by Beth Reekles
Mr. Shane himself looked like the stereotypical fresh-out-of-grad-school teacher: he wore thin-framed glasses, his tie was slightly askew, and his shirt was only tucked in at the front. And he didn’t have that hard look on his face that some of the older teachers did, when they were sick of teaching the same syllabus for twenty years straight. He smiled at us individually as we came into the room.
Rachel and Lisa had clearly arrived only moments before, since they were just putting their purses down on desks near the window. Lee made a beeline for the desk next to his girlfriend, Rachel, and kissed her on the cheek. I looked at the desk on his other side, but it was already taken.
“Elle! Sit by me!” Lisa chirped when I hesitated, gesturing at the desk next to her, in front of Lee. She’d been dating our friend Cam for a few months and had become part of our group ever since. “Did you guys meet Levi yet? I was over at Cam’s for dinner just after he’d moved in, so we went to say hi together. He was kind of shy, I think, but he seems cool. And I’d kill for eyelashes like his! And his hair—it’s just so curly. I’m in love with it.”
I smiled in reply and she turned to resume her conversation with Rachel. Lee had pulled his chair closer to Rachel’s, looking at her with a gooey expression, and I tried not to feel too stung that he’d picked a desk beside her over one next to me. I was still getting used to the new dynamic that Lee going out with Rachel had created. I hadn’t really noticed it until our time at the beach house this summer, and now Noah wasn’t around to help soften the blow of Lee choosing his girlfriend over me.
Once almost all the desks were filled, Mr. Shane started with the typical first-day-back speech—how he hoped we all had a good summer, but now we had a “really big year ahead” and how important this year was for each of us, and that some of us would need to “knuckle down and work hard.”
He was about halfway through this spiel when there was a knock at the door, and the school secretary stepped inside with a polite smile.
“Sorry to interrupt…You have a new student in your homeroom, and I thought I’d show him up here. My fault he’s late—there was some paperwork that needed to be checked.”
I turned to look at Lee, who raised an eyebrow at me. Our heads swiveled to look at the new student, though I had a feeling I already knew who it was.
And I was right. Levi timidly stepped in from behind the secretary, and his mouth twitched, like he wasn’t sure if he should smile or try to look cool. He was still wearing his sunglasses on top of his head, and where they pushed all the hair back from his face I realized how long his face was. And his chin was sort of pointy, but not in a ferrety way. Actually, seeing him from a distance, he looked taller than he was. A few of the girls across the room started to whisper to each other.
His shirt was free of creases, but only tucked in on one side, and his sweater was slung over his shoulder, underneath the strap of his backpack. It was like he was trying to make his uniform sloppy to be cool, but he still looked pretty clean-cut.
“Well, welcome. Come on in, find a seat. What’s your name?”
“Levi Monroe.”
When Levi spotted Lee and me, his face brightened. Before he could zigzag between the desks to the empty one in front of me, he tripped, arms pinwheeling, alarm taking over his face. He grabbed at a nearby desk for balance, only to bring that crashing down with him.
Someone coughed, trying to cover a laugh, and then Lee and I burst into giggles. One guy moved to give Levi a hand up, another one righting the desk he’d knocked over. Even Mr. Shane was laughing, though he was trying not to.
Levi, without so much as a blush, tossed his head back and dropped his shoulder, turning gravely to the class. “Let it never be said that I don’t know how to make an entrance.” He bowed, and Lee whooped behind me, more people laughing as Levi made it to the seat in front of me—this time without falling over his own feet.
He swung the chair sideways so he could see us and the teacher.
“Hey again,” he said tentatively. I could understand why Cam hadn’t wanted to be stuck with the new kid, but I felt sorry for the poor sap. It couldn’t be easy, moving in your senior year. I smiled to put him at ease.
“It’s…Ella, right?”
“Elle,” I corrected him. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “And that’s—”
“Lee, I remember. Yeah.” He looked at Lisa. “We met the other day, didn’t we?”
“Yeah. Lisa.”
He nodded. “Lisa. Got it.”
“And this is Rachel,” Lisa said, gesturing behind her. “Lee’s girlfriend.”
“I’m going to have to start making a list. I’m never gonna remember who’s dating who. I’m bad enough at remembering names.”
“If you yell ‘dude,’ I can almost guarantee one of us will look up,” Lee suggested.
Mr. Shane started talking again, and we fell silent; he might’ve been pretty cool as far as teachers went, but we knew he wouldn’t exactly appreciate us talking through his little speech.
When our class schedules were handed out, everyone started buzzing with conversation, comparing theirs with their friends’. I snatched up Lee’s immediately, poring over it.
“Well? What’s the damage?”
“Different classes for English lit,” I said. “And you’re in AP calculus. I’m in algebra two. Everything else looks good.”
“Phys ed?”
“Phys ed at the same time.”
“Yes. You know how much I love watching you take people out in dodgeball.”
“You know how much I love taking you out in dodgeball.”
I passed back his schedule so he could compare it with his girlfriend’s, but she was still busy comparing with Lisa. I looked up and saw Levi chewing his thumbnail, looking at all of us out of the corner of his eye—like he was too shy to join in, but he wanted to.
