in most of my classes the last three years. We were the closest in GPAs, too. I edged him by less than a quarter point when they posted our class rankings last spring.
I needed to climb two more spots—that would secure me a top percentage and a guaranteed scholarship.
“You look beat,” Coop said with a light slap to Bubba’s back.
Bubba grunted, but just kept drinking his coffee.
“Wait until his caffeine kicks in,” I advised, setting my bag down. Jake stole my sticky note before I could secure it, though. Thankfully, he offered me coffee to keep me from smacking him.
“Ha. Ten bucks,” he said to Archie and held up the note. “I told you she’d go see the teachers first even if she brought Coop with her.”
Archie made a face. “You know, Frankie, you could be less predictable. Just once. That would be great.”
“Too bad, so sad,” I told him then snatched my note back before sitting down and taking a sip of my coffee. “My methods work.”
With a sigh, Archie stared at me as he pulled out his wallet and forked over a ten-dollar bill to Jake. “Don’t we know it…”
Chapter Two
Lunch
The first four classes of the day blew past like someone had hit fast-forward. Coop had claimed the desk next to mine in AP Lit. Since our very first assignment required partners, he smirked at me and we ended up spending the class arguing about the summer reading.
My morning had been packed—first period with Archie alternating between AP Government and AP Economics, Bubba turned up in my AP Calculus class, and Coop in my AP Lit. I hadn’t seen Jake since the cafeteria earlier, but AP French had been a lot of fun. The great part of having the same French teacher for four years was that I’ve gotten to know her, and she had a terrific sense of humor. She also had a gorgeous new TA, a French foreign exchange student named Mathieu Domienier.
While I wasn’t the only girl who’d taken notice, I thoroughly enjoyed my front row seat and his delicious accent. I hoped he had the TA assignment all year, because while I’d already been looking forward to AP French, but he was like a cherry on top of it.
“Yo,” Coop said. He caught my arm when I started to follow the flow of students toward the cafeteria. I really did hate the fact everyone had the same lunch period, and what was up with the freshmen this year? They seemed to outnumber the sophomores and juniors by, like, two to one. “Not that way.”
“We’re not eating lunch?” But I let Cooper drag me through the flow of traffic. The benefit to his height and laconic manner was most people did get out of his way.
“We’re eating lunch,” he said.
“Cooper!” Laura Zaverman appeared in front of us. She hooked her arm through Coop’s free one. “I’ve been looking for you.”
