“It’s ‘cause I’m a musician and I’m British. I’m like Prince Harry to them. Or David Beckham.”

“You wish. And they aren’t musicians, goof,” I noted.

He shrugged. “Meh. We favor. What difference does it make?”

I poked him in the arm. “Your hair is white.” This month.

He smirked. “Then I’m a freakishly young Davie Bowie.”

I giggled. “I like Billy Idol better.”

“Shall I sing White Wedding?”

I nodded, and he held up a finger, hummed to get the correct pitch, and then sang the first few lines. I grinned until wait a minute. “Hold that song. I seem to remember you drunk dialing me last night.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, his lips twitching.

“You did!”

“Don’t talk so loud,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temple. “I’ve taken four Aleve, and I’m still feeling a bit crap.”

“At three in the morning, no less.”

“Speak softly, please,” he murmured.

“You’ve got to stop calling and saying crazy things—and what was up with all the breathing?” My eyes flared. “Oh, heck no. Please don’t tell me you called while you were getting busy? With some skank, no less—”

His brown eyes popped open. “What did I say? Do you remember?”

“No, there was music blaring.”

“Good,” he muttered, stubbing out his cigarette on the ground.

What was he afraid I’d heard him say?

Bzzzz. The bell rang, and because I was anxious about Alexander Barinsky and maybe seeing Cuba, I forgot to ask him what he meant by good.

At noon, I went to lunch. The cafeteria was noisy as usual and smelled like taco day, which lifted my spirits a little. Tortillas, seasoned beef, and cheese—what’s not to love?

I sat with Spider and a girl—maybe his date? Her name was Mila, and of course, I’d seen her around, but I’d never chatted with her. She had brown hair, a smattering of freckles across her ski-slope nose, and grey eyes. With her pale pink fuzzy sweater, pink jeans, and a pink headband, she reminded me of a giant stick of cotton candy, and honestly, it hurt my eyes to stare at her too long.

But, she seemed nice as we chatted, nothing at all like Spider’s usual type which was loud, brassy, and well, not nice. Yet, I wondered if she might be the random girl he’d shagged at Gilligan’s. He did have charisma and even the good girls loved his wild look.

WHILE SPIDER WENT to grab our lunches, her eyes kept jumping away from me, and when I turned to see what she was looking at, my gaze landed on the jock table. I wasn’t surprised at the who she stared at. Sebastian.

Did this mean Spider was out?

“Do you wonder if he feels you staring?” I asked.

She startled, her eyes darting back to me. “Is it obvious?”

“Believe me, I’ve done my fair share of secret glances at the football table,” I muttered.

Her face fell.

“No, no, not at Sebastian. Cuba,” I admitted.

“Wow,” she murmured, giving me a surprised look. “Bad choice. Dude has the attention span of a gnat when it comes to girls.”

“Yeah,” I said. “No joke.”

My eyes went back to the jock table and found him. Usually he bantered back and forth with his classmates, wearing those sunglasses that drove me nuts, but today he sat hunched over the table without talking, a brooding expression on his face.

Something was decidedly off with him today. I mean, he’d always been an intense kind of guy, but this went deeper.

I watched Emma stroke his arm, and my skin grew cold, remembering how she’d pretended to be my friend in front of Cuba last year when we were dating. A mean girl, she was pretty and had a sweet smile, until you turned your back and she shoved a knife in it. It was no secret she’d gone through more friends since freshman year than a dancer goes through shoes.

My shoulders slumped as I stared at them. I’d heard they were hooking up. In fact, the rumor was he’d sleep with anyone, even two at a time if he could talk them into it.

But Emma hurt more than the ones I didn’t know about.

I focused back on Mila, pushing him away. “Yeah. So. Sebastian, huh? Does he know?”

Mila blushed. “We’re just friends. It’s nothing really. Plus, he flirts with everyone, especially April and Emma.”

I squinted my eyes at her long face. Hmmm. “So, am I right in assuming you aren’t the girl Spider shagged at Gilligan’s?”

She blinked. “Gah, no. We’re just friends.”

I grinned. “Then that settles it. We’re friends. If Spider likes you, I do, too.”

“Who does Spider like?” he said, standing next to our table overloaded with our lunches.

“Me and Mila,” I said, helping him divvy everything out. I gave him a peck on the cheek and tucked some money in his jean pocket. “Thanks for grabbing it.”

We ate our lunches and they talked, but I barely listened, too caught up in my anxiety over getting home. My ears perked up more when Mila mentioned the athletic dance in a few weeks. You had to be invited by either a football player or a cheerleader to attend. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Not that I wanted to go anyway.

“I’m going to crash it. Dovey, you should come with me,” Spider murmured as I popped a piece of lettuce in my mouth.

I chewed, shaking my head. “Cuba would freak. He hates me. I hate him.”

I didn’t really hate him.

“Show him you don’t care. I promise not to drink,” he implored, his eyes searching my face.

I smiled. “You do puppy dog eyes very well, and you must be desperate for my company to not drink, but no way will I go.”

Odds were I’d see Cuba with another girl, kissing and making out. My hands clenched.

Last year, the first time I’d seen him with a new girl after we’d broken-up, it had been in this very cafeteria. That day, watching him laugh and flirt with her had shattered me, making me feel a lot like the day I’d been attacked by a stray dog when I was six or seven. That seemingly sweet dog had been lurking around the street I’d lived on for weeks, letting me pet it. I’d sneaked out pieces of bologna from the fridge for him when mama wasn’t looking. Being young, you believe in anything, and I believed that dog loved me. Why wouldn’t he? He’d licked my hand and chased me around the shrubs in the yard. But, on that particular day, when I approached him, he’d had open sores and matted fur. He’d jumped in my face and latched on to my arm, his teeth big and sharp. He’d growled and his eyes rolled, and I screamed louder than I ever had. Mama had flown out of our apartment, an empty whiskey bottle in her hand. She’d slammed that bottle down over and over on his head until finally, he let go. Then he’d looked at me, whimpered, and died.