I leaned forward and said, “Come on, hand it over.”
Relief was evident on his face that he was being included.
We had a couple classes together, but as we talked more about our classes and teachers, Levi began to look more nervous.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He stuck his chin out, looking defiant. “You know, I don’t want you to feel like you have to hang out with me just because I’m the new kid. I told Cam he didn’t have to carpool to school with me, but he said he didn’t mind, at least not for the first couple of days, especially while his car’s still in the shop getting repairs. But just…you know, don’t feel obligated to be nice to me, or anything.”
“You haven’t given me a reason to not be nice to you. Not yet at least. Besides, if we’re in the same first class together, you may as well walk with me. Right?”
His smile was nervous. “You don’t have to.”
“Why? Are you an ax murderer? On the run from the cops in Detroit?” I fake gasped. “Oh my God. I’ve got it. I bet you’re the kind of person who agrees to terms and conditions without reading them.”
He laughed, the tension and anxiety falling away from his face. “You caught me.”
The bell sounded, and I picked up my purse. “Come on, newbie. The hell on earth that is algebra awaits.”
* * *
• • •
Morning classes flew past, and my head felt like I was trying to drive a car in the wrong gear. It was like I’d forgotten how to take notes properly over the summer, and forgotten how to just sit down and learn stuff. Plus, I got distracted every time my phone buzzed, wondering if it was a text from Noah. (It never was.)
But now it was lunch, and I could breathe a sigh of relief that the day was half over.
I joined the back of the lunch line and leaned my head so it rested on Lee’s shoulder. His chin sat on top of my head.
“Mmm, smell those tacos.”
“Don’t drool on
my hair,” I told him sternly. “I washed it this morning.”
Lee made a gargling noise in response and I ducked away before he did actually drool on me.
We were the first of our friends to the cafeteria, and once we got our food, we made our way to an empty table near the middle of the room. It was one that some of the seniors used to sit at, and now that they’d moved on to college, I guessed that made it ours. As Lee and I took seats opposite each other, he gave me his usual impish grin, and I knew he was thinking the same thing as me: being seniors was definitely cool.
It didn’t take the others long to join us—Cam, Dixon, Warren, Oliver, and now Levi, too. Lisa and Rachel weren’t far behind, taking the empty spots next to their boyfriends. A couple of girls they hung out with sat at the end of the table by Lisa.
As people started swapping stories from their mornings, I noticed Levi looking awkward again, trying to keep up with it all.
Lee was giving Rachel gooey-eyes, though, so I decided to step in. “How’re you liking California so far?” I asked Levi brightly. “Hot enough for you?”
“The girls are,” he joked, with a wink that made me blush. Warren snorted, only to choke on his soda so hard that Oliver had to thump him on the back several times. Lee waggled his eyebrows at me, trying not to laugh.
“I’m kidding,” Levi said. “Well, not—I mean, obviously you’re pretty, but—no, no offense—I just…God, this sounded a lot smoother in my head. I was gonna sound all suave and cool and funny.” We all laughed then, Levi included. “That was supposed to be a joke. And now I sound like a loser.”
“Why’d you move here, anyway?” Warren asked. We were all wondering it, but every one of us gave Warren a wide-eyed, pursed-lip, What are you thinking? look. Catching on, he added hastily, “Sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to pry.”
Levi didn’t seem to mind too much, though. “Nah, it’s cool. My dad’s a dentist and my mom was the accountant at the place where he worked, but then the company went bust and my parents lost their jobs, so we decided to move. We have some family not too far away, and my mom managed to get another job, so…” He cleared his throat after trailing off. “So, yeah. Here we are.”
“Is it just you and your parents, then?” Rachel asked him, prying much less bluntly than Warren had.
“My sister, too.”
“Sister?” Oliver’s eyebrows quirked and he leaned forward. “Single?”
“Uh, well, considering she’s eight years old and still thinks boys have cooties…”
The boys jeered at Oliver, and he blushed. Levi grinned, running a hand through his curls, relaxing.
“I take it back,” Olly mumbled, head in hands. “Next time, specify little sister, maybe.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Anyway,” Dixon said, “speaking of siblings…Lee, how’s your brother doing at college?”
“He loves it there. I’ll be surprised if he even wants to come home for Thanksgiving.”
Wait, what?
I shot Lee a look, but he seemed oblivious. Had Noah said something about not coming home for the holidays? When was I going to see him next? But, no—surely he would’ve told me.
I took a breath. He definitely would’ve told me. I was definitely overreacting.
“Have his classes started yet?” Cam asked me.
“Uh…yeah. He had math this morning.”
“Ugh.”
“He loved it.”
Warren snorted again. “Who’d have thought Flynn was such a geek, huh? He hid it pretty well. I bet he used to hide textbooks in the seat of his motorcycle.”
“Flynn,” Levi said, and looked between Lee and me. “Is that your brother?”
“My brother,” Lee explained. “His name’s Noah—our last name’s Flynn—but everyone’s always called him Flynn. He’s dating Elle.”
