“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Did you blow off class?”
“Nope.” Abel gives me the sexy smile that drives other girls crazy—including the two staring at him from across the hallway. Abel and I have been friends since sixth grade, and he’s more like a brother to me, but I get it.
His lean build, boyish good looks, and the gorgeous contrast between his St. Lucian mother’s light green eyes and his Jamaican father’s deep brown skin never fails to send girls into a feeding frenzy. That’s not the only thing Abel inherited from his father. Dressed in skinny jeans, a vintage Alice in Chains T-shirt, and his dad’s beat-up Doc Martens, he bears a creepy resemblance to his dad, Tommy Ryder—the front man for the band Dirty Rotten Devils and a rock legend who overdosed when Abel was eleven.
He waves at the girls, and I roll my eyes. “Are you ever not flirting?”
Abel clutches his chest like he’s wounded. “You know my heart only belongs to one girl.”
Lex. The two of them have been crazy about each other forever, a fact that hasn’t brought them any closer to dating. For years, Lex wouldn’t even admit she had feelings for him.
Noah was the one who finally coaxed the truth out of her. He had a way of making people feel comfortable enough to tell him anything. Thinking about Noah triggers the hollow ache in my chest.
“So did you come to check up on me?” I force a smile.
Abel holds up a thick white form that looks suspiciously similar to my class schedule. “Technically, I transferred yesterday, but I had to pick up a copy of my immunization records this morning.”
My mouth falls open. “You left Woodley?”
“Yep. I’m officially a member of the masses.” He slings his arm over my shoulder. “Like I’d let you spend senior year without me. You’d never survive the withdrawal.”
More like he can’t survive being away from Lex, and now he has an excuse to transfer.
“Your mom is okay with this?”
He laughs. “Now, let’s not get crazy. But there’s nothing she can do about it. I’m eighteen.”
“Look who finally showed.” Lex strolls up behind him. “It took you long enough.”
“You knew?” Of course she did.
Lex hands Abel her books. “I know everything before it happens, kind of like the pope.”
“I think you mean God,” Abel says.
She leans closer to him. “I’m flattered, but you can call me Lex.”
A fresh wave of students floods the hallway, and Abel starts attracting serious attention. Some girls stop walking altogether, while others backtrack and cluster near the lockers, whispering and trying to make eye contact. Half of them are staring because he’s gorgeous, and the other half probably recognize him from the random tabloid photos of Abel and his mom doing boring things like grocery shopping.
Lex glares at his groupies. “You’ve only been here five minutes, and your fan club is already forming.”
Abel winks at her. “It’s a gift.”
“Move along.” Lex shoos away the girls with a flick of her wrist. A curvy brunette bats her over-mascaraed lashes at Abel and blows him a kiss as she leaves.
He tugs on the sleeve of my shirt. “Forget to do your laundry?”
“I’m flying under the radar.”
He peels opens a pack of SweeTarts and pops a few into his mouth. “How’s that working for you?”
“Shitty. But if I can open my locker—which, by the way, isn’t even locked—I’ll upgrade it to ‘slightly shitty.’”
“Step aside. I’ve got this.” Abel bends down and inspects the handle, rattling the latch. “It’s probably rusted shut.”
“Perfect.”
“Let me see your schedule, Romeo.” Lex plucks it out of his back pocket and unfolds it, running her finger down the page. “Someone forgot to turn on the charm in the office. Your schedule sucks almost as much as Frankie’s. At least you have second lunch.”
“With study hall right after,” Abel says. “It doesn’t get better than that.”
“Lex has the same lunch period,” I offer. “You can sit together in the cafeteria.”
“Not with me.” Lex tucks Abel’s schedule in his shirt pocket. “I don’t eat in District 12.”
I lean against the locker next to mine and listen while the two of them argue about whether Abel can talk Mrs. Lane into changing his schedule by the end of the day. It turns into a challenge, like everything else between the two of them. The stakes are just getting interesting when a tattooed arm reaches over my shoulder.
Marco bangs the side of his fist against my locker, and it springs open.
Mr. Santiago is right behind him. “Keep moving, Leone. You’re out of here.”
“It’s your world, Mr. S. I’m just living in it.” Marco pushes his way through the double doors that lead outside. Before I have a chance to thank him, he’s gone.
“Who was that?” Abel asks, examining the lock to see what he missed.
Lex waits until the doors slam behind them. “You don’t want to know.”
CHAPTER 7
DREAMS DIE IN THE DOWNS