by Ruby Vincent
“Moon has English,” Landon continued. “Derek’s got biology and Fields can do whatever the hell he does. With you on math, we’re set next year.”
Cole waved a hand. “Hold up. We don’t know if this guy is really as good as people are saying. We’re supposed to spend our afternoons studying for the placement test. We’ll study together and see what you know.”
I looked at them in surprise. “We are? We will?”
“Yes.”
“But Argyle didn’t say we had to study.”
Cole pinned me with a look. “Nope, and that’s why all the future F Class kids will be sitting on their ass all afternoon. Not us.”
“You seriously want to study together? You guys don’t seem to like each other or me?”
“Being friends isn’t a requirement for becoming Elite. We just have to know that when people come for us to battle, you’ll be able to defend what’s ours.”
Goodness. This guy really doesn’t know how to turn it down, but it’s not like it would hurt me to study.
“Okay. Fine.”
“We’ll go up to my room after we’re finished.”
With that settled, the guys polished off their food and pushed back from the table. They looked down at me expectantly as I shoved the last of my taco in my mouth. Under different circumstances, I would have liked three hot guys eager to get to me alone for a study date, but in this getup, not so much.
You like it just fine, a traitorous voice spoke up, or your heart wouldn’t be banging like a drum and your palms wouldn’t be getting sweaty just thinking of Landon touching you. You’ve never had a crush before, but it seems that’s changed.
I shoved the thought down as I rose from my seat. The boys led the way out of the cafeteria.
“Hey, guys, wait!” Zachary skidded to a stop in front of us. “Where are you going?”
“We’re going to study.”
“I’ll come with.”
“Who said you were invited?” Cole snapped.
Zachary’s smile faltered. “Come on. I’ll be one of the Elite too. We’ll be hanging out and studying all the time. Might as well get used to it.”
Cole grunted and stepped around him. Zach seemed to take that as a yes, because his smile returned. He rushed off after Cole while the other guys followed, but I didn’t move. I looked back toward Owen and Justin’s table. Zachary had run off so fast he hadn’t even taken his tray.
“Manning, what’s the holdup?”
Michael stood in the entrance, waiting for me. I tossed one last wave at Owen and Justin before picking up my feet and following him.
“You know,” I said as we passed by the smiling faces of alumni. “There are more important things than being in the Elite Class, and if you think I’m a crush-everyone-on-the-way-to-the-top kind of person, then let me wake you up from that dream right now.”
“I agree.”
“And another thing, I—” I halted as what he said penetrated. “Wait. What did you say?”
“There are more important things than the Elite Class,” he repeated, “and those things are the opportunities that come from being in it. You know about my mom.”
“No.”
He squinted down at me, frowning, but after a second his face cleared. “Sorry. Homeschooler. I forgot.” He took a deep breath, and for a moment, the blank, serious mask that had been his face lifted. “My mom is Elaine Young. She was a champion and headed straight for the Olympics. Track and field. It wasn’t a question. That was until some stupid drunk ran through a red light and put her in a wheelchair.”
“Oh no,” I breathed. “Michael, I’m so sorry.”
He looked away. “It was years ago. The point is, I’m doing this for her. One day, a Young is going to bring home the gold and that’s going to be me. I didn’t know about the Elite Network before last night, but now that I do, I have to get in.”
Of all the stuff I had heard from Cameron, Santiago, Cole, Adam, and the rest, this was the first time I really understood what being in the Elite Class could mean.
“I get it. I know you’ll get there. You’ll bring back the gold.”
Michael met my eyes... and smiled—a full, real, beautiful smile that punched me in the gut.
Cheeks warming, I tore my eyes away. Make that a crush times two.
“Thanks, Zeke.”
I mumbled something in response.
Our group reached the dorms and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor. We passed my room and kept going to the final door at the end of the hall.
“I brought my textbooks,” Cole said as he unlocked the door. “You guys can go and get yours. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes.”
Michael, Zach, and Landon split off. Cole frowned at me when I didn’t move.
“I didn’t bring textbooks.”
He rolled his eyes like he expected nothing less from me and then shoved into the room. I followed after him, hiding a smile. I wasn’t trying to rile him up, but it was kind of funny how intense he was.
I walked inside and our eyes met instantly. My grin froze on my face.
Derek shot up in bed. “What the hell is the stalker doing here, Cole?!”
“I’m not a—!”
“Chill, Derek,” Cole said mildly. He strolled over to his desk and gathered his books. “We’re going to study for the placement test. You can join us if you feel like taking a break from being an asshole.”
“Fuck you.”
Cole flipped him off over his shoulder.
I watched the exchange with wide eyes. I wasn’t sure if Cole had a talent for pissing people off or if Derek was just the kind of guy who hated everyone. Either way, I was glad they were focusing their ire on each other.
“Sit down, Manning,” Cole said without turning around. “There’s an extra notebook on the couch. You can use that.”
