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“The lab assignment?” I asked. I couldn’t possibly have heard her right.
“Yeah. Totally killer, am I right?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. What the heck was going on? Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with chemistry class.
“Riiight,” I said like I knew she was full of crap.
When she didn’t budge, move, or speak, I waved my hand. “Run along,” I said, impatient to talk to Penelope.
Finally, she offered me a parting smile, then turned and headed for the Royal lounge.
“Eck, Royals,” I grumbled. “Their carefully constructed monarchy is crumbling, and they still somehow manage to be a pain in the butt.”
I turned back to P to discover I’d lost her. She stared at her phone with eyes as wide as the state of Texas, her mind clearly elsewhere.
“So, where were we . . .” I started.
“Scarlett, did you see this?”
My gaze flickered to the screen of her phone, unable to see what caught her attention, but I had a good guess.
“Your Instagram is blowing up.” She blinked up at me in awe.
“I know. It’s insane.” I got a better look at her screen, and sure enough my followers were still growing. “I don’t even know—”
“Holy crap!” someone yelled behind me.
My head jerked up. A girl leaving the breakfast line stumbled and practically fell as she stared toward the front of the cafeteria.
Then another student: “No way.”
A ripple of excitement flowed through the room. Dozens of similar voices uttered their disbelief at whatever had caught their attention.
I tipped my head back with a groan and balled my hands in frustration. Was I ever going to have time to tell P about Saturday night?
Begrudgingly, I turned, craning my neck to see past the throng of kids now gathered around the entryway to the cafeteria, but it was no use. I was too short, and all I could see was the back of everyone’s heads.
“What the heck is going on?” I asked no one in particular as a starry-eyed freshman leapt onto a chair to get a better look and practically cried out.
Hands aflutter, she uttered, “Oh. My. Gosh.” Then she covered her mouth and squealed so loudly it was a miracle the windows didn’t shatter.
Alarmed, I grabbed P’s hand and pushed my way through the crowd. “Let’s get out of here.”
I had no idea what was going on, but if there was about to be a stampede out of the cafeteria, I refused to get caught under the treads of somebody’s Doc Martin’s.
But the closer we got to the exit, the louder the voices. Dozens of students held their phones out, taking videos and pictures, which only made me more annoyed. Like there could possibly be something that interesting at Lakeview that warranted this kind of attention.
With one final shove, I burst through the wall of students, stumbling as I made my way out into the open and nearly ran face-first into a body. A very tall, very lean and well-built body that somehow felt intrinsically familiar.
Behind me, Penelope cleared her throat, grabbing my attention before I glanced up at the wall of muscle, and my stomach plummeted to my feet. Because standing one foot away from me was a face I’d never imagine I’d see in the halls at school.
Thorne Roberts.
My mouth turned to dust with the effort to speak, but only a hiss of air escaped as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug. Too stunned to do much of anything, my arms hung like limp noodles at my side while I blinked into his shoulder and my brain struggled to calculate his presence. There. At my school. On a Monday.
The last thing he said to me when he dropped me off at home was that he’d see me later. Never in a million years would I have thought he meant here!
This wasn’t part of the deal.
