Page 24 of Billionaires Don't Date Cheerleaders
Why don’t you ask your publicist
Jude
Point taken
Sooo not to change the subject but where do I go for lunch
Sloane
I’ll come get you
Stay by your classroom
Jude
I could probably find it on my own, just tell me where
Sloane
STAY
I’m not losing you on the first day of being your guide
Jude
Fiiiiiiiine
It took me longer to get back down to Jude’s classroom after my class finished as I had to push my way through hoards of people, all heading the same way. When I finally got there, I found him leaning against the wall, flipping through his textbook like it was a novel he was reading.
“What are you doing?” I asked. Jude jumped, practically throwing the book in the air, and put a hand to his heart.
“Geez, don’t sneak up on a person like that,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t exactly being quiet, though. Maybe all those concerts damaged your hearing.”
Jude put his textbook in his backpack and then looked around. “So, where do you eat lunch around here?”
“The cafeteria usually,” I said. “I mean, unless you want to go out for lunch. I guess that would make sense for you, right? Because you have…” I trailed off before I could finish that sentence: because you have all the money in the world and could eat out for every meal if you wanted to.
“The cafeteria’s fine,” he said.
“It’s just over here,” I said. “And since it’s warm out today, you could sit outside if you wanted. There are only a few tables, so they’re usually taken pretty quickly, but I’m sure anybody in school would be willing to let you sit with them if you asked.”
The school was built on a hill, so the front half of the first floor was technically a basement while the back half aligned with the ground. The cafeteria was centered along the back of the school with a small patio outside, sitting between the gym offices on one side and some rarely used classrooms on the other.
“I’m just going to find the other guys. Do you want to sit with us at lunch?” Jude asked. He said it so casually as if it was an everyday occurrence to be asked by a member of an internationally famous boyband to have lunch with them.
“I can’t,” I said. My heart ached at having to say the words even though there was no reason it should have hurt me that much. Before the announcement that they were coming to our school, I hadn’t given much thought to Take Five. Sure, I had to listen to Grace talk about them all the time, but outside of that, I wasn’t a fan of them. I didn’t stalk them on social media ,go to their concerts, or wish that I could meet them. It wasn’t mydream to get to be walking down the hall with Jude Turner like I was now. But when I looked at his face and saw the disappointment in his eyes at me rejecting him, suddenly all I wanted was to stay there and eat with them.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, no worries.”
“Sorry, I just meant?—”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I just have a meeting to get to,” I said.
His brows furrowed. “A meeting?”