Derek watched me through eyes narrowed into slits as I crossed the room. I felt the weight of his annoyance like an anchor on my chest. I sat in the chair with its back to him just to get away from his stare.
Cole was still fiddling around his desk. For lack of anything better to do, I took out my phone and messed with it while I waited. Minutes passed, but no words did. The room was completely silent.
I quickly got bored of my game and clicked to my home screen. I should text Adam and tell him—
“That your girlfriend?”
I yelped as I flew off the couch and my phone went flying. Derek was leaning over the cushions. A smile played on his jerk face. He was obviously pleased with himself for scaring me.
I snatched my phone off the rug. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He shrugged. “Had to make sure you weren’t sneaking pics of me and posting them on your creepy perv site.”
“Wonderful,” I said, blank-faced. “Now I’ve gone from a stalker to a pervert with a website. Are you like this with everyone who makes the mistake of sitting next to you?”
“Nope. Only the special few.” Derek flipped over the couch and landed with his legs crossed and arms folded behind his head.
I bet he’s practiced that move.
“So that girl on your screen,” he said. “Is she your girlfriend?”
I looked down at the picture of me and Jordan cheesing at the camera. We had taken it the first time I transformed into Zeke. “No, she’s my cousin.”
“Nice. She’s wicked hot. Let me have her number.”
“Negative.”
His grin only got wider. “She won’t thank you for that. I’m Derek Grayson. Most girls would kill for my number.”
“You’re not her type. She doesn’t date pricks.”
“Who said anything about dating?”
“Okay. We’re done talking about Jordan.” I grabbed his legs and swung them onto the floor. “You were super busy brooding in a corner when I came in. I don’t want to keep you from that any longer.”
He stood up without a fight. “Alright, perv, but if I see you point that phone in my direction, I’m breaking it.
”
I barely contained an eyeroll as he wandered back to his bed. He stretched out on the sheets and picked up a book from the nightstand. The scowl lines left his face, and for a minute, I saw the guy from the cafeteria who laughed with his whole body. Derek almost looked... sweet.
Knock. Knock.
Cole opened the door for the other boys to come in.
“Are you kidding me?!” Derek raged. “Why are all these people in my room?!”
I sighed. So much for sweet.
I stayed out of it while Derek went back and forth with the boys. I was already the creepy stalker perv. I didn’t need to collect any more nicknames.
“Cam thinks we’re going to be Elite,” Cole argued. “If we’ll be in the same class, we need to get a feel for what everyone knows and where we have weaknesses.”
“Oh, Cam thinks,” he mocked. “What the hell does he know? None of us have taken the test, and stalker freak here has already flunked the swimming trial.”
Great. I’m a freak now too.
“Cam doesn’t know any more than you do what class you’re going to be in, so stop swallowing that bastard’s bullshit.”
I had heard nothing but harsh words from Derek since I met him, but this was different. This time there was real venom. He did not like Cameron Dupre.
“Maybe not,” Cole replied. “But I do know that this is my room too and we’re not going anywhere. So join us or shut up.”
Growling, Derek flipped over and gave us his back. I could practically see the anger radiating off of him.
Cole stomped over to the table and slammed his books down. “Math first,” he snapped. “I heard the math test starts at ninth-grade level and then gets harder until you can’t do anymore. Let’s see how far Manning can go.”
I sat crossed-legged on the carpet and grabbed the notebook. “I’m ready.”
“Me too.” Landon surprised me by opening up his own notebook and taking a seat next to me. I tensed when his knee brushed mine. “I’m good at math too since physics is my game. If you can keep up with me, you’re definitely good.”
“Let’s do it.”
Cole cracked open his math textbook and flipped until he found a question. “Okay. First problem: what is negative five over six times negative six over seven?”
My hand flew across the page, but not even it could keep up with my brain. I relaxed as the numbers zipped across my mind.
Everything in my life was uncertain. If I was honest, my life has been uncertain since I was an infant setting off for the first time to a new world. Homes, friends, faces, foods, and cultures could all change in a blink, but math never did. No matter where I was in the world. The rules of math were always the same. Two plus two was always four, and the answer to this question would always be—
“Five over seven.”
Cole pulled a face. “That was an easy one.” He took another minute to search out a problem. “Write this down: If Martha took a trip to Washington that took five days...”
I copied the question, mind whirling as I calculated in time.
“I got this one,” Landon stated. “Okay, if it took five days, then—”
“Martha left on the twelfth.”
Gaping at me, Landon dropped his pencil. “How do you do that so fast?”
Zachary elbowed Cole. “Stop giving him easy ones.”
“Yeah. Try this.” Michael took Cole’s textbook and replaced it with his phone. “This is twelfth-grade algebra.”
“Okay.” Cole had a glint in his eye like he finally had me. “Find all sides of a right triangle that...”
I wrote down the problem and then paused. The clock ticked while Landon scribbled furiously next to me.
