I follow her gaze and look up to see Raph standing over our table. I notice that the tables around us have gone quiet, too.
He looks pointedly at Devon, who now looks visibly paler. I look on in confusion, as he gets up without another word, and goes back to his table.
I turn back to Raph, who is looking back at me nonchalantly, as if he hasn’t just scared off some poor guy who was in the middle of asking me out on a date.
“Hi …?” I say tentatively, although I have no clue what he’s doing here. We may now be spending most mornings, and if I’m honest, most afternoons together, but we still sit at our respective lunch tables. Him at the table in the center of the cafeteria with the popular crowd, me with Dani in the corner near the patio doors.
“That seat taken?” Well, it clearly was taken before he scared off that poor guy.
He’s usually so confident or just downright cocky, but he seems oddly uncertain just then as he stands over our table.
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask.
He looks confused for a second.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because you’re asking to sit with me at lunch? I think you might be lost?”
He rolls his eyes as he drops down on the seat next to me.
Dani gapes at him, as if God himself had just deigned to grace our lunch table.
Her eyes grow even wider as he drapes an arm around the back of my chair, as if he owns it.
Everyone is staring at us, and I’m all too aware of Layla’s eyes burning a hole through my back. Raph seems oblivious to it all, but I suddenly lose my appetite.
That’s great for him, though, because he takes it as a signal to start helping himself to my lunch.
Dani is watching him eat from my plate, when he turns to her and flashes that smile that makes all the girls fall at his feet. I can see it has the like effect on Dani.
“Hi, you’re Jaz’s friend, Dani, right?”
“I’m Raph,” he introduces himself with a straight face, although I think it’s totally ridiculous, because there isn’t a single student in the entire school or a single person on this entire planet most likely, who doesn’t know who he is.
“Jaz?” Dani repeats, quirking an eyebrow at the nickname. I shoot her a look of death.
Raph smirks in response.
“Yeah, it’s my nickname for her.” I’m about to tell Dani that the only reason he calls me that is because he thinks my full name has too many syllables for someone so insignificant. A waste of breath is what he called it. But I get the feeling that it’s no longer the reason. The nickname has irritatingly stuck and I feel like I wouldn’t like it if he did actually start calling me by my full name.
“I like it,” Dani says.
“Me, too. Best friends should have nicknames for each other.”
I frown in response, as Dani grins from ear to ear.
“We’re not best friends,” I say quickly.
“I get why you’d want to deny that in front of Dani here, but I’m sure she won’t be offended. We can both be your best friends.”
I cover my face and groan in frustration.
“By the way, what was Devon Waldorf doing at your table?” Raph asks, after a moment, and I don’t miss the pointed look that Dani gives me.
“He was asking me out on a date,” I reply coolly.
A frown mars that otherwise perfect face.
“He’s a jackass,” he replies harshly.
“Isn’t he one of your teammates?” I reply incredulously.
“Yeah, that’s why I can say that he’s a jackass.”
“What did you say?” he asks and I can sense the tension in his voice.
“I didn’t get to say anything, because for some reason, he ran off,” I reply through gritted teeth.
Raph doesn’t notice my irritation or at least he pretends not to.
“Hmm. Must be your garlic breath from this pasta.”
Dani bursts out laughing.
I cut my eyes at her and Raph in response, and his smile only grows wider.
“Anyway, it’s a good thing. You don’t want to go out with that asshole.”
Something about his tone pisses me off.
“How the hell would you know what I want?” I ask, my voice rising.
He has the gall to wink at me. “As your best friend, it’s my job to know and it’s also my job to make sure you don’t go out with any assholes.”
I get up, glaring at him all the while.
“Urgh. Screw you. The only asshole I see around here is you.” And with that, I stalk out of the cafeteria, well aware of Raph’s laughter following me and Dani joining in, too.
“Urgh, I’m so beat right now,” I groan as I follow Lance and Raph through the large golden doors of Sovereign Hall. I stayed behind after classes to finish off some work in the art studio while Lance and Raph had soccer practice. Then we headed over to the woods on the far side of the island to practice fire and earth.
Now, I’m exhausted. But there’s no rest for the wicked, because I have some serious studying to do.
“You did good, though,” Lance says, as he heads towards the living area. Baron and Keller I’ve gotten to know pretty well so far, but I haven’t spent much time with Lance. Dani was right about what she said on the first day of school about him, though, he does seem like the nicest of the three guys who basically rule Regency. He’s drop dead gorgeous, but doesn’t seem to know it, or at least he doesn’t use it to his advantage to get into girls’ panties. He’s also got a wicked sense of humor, which is definitely refreshing. I have no idea what a guy like him is doing with someone like Ivy Hemlock. Ivy is the only one of the heirs who still seems to agree with Layla about hating me. I don’t see her around much, but when I do, she’s right by Layla’s side, giving me the look of death.
“You mean apart from the part where she almost burned down that tree and started a forest fire?” Raph quips, and I give him a withering look in response.
I head upstairs and expect Raph to join Lance in the living area. Lance is powering up the console, and it looks like he’s settling in for another night of gaming. The three guys seem to do that often, and it’s so human-like and just so plain normal, that it’s easy to forget that these guys aren’t actually normal people at all—they’re freaking gods. Gods teaching me how to influence the elements.
I shake my head at the thought, though I can’t help the smile on my face.
“You going to bed?” Raph’s voice behind me startles me. I hadn’t realized that he was following me up the stairs.
“I wish. I have to study for my Eden introductory exam,” I say, stifling a yawn. Up until now, the only difference between the subjects at Regency and those that I studied back on Earth, has been elements class. Even the history and geography topics are centered around Earth. Because the two worlds are so aligned, or so I’m told.