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Calvin. I was doing this for Calvin.
Chapter Six
I sat around the table with Calvin and five other guys, all of them around my age. I had expected Paxon and Bryan to be around, but not the two unfamiliar faces. The first new face sat directly across from me and spent the time he wasn’t responding to the others to watch me instead. Seth introduced him as Justin. He was nearly the same height as Seth with curly black hair that fell around his eyes. While his body language was often stoic and he said very little, his expressions tended to speak for him. The others had managed to embarrass him, make him angry, happy, and frustrated. It appeared in the way his lips turned, the rise of his eyebrows, even the way his blue eyes seemed to brighten or darken.
The second guy was Toby. Two inches taller than me, his style leaned toward preppy. His light brown hair had blond streaks at the tips and was shorter on the sides than on the top. It had been stylized to be spiky on top. To round out his look, he wore a baby blue button-up shirt with black and white plaid shorts. His smile was wide and white, and he screamed prankster. Justin’s anger had stemmed from Toby when the trickster stole his favorite food: mashed potatoes.
All seven of us sat around a massive island in the kitchen. It was easy to smile at their antics as they tried to push each other off the stools, joking around and completely comfortable with each other. Frankly, I was speechless. They were laughing and joking at each other’s expenses and it was not anything I’d ever been exposed to. I poked at my food, not really knowing how to be a part of the group.
How was I supposed to act?
I’d never eaten dinner with so many people before in an informal setting. Hell, I hadn’t even eaten with another person, including Lindie in a couple of years now. Any meals I shared with others were under formal conditions, and those were as stuffy and boring as they sounded. It didn’t come close to eating with these guys.
The group before me had their traditions set in stone, their dinner routines down perfectly, and I felt like an out of tune piano in the middle of an orchestra performance. My movements were wooden, and I spent more time staring at my plate, poking the food around.
“So, Cadence, how long have you lived in the area?” Paxon asked. He sat to my right with Calvin cozying up to me on my left.
“I just moved to this street a couple of days ago,” I admitted. “I was in Faydelle before that. I go to Trilec High.” I felt proud of the fact that my voice came out a whole lot stronger than I felt.
“Trilec? No shit? Not one of the private schools? Us too!” Toby was practically vibrating in his seat with excitement now. “What year?”
“Senior,” I answered with an amused smile.
“Shit, that’s awesome. Us too. Why haven’t we run into you yet?”
I shrugged. “It’s a big school. You guys do look a little familiar, so we were probably in the same classes at some point.” I shrugged. “I like to keep to myself.”
“And she’s probably in the smart classes unlike you, Toby,” Seth teased.
“Hey, I’m smart enough to take physics.”
Bryan snickered. “Barely. I still don’t know why you’re taking that class.”
“Aunt Laura said it’ll look good on my transcripts.”
Some of the guys snorted and the rest chuckled.
“So, Cadence, what classes are you taking? You got your class schedule, right?”
I nodded and tried to quickly collect my thoughts. They all waited for my answer.
“I’m taking calculus II, British lit, music analysis, physics, and PE.”
Paxon whistled. “That’s some schedule. I heard calc II is intense. They only hold one class.”
I gave him a small smile. “At least it’ll look great on my transcripts.”
Everyone broke out laughing and I kept the smile in place, surprised anyone thought that was funny enough.
“No social studies?” Toby asked.
I smirked. “I knew I wanted to focus more on music, so I arranged it so that I’d finish all the social studies requirements last year. I wanted the extra period for study hall.”
“Whoa, how many study halls do you have?” Paxon asked.
“I should have two every day, plus an extra every other day when I don’t have PE.”
All the boys started talking at once and we soon found out how everyone’s schedule overlapped. I ended up having class with each of them at some point in the day, including lunch. Seth had graduated this past spring, so he wasn’t in high school anymore.
