We all quieted down in time to hear him say more loudly, “Sam.”
All eyes were on the new guy, and suddenly I felt bad for him. I knew what that felt like. I’d been the subject of the same kinds of stares last fall, when I finally returned to school after the accident. It was the worst kind of attention; no one says anything; they just look and look, judging you. I blinked, cleared my throat, and shifted my gaze to the floor.
“Sam,” he repeated, his voice sounding deeper than I’d expected it to. “I go by Sam.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Bost said. “I’m sorry. Welcome, Sam. There’s an empty desk there, next to Lacey. Lacey, can you raise your hand?”
I looked up, startled. There seemed to be little need for me to put my hand in the air since Mrs. Bost was pointing straight at me, but I did anyhow, feeling my cheeks heat up as I did.
Sam began weaving through the rows full of students, who continued to stare like he was some kind of science project. I couldn’t blame them. Not only was he new, but he was gorgeous. I mean, really gorgeous.
“Hey,” he said, settling into the seat next to mine.
“Hey,” I replied. He scooted his desk closer to mine so that he could see my book, and as he leaned over to glance at the text, I could feel his warm breath on my arm. I looked up and was surprised to find him studying me.
His eyes locked with mine. I shifted my gaze down and fumbled with my book. When I snuck another glance, he was still looking at me.
And for the first time since I’d seen him, Sam Stone cracked a small smile, and I felt a little tingle run up my spine. I smiled shyly back and looked away.
chapter 2
Sam Stone wound up in my sixth-period AP English class, too, and when he walked through the door and noticed me, he shot me a relieved look.
“Hey,” he said, slipping into the empty seat beside me after yet another awkward, lengthy teacher introduction. “You’re in this class too.”
It was the longest sentence I’d heard him speak all day. I merely nodded, wondering why I seemed incapable of stringing words together.
“Lacey, right?” Sam asked, cracking another smile.
“Yeah,” I said, my cheeks pinking.
“Cool name,” he said, and for the first time, I noticed he had dimples. Not normal dimples, but almost vertical indentations along his cheeks, lines that made his face appear like it had been sculpted quite carefully by a really talented artist. “I’m Sam.”
“I know.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I didn’t say anything. He probably thought I was rude. Or maybe just dumb. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
Jennica came home with me after school to study for our trig quiz on Friday. Sydney and Logan were going to some homecoming planning committee meeting, so Jennica and I had to take the bus. She didn’t have a car either, although she had a license, and her mom let her borrow her car sometimes on the weekends.
“How come you’re so good at this, and I’m so terrible?” Jennica grumbled as we sat down at the kitchen table and cracked our math books. Mom, who seemed to work 24-7, was still at the office, and Tanner had come home minutes after us and locked himself in his room, so we had the rest of the house to ourselves.
I shrugged. “You’re not terrible,” I said. “I’m just good at math, the way you’re good at swimming.”
Jennica was the captain of our school’s swim team, even though she was only a junior. She snorted. “Yeah, because swimming is a real life skill,” she said. “I’ll definitely be able to use that someday.”
I knew she was worried about getting into colleges, but I tried to laugh it off. “You never know,” I said. “You could have to save a drowning child or something someday.”
“Why does it always have be a drowning kid in these rescue fantasies?” she asked with a smile. “Can’t it be a drowning movie star or something?”
“Right,” I said. “I can just imagine you pulling Robert Pattinson out of the ocean.”
“Or Shia LaBeouf,” she said. She paused and giggled. “It could happen.”
“You’d probably have to give them mouth-to-mouth,” I deadpanned. “You know, to save them, of course.”
“You’re right. I should definitely go into a career as a celebrity rescue swimmer,” Jennica said. She glanced down at the book. “But until then, you’d better teach me about sines and cosines. Just so I have a backup plan if Rob and Shia don’t wash up in Plymouth.”