Page 19 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
“Rhett,” he said, but didn’t add anything, either. After an awkward moment of silence, she narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to see past his words into all his important details.
“Nice to meet you, Rhett.”
He nodded, and with nothing to sink her conversational hooks into, she nodded back and headed off to the office.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Why?”
“For being rude. Which I’m sure will be a detail in whatever version of meeting-the-new-kid she spreads around campus. She’s the biggest gossip in the senior class,” I explained.
“I could tell.”
“How?”
“Something about the way her nose was twitching, like she was literally sniffing out the gossip, maybe.”
I had to smile. She kind of did have bloodhound tendencies when she caught a whiff of something juicy. Like Rhett.
He smiled back. “You’re probably right, though. You put me in the line of fire by talking to her. You should make it up to me.”
“What was I supposed to do? Just take off running?”
“Yes. I would have. But I didn’t know, and you did, and we were sitting ducks. How about if I find you at lunch and use you as a human shield?”
It was a cute way to ask about eating together, but I shifted, uncomfortable. Sitting with him in the cafeteria would be tantamount to dragging the spotlight from the theater department and shining it on myself while I chewed on the organic Quinoa Surprise the cafeteria ladies dished up.
What was with Rhett, anyway? As a cute guy and fresh meat on campus, he could date in the highest echelons of Fabulous Girls From Rich Families Like His without any trouble. Why was he singling me out?
But...I was curious. What was the slight accent I heard? Why was he transferring his senior year? And why did I feel a tiny spark when he’d touched my shoulders earlier?
If it wouldn’t draw every single eye at LaSalle Prep, I might wrestle my insecurity into submission long enough to sit and at least gape at him for as long as he wanted to talk to me.
However, the LaSalle reality is that everyone else would gape atbothof us, so...no, thank you. The short time I got to bask in his attention wouldn’t be worth the whiplash after he dropped me once he figured out I lived on the LaSalle social outskirts.
“Cam? Lunch?”
He mimed spooning food into his mouth.
I shook my head. “You’d have to look pretty hard to find me,” I said. “I’m going off campus.” I had a weekly lunch date with Bran and Livvie. I’d do it every day to get out of the cafeteria if I could afford it.
“Cool,” he shrugged. “Angelique said the healthy school lunch communists ruined your cafeteria last year.”
That surprised me. “Angelique said that? That was actually kind of funny.” And then I wanted to grab the words back and shove them far, far down my throat. Dogging your enemy to her cousin: bad form.
“That’s my interpretation of what she meant when she said, ‘You’ll love the cafeteria. They make great healthy meals.’ Are you going to doom me to that?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “It’s not that bad.” Why not bow to the inevitable? He could eat with us, figure out right away that I wasn’t one of the cool kids, and then go away and take the spotlight with him. I’d be good for a week’s worth of speculation in the LaSalle Gossip Factory and then it would chew me up and spit me out in the reject pile, and I could slink through the rest of the year in anonymity. Oh, good. A plan.
“Why don’t you meet us at Boudreau’s?”
“Who’s us?”
“Me, Bran, Livvie.”
“Bran from your class? Are you guys...together?”
I shrugged. “No.”
