Ah. He was looking out for his boy. He probably thought his buddy was going to get laid tonight and he wanted to help him along. “Well, aren’t you helpful?”
He blinked, clearly picking up on her sarcastic tone and not knowing what to make of her.
“Nolan?”
They both turned at the sound of his name.
There, standing framed in the light of the patio, was the captain of the cheerleading team and this year’s homecoming queen.
She and Nolan Martin were together often. On the morning announcements. In the halls at school. Hayden had never cared enough to gain confirmation on their status before. It was none of her business. She had her own life. Her own problems.
But she now knew. One look at the girl’s face, at the impatience of her body language, and she knew. Of course they were a real-life couple. The queen and the king. Hayden laughed lightly.
“What’s so funny?” Nolan looked back at her, his expression unreadable. Those deep-set eyes fixed on her, staring intently. She stopped laughing, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.
Butterflies took flight in her stomach.
Her body failed her. Again. She hated that. It reminded her of her mother. How often did Mom talk about some guy with beautiful eyes and magic hands only to end up wrecked by him weeks later?
“Is that your girlfriend?” Hayden asked what she already knew.
He looked back to where the homecoming queen stood near the house. “Yeah.”
“I thought so.” She gave another snort of laughter. “Well, she’s waiting.” Hayden waved toward the house. “You better get going.”
He didn’t move. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s kind of amusing.”
“What is?”
She looked back and forth between him and his girlfriend. “It’s just typical.”
“Typical how?” he pressed, looking so serious she regretted ever saying anything to him. She didn’t want to get into it with this guy. If he didn’t know he was a walking cliché, then who was she to inform him?
“You’re the homecoming king and queen. Both beautiful. Both popular. You’re like the leads of a predictable teen movie.”
He looked puzzled. “Are we? We’re pretty rare, I would think.”
Clearly he didn’t like being called typical. He thought he was rare? That was funny. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Well, it doesn’t feel like you’re complimenting me.”
She guessed she wasn’t.
He continued, “Wouldn’t we have to be opposites for us to be typical for a teen movie? You know . . . the school nerd and head cheerleader?”
“Can’t Buy Me Love,” she cited. “You know your teen rom-coms.”
“I have a sister, remember?”
Emmaline Martin seemed like the kind of girl who would know her vintage adolescent rom-coms. “Yes. I know.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
Maybe she was reading too much into it, but she got the impression that he didn’t approve of her knowing his sister. Rather than explain that they had just met, she said, “Maybe you’re right. You don’t exactly fit the role.”
“Nolan!” The girlfriend’s voice lifted in a whine.
He glanced at her and then looked back to Hayden, seemingly in no hurry.
“And what’s your role?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not the school nerd. Not the head cheerleader.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “I don’t have one.”
“You don’t play a role?” he asked, an edge of challenge to his voice.
“No. No role here. Guess that makes me atypical.”
“You sound . . . proud of that.”
It was just a fact. She knew herself. She didn’t have a group. She didn’t fit into any cliques. She didn’t play roles. She was too busy surviving.
“I’ll meet you at the car,” Girlfriend called out, her voice the height of exasperation. She marched back inside.
For some reason Nolan remained behind.
He was still looking at her and waiting for her answer. “Pride has nothing to do with it,” she replied at last, wondering if she sounded defensive and why she should.
“You play a role,” he pointed out calmly, but she detected an undercurrent of judgment in his voice. “We all do.”
Judgment was something she was very familiar with. She’d learned how to detect it in others at an early age . . . when someone from the state started dropping by for home visits because a well-meaning teacher reported her—or because she missed one too many days of school because Mom couldn’t get her on the bus and she was reported for truancy. The state hadn’t been by to check on her in years. Not since Hayden started taking care of herself.
He looked her up and down and she resisted fidgeting, but his eyes were scouring, reminding her of the ladies with their clipboards as they assessed her, scribbling notes as they walked through her house.
She shoved the memory away. “Then what’s my role?” She stared at him, tensing all over, hating that she had asked, regretting it instantly because it made it seem like she cared.
He stared back at her, not answering. His silence was telling. Deafening.
It told her everything she needed to know.
She knew what he thought of her. How little he thought of her. She’d sensed it from him the moment he walked up on her talking with his sister.
He wouldn’t put it into words. He wouldn’t be impolite enough to say it, but he thought she was wild. A bad influence. A bad girl.
A slut.
That was her role, as far as he was concerned.
She’d heard it all before. Every ugly word. She had never cared. They were just labels and usually uttered by people whose opinion she did not value.
So why did it sting a little right now? He was a stranger. His opinion meant nothing.
“You think you know me?” She stepped forward and stretched out a hand toward his chest, determined to shake his composure, to deflect. She brushed an invisible speck of lint away from his long-sleeved henley. Damn, his chest was solid. His pecs were outlined against the fitted fabric.
He grabbed her wrist, his fingers loose around her bones, but the contact made her breath hiss . . . and those butterflies. They were back with a vengeance.
She could easily twist free, but she felt frozen as she looked up at his dark eyes. “You like playing guys,” he said, his voice whisper soft.
She liked playing guys? Is that what he thought? That was laughable.
Ever since she started high school, guys had been trying to play her. They looked at her mom, her house, her secondhand clothes, and thought they could use her. That she mattered less somehow.
“Is that what you’ve heard?” she asked.
“No.” There was no crack in his expression as he uttered this.
“No?” she echoed, crossing her arms. “Fascinating. Tell me. How did you come to know this about me then?”
“I have eyes . . .” His voice trailed off.
Meaning he’d noticed her before? He never gave any indication of that. Whenever she’d observed him, he had never been looking her way.