Evan paused, tapping a finger against his lips as he studied her. Anxiety started to creep up the back of her neck.
“Junior. Sixteen. Doesn’t drive.”
It took Brynna a second to realize that Evan was talking about her. He raised his eyebrows and she stumbled. “Uh, yeah. How did you know that?”
“I’m a genius. And your student ID is sticking out.” He flipped on his heel. “Come with me.”
“Wait. What?”
Evan didn’t answer. He kept walking with the sure step of a popular kid, and Brynna ran to catch up with him.
“Um, where are we going?” she asked once she caught up.
“You need to meet everyone. This way.”
Brynna hung back for a half second, her eyes raking over Evan. He gave her a quick, impatient look, and her mind spun, processing. He didn’t look at her boobs or give her the easy, cocky smile she recognized from guys who wanted to hook up with her. She shrugged and continued following.
Evan wound Brynna around the school to the cafeteria. She paused, grimacing. Evan looked over his shoulder and cocked a brow. “Oh, cafeteria for losers at your old school?” He smiled. “How cliché.”
Brynna followed Evan to a round table littered with good-looking kids staring boredly into their Starbucks cups. He gave two small, tight claps.
“Everyone, this is Brynna something-or-other. Be nice; she’s new.”
Evan took a chair, and Brynna was left to stand in the glare of three sets of eyes regarding her with mild curiosity. She offered a slow wave then immediately felt stupid, her hand dropping to her side.
“Um, I’m Brynna Chase. I just transferred here.”
“Isn’t she a plum?” Evan asked the girl sitting next to him. “I discovered her.” He grabbed Brynna’s wrist and pulled her down into the seat next to him. “Tell us everything about yourself.”
Brynna paused, her dark eyes scanning the group. She felt sweat pricking out above her lower lip, itching along her hairline.
“Where you from?” an incredibly thin girl with sharp features and a blunt-cut blond pageboy asked.
Evan pointed. “That’s Darcy.”
“I’m from Point Lobos.”
There was a brief pause as the words came out of Brynna’s mouth. She waited for them to recoil while a memory came together, to trigger that little something in their brains that remembered a news article, a tweet about the girl who survived while she watched her best friend die. Wasn’t that girl from Point Lobos?
But no one seemed to react much. Darcy nodded, and Evan swiped a paper cup of coffee from the girl sitting next to him. His eyes cut to Brynna. “This is my sibling, Lauren.”
Brynna raised her eyebrows at Evan’s use of the word “sibling,” and when Lauren offered her a hand to shake, Brynna tried not to stare at Lauren’s sweatshirt. She wasn’t successful, because Lauren looked down at herself, the emblem of a hornet in a swim cap, the words Hawthorne Hornets Swim Team in a circle around him.
“Do you swim?” Lauren asked.
The question shouldn’t have caught Brynna off guard, but it did. “Uh, no.” Not anymore, not ever again. “It’s cool that you do though.”
Evan bumped Lauren’s shoulder. “Women’s 500 freestyle champ. Twinsie here got the athletic ability in the fam. I got everything else.”
“You’re twins?” Brynna’s eyes went from Lauren, with her glossy mane of Crayola-red hair and wide-set eyes, to Evan.
“Fraternal,” Lauren said. “Totally fraternal.”
“Aren’t all boy/girl twins fraternal?” Brynna asked.
“Like I said.” Evan jabbed a thumb at Lauren. “Athletic ability,” and then he pointed back at himself. “Everything else.”
Lauren rolled her eyes, and an enormous, stereotypical jock with the name “Meatball” stitched on his jacket sat down.
It was a flash of a second, a nearly miniscule move, but Brynna could see Evan wilt.
“What’s up, fags?” Meatball asked, a wad of breakfast sandwich lodged in his cheek.
“Hey, dude, shut the hell up.”
Brynna looked up to see another jock—judging by his letterman’s jacket—who looked nothing like Meatball. He was slight, with close-cropped ink-black hair that looked like it’d curl if it got the chance. His eyes were an impossible sky blue and framed with lashes that Brynna would kill for.
Meatball turned his massive head up toward the new guy, shrugged, and lumbered off. The new jock slid into his vacated seat. “Sorry about that.” He swung his head toward Brynna. “I’m Teddy. I don’t think I know you.”
“Teddy’s our resident jock,” Evan clarified.
Darcy shot Teddy a withering glare. “I thought he was our resident gimp.”
Teddy turned to Brynna, completely unfazed, and pointed to his foot. “Os trigonum syndrome.”
Brynna blinked, feeling her cheeks redden. First, she was locked in the gaze of a hot guy, and second, she couldn’t understand a single word he said.
“It means he’s got an extra bone,” Evan said with a smirk.
“In his foot,” Darcy hissed.