“Look at that,” Cole goaded. “We stumped you. I guess Cam was wrong... about....”
He trailed off when my hand shot across the paper. I broke down the equations, plugged it into the theorem, and finally solved for x and y. I couldn’t stop the smile that came to my lips when I wrote the final number. This was fun.
I held up the notebook with the answers displayed and all four guys stared at me.
“Alright.” Cole shoved the textbooks to the floor. “It’s on now.”
Half an hour later, I was the only one on the floor. Zachary, Michael, Cole, and Landon ended up on the other side of the table as the math battle the likes of which Breakbattle had never seen raged.
Landon leaped on the couch. “I’ve got it! He’ll never get this one! What is six hundred and fifty-two times eight thousand and twelve?”
“Starting the clock,” Michael said as I quickly flipped to a new page. “One minute!”
“One?” I cried. “I had two minutes on the last one.”
“Are you admitting defeat?!” Landon demanded.
“Never!”
I wrote faster than I ever had in my life. The numbers peeled themselves off the pages and danced in the air until they came together to form the answer.
“It’s five million—”
A chorus of groans cut me off before I could finish. I rocked back, howling as I fell onto the carpet. I don’t know when exactly this turned from a test to a game, but somewhere along the way we stop competing and started having fun.
Landon lost his stuffy bow tie when he flung it across the room. Michael fell off the chair twice, laughing. And I hadn’t seen Cole scowl for a full twenty minutes.
I rolled over, clutching my sides, and my eyes lit upon Derek. He was looking at us and... he was grinning.
“That’s it,” Zachary shouted. “I’m ending this right now! Manning, what is fifteen times eleventy bajillion?”
I screwed up my face. “What?”
“You have one minute.”
“Michael!” I protested. “This is what it’s come to? You can’t win fair and square?”
Landon leveled a finger at me. “You started it. You didn’t tell us you were a freaking human calculator.”
“Thirty seconds!”
“Fifty times eleventy bajillion, Manning,” Zachary carried on. “Or the Evergreen boys take it!”
I couldn’t help it. I cracked up at the extreme ridiculousness of the entire situation. These guys were nuts, but for the first time, I was looking forward to being in the Elite Class. “Okay,” I shouted between guffaws. “I admit defeat!”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than they cheered.
Amid the chaos, I looked over at Derek. Our eyes met and, for a moment, he smiled with me. A feeling I couldn’t comprehend took over my body. It filled me with a lightness that threatened to buoy me up and float me to the ceiling. I had no trouble believing he had dealt with his fair share of obsessive fans. One look at that smile and it sucked you in.
A million thoughts and feelings flooded me as Derek Grayson and I looked at each other.
Until he blinked.
His face smoothed out, and then he ducked his head and went back to his book.
Chapter Five
Adam laughed as he handed me a tray. “So I go to one lunch with my mom and you become friends with Landon, Michael, and Cole?”
“I don’t know. I trounced them in a math quiz and then they resorted to frankly pathetic tactics to win. Does that make us friends?”
“Sounds like it to me.”
“Then, yes. That’s what happens when you go out to lunch.”
We busted up as we piled breakfast onto our plates. The truth was I was practically skipping over yesterday. It had been a long time since I had that much fun goofing off with people my age. I wanted this. I wanted to get into the Elite Class. I wanted to push my math as far as it could go. I wanted to be the team the boys thought we would be.
And it wasn’t just because my heart thumped whenever Landon put his arm around my shoulder or Michael smiled at me or Cole made that cute annoyed face. That was just a bonus.
“What about Derek?” Adam asked while we headed for a free table. “Was he cool?”
My smile dried up like a dewdrop in the
desert. “Let’s see. When I packed up to leave, the guy accused me of holding back Jordan’s number because I wanted her for myself. So I’ve graduated from a creepy stalker pervert freak to trying to get with my own cousin. What is up with him?”
“Why did you want to sit with him? Do you know him?”
“Never met him before the other day.” I ripped open my milk carton and took a swig. “I only wanted to talk to him. I thought we could be friends. He seemed so nice when I first saw him.”
“Don’t take it personally. He’s like that with almost everyone. Eventually, he’ll get tired of hating you and move on to someone else.”
I took a bite of my cereal rather than reply. What Derek said had stung. I thought for the barest moment that things were okay between us and then he brought that hope crashing down. I didn’t know where to begin with that guy, but I wanted more than for him to go from hating me to ignoring me. If we were going to be in the same class, I wanted us to be friends.
A hand rested on my shoulder, tugging me from my musings. “Hey, Zeke.”
I twisted my neck and looked up into Melody’s smile. “Hey.”
A choked noise sounded from the other side of the table.
Melody took no notice. “That was so crazy the other night, right? I can’t believe that Parker guy went to Argyle.”
“It was so crazy. We were just saying how crazy it was, right, Adam?”
“Um... yes.”
“Cool,” Melody replied. “Anyway, Matron went ballistic. She’s been patrolling the