“Oh. Oh! I—sorry, I thought you two were related or something. I mean, you don’t look that much alike, but the way you guys act, I figured…”
“It’s okay,” Lee said reassuringly. “Easy mistake.”
Lee and I were twins in practically everything except blood: we’d been born on the same day and had grown up together. We’d been best friends our entire lives. Sometimes people seemed to forget we weren’t actually related.
“Lee and Flynn—Noah—God, I don’t know what to call him now he’s gone,” Cam muttered, the last comment half to himself, “threw some epic parties over the last couple of years. There was one, a couple months ago…” He started chuckling, chest heaving as he tried to suppress it to finish his story. “And Elle got so drunk, she started dancing on the pool table, then tried to strip down to go skinny-dipping. Funniest. Thing. Ever.”
Levi raised his eyebrows at me. “And here I was thinking you were a wholesome, all-American, average girl next door.”
“It was the single most humiliating experience ever,” I groaned, blushing over it. The guys were busy laughing at me. I had only vague memories of the night, and I hadn’t had more than a few sips of beer at a party since. Although, the night had ended with Noah totally coming to my rescue, so it hadn’t been a total disaster. And I’d seen him in his underwear—Superman boxers, which I’d teased him endlessly over.
“Aw, come on, Shelly,” Lee said with a wicked gleam in his blue eyes, taking my mind off the image of Noah in his boxers. “I can think of far more embarrassing things you’ve done.”
“Shelly?” Levi asked.
“Short for Rochelle,” I explained.
“You should call her Shelly,” Warren told him. “She totally loves it.”
“Do not call me Shelly.”
“But—” Looking lost and helpless, Levi glanced at Lee.
I might let Lee and Noah get away with calling me Shelly, but it wasn’t exactly a nickname I loved. I narrowed my eyes now at Lee, who was shaking with silent laughter.
I pointed my fork at him, a french fry dangling off the end. “You dare bring anything else up, and I will personally rummage through the photo albums in your attic to find those photos of you dressed up as Elvis to show Rachel. Or the Halloween we went as Sonny and Cher.”
Lee sobered up at that and mimed zipping his lips shut. Then he stole the fry off the end of my fork and ate it, ignoring the mock-glare I gave him.
“Speaking of parties…,” Dixon started, playing peacemaker as usual, and then went on to ask who we thought would be most likely to host the first party of the year, and then tried persuading Lee or Warren to host, but they both seemed apprehensive.
I looked over at Lee again, who was holding hands with Rachel on top of the table and talking to her in a low voice, looking at her like she lit up his entire world. Noah looked at me like that sometimes.
It sent a pang through my stomach. Not just because I missed Noah, but because seeing Lee so wrapped up in his girlfriend made me worry again a little that I might lose him. I mean, of course I wanted my best friend to be happy, and I was thrilled that he was so in love with Rachel. But now that Noah wasn’t around, I was starting to notice how little time Lee and I spent just the two of us, since he had Rachel. Not that I was jealous.
All right, so maybe I was a little jealous. Just a teeny tiny bit.
I glanced over at Levi again. Levi, who wanted to fit in and make friends. Sure, the other guys seemed to like him well enough, and they’d hang out with him—but without Lee attached to my hip, maybe hanging out with the new kid wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Chapter 3
“Jesus, Lee,” I mumbled. “Some of these guys are huge.”
Lee was bulked out with pads and a helmet, and he wasn’t exactly small: shorter and leaner than Noah, still kinda tall, and strong. But some of the guys out on the field looked three times the size of him, psyching themselves up for tryouts. Some of them had already been on the team l
ast year.
And, up until then, I’d thought Lee would be a shoo-in for the team.
“Sure,” he replied, bouncing on his toes, “but I’m fast, and you know I can throw the ball. That linebacker shirt has my name on it.”
“Actually, I think the quarterback shirt does.”
He pulled a face at me. Lee had always been into football—and pretty good at it—but he’d never wanted to be on the team before now. Not when Noah had been the shining star of the team as the quarterback. I kind of couldn’t blame him.
Lee started whistling, and it took me a minute to recognize the song.
“Is that that song? ‘I Hope I Get It,’ or whatever it’s called?”
“Yuh-huh. From A Chorus Line.”
“You what, now?”
“Hey. I watched a lot of musicals online with Rachel this summer so she could prep for drama club. She’s going for a leading role this year. I’m a good supportive boyfriend, you know. Ask me to sing you Fiyero’s part from ‘As Long as You’re Mine.’ I rock that.”
First he picked a desk next to Rachel instead of me, and just now I was finding out that he’d been spending time this summer singing musicals with her? What else wasn’t he sharing with me?
But I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. “Whatever you say, buddy.”
The coach’s whistle shrilled across the field. “Line up, boys! We’re starting with running drills!”
“Guess you’d better go.”
“Wish me luck.”
“Hey.” I put my hand on Lee’s shoulder so he looked me in the eye. I nodded at him. “You’ve got this.”
“And you’ve got a zit on your chin.”
“Love you, too!” I yelled after him, watching him run out onto the field to join the rest of the hopefuls. I took a spot in the bleachers to watch and couldn’t help comparing him to how Noah had once played. Lee wasn’t as good, but he was still a strong player.
