Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CADENCE
“Am I missing something?” Hudson says at lunchtime, placing his tray on the table beside mine. He scans the room as he takes a seat. “Yesterday you were Miss Popular and today…”
“Today, I have a plague circle around me.” I give him a weary smile, conjuring up a wink from my flagging energy. “I hope you’re fully vaccinated because otherwise, don’t come close.”
It’s a joke but I tense, waiting to see if he leaves.
Students who had been friendly now won’t meet my eye. Rox gave me the finger in the corridor for absolutely no reason. Even Viliami looked uncomfortable when I took a seat three away from his in our third period Māori language class.
Whatever Drake confided to Gretchen this morning—false or otherwise—has spread across the school.
“All the better for me,” he says, bumping his shoulder against mine. “Here I was, trying to figure out how to monopolise you, and the school bully arranged it for me.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Drake’s the school bully?”
He takes a second and I’m about to correct the name when he shakes his head, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Gretchen is the school bully. Those scores of people who hang around her are just trying to remain on her good side, including me.”
It’s what Drake told me the weekend I met her. Perhaps he was genuinely looking out for me, and it just came out wrong. I don’t even know if he had anything to do with her change of heart this morning. She might have cornered him, asking questions until she struck gold.
With Hudson standing firm in our friendship, I drag my eyes off the floor. Glancing around, I catch half a dozen boys quickly jerk their eyes away.
Only Drake holds my gaze, smirking while Gretchen clutches onto his arm, even more smitten than she appeared last week.
My eyes rest on my food for a second, needing to scull half my soda to get rid of the lump in my throat.
Stupid brain. I don’t care that he’s hanging around with her. I should be pleased the two most toxic people in my life are busy entertaining each other instead of bothering me.
So of course, I immediately check on them again, but they’re too wrapped in each other to notice.
I force my gaze farther along, returning an eyebrow wave from Salesi.
Hudson puts a hand on my leg, leaning into me under the guise of reaching for a flier left on the table. When he leans back, his thigh remains firmly pressed against mine and I smile to myself, then he gives me a shoulder bump.
“Do you want to come around to mine tonight? Mum ordered me to invite you to dinner but be warned”—once again he leans closer, whispering into my ear—“any questions she asks are solely to feed the local gossip factory.”
“Our family really aren’t that interesting.”
“You don’t need to be. If she finds nothing scandalous, she’s perfectly capable of inventing her own.”
He nudges me again to let me know he’s joking, but I’m not entirely convinced. “Not tonight but let me check. I’m sure Mum and Arnold won’t mind if I give them warning.”
His smile broadens. “I’ll let her know. If she gets curious enough, she might even walk around the corner to ask your mother directly.”
“Oh, the horror.”
“You’ll lose that sarcasm once you’re trying to evict her from your house. She’s a stayer.”
I glance over to Drake again, still deep in conversation with Gretchen. I wonder what they’re talking about so intently, then they simultaneously look at me, then back at each other and smile.
My stomach clenches tighter and I push my tray away, no longer hungry.
Ben, the next oldest of Hudson’s brothers, wanders over to our table halfway through lunch, helping himself to most of what’s left on my plate.
“Don’t you have your own friends?” Hudson asks pointedly when he’s been there for ten minutes.
“Nah. You know me.” He tips me a giant wink. “Can’t hold on to people to save myself.”
Hudson shoos him away then his shoulders sag as Salesi approaches.
“Yo, losers. Wat up?” He throws himself into a chair opposite, stealing the last French fry from my plate.
“Hey,” I say with a laugh. “I could have been saving that.”
“Yeah, for me.” He rolls his eyes as Viliami joins him. “Can’t stay away, little bro?”
His twin scowls. “Six minutes. That’s how much older you are.”
“It counts.” Salesi tilts his head to the side, studying me through hooded eyes. “You sure pissed off Gretchen. Mind telling me how so I know how much trouble I’m in for being over here?”
“She thinks I lied about not knowing Drake.” The brothers frown at each other. “Sorry, Blaine.”
“His nickname’s Drake?” Salesi shoots a glance over his shoulder. “He does kind of look like a duck.”
“Oh, yeah. The feathers are a dead giveaway.”
Salesi rolls his eyes. “Ignore mini-me. He’s got a degree in sarcasm.”
“More to the point, how do you know him?” Hudson asks, moving the conversation back on track. “Wasn’t his mother a druggie or something? I heard she OD’d in some squalid emergency housing.”
The dismissiveness in his voice makes my stomach pull uncomfortably tight, but I answer his question. “We’ve both been in and out of emergency housing. We went to Alabaster High School together.”
“And you came here at the same time?” Viliami’s eyes narrow like I’m trying to put one over on him.
“Apparently, his dad didn’t know he existed until his mum died.” I pull in my shoulders, feeling guilty since this isn’t my story to tell. “My mum started dating his father and neither of us knew until we moved in together.”
“Hm. Not surprising he didn’t know.” Salesi stretches out his long legs, bumping into mine. He wrinkles his nose in apology, moving them to the side. “Far as I can tell, he’s barely ever home. I’ve seen him sleeping in his car by the public jetty.”
The information makes me feel worse about talking behind his back. I remember checking his room that first day and imagining the only reason someone would stay away from the glorious house was if they had a boy or girlfriend. It’s sad he’d choose the discomfort of his car rather than the luxury at home.
Before my sympathy can fully engage, a tiny voice reminds me it’s what I was aiming for when he stole my money and terrified me into a year of sleepless nights.
Hudson clears his throat. “Since you won’t be going to Gretchen’s party—”
Salesi overrides him before he can make an alternative offer. “You can come to ours. We’re a few houses down, but there’s a nature reserve behind our properties that connects most of the lane. We can crash the party early, then move back to ours. It’s where the cool kids always end up partying.”
“But this time you can join,” Viliami says to his twin, wearing a large smirk. “Who the fuck says, ‘cool kids?’ You’ve taken one too many knees to the head.”
“That sounds good,” I rush to say before their bickering descends any further. “But I’ll need a lift there. I doubt Drake’s keen on playing chauffeur.”
“We have three cars between us,” Hudson reassures me, stretching his arm over the back of my chair. “I’m sure we can sort something.”
“Then I guess it’s a date.”
After another few minutes of chatter, the twins go back to their table. Nobody appears to mind they were consorting with the enemy. Perhaps Gretchen’s reach isn’t as long as they thought it might be.
Maybe she even understands on some level that Drake’s the false one. That, for all my faults, I genuinely wanted to be her friend.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter.
It might sting to be on the outside when last Monday was so comfy and warm, but it’s still better than what I imagined when Arnold first told me the news about school.
After all, I’m sitting next to a cute boy who’s taking me to the movies on Saturday. A real date. My first date if I’m being honest. A thought that sets my stomach fluttering with anticipation.
No. I really can’t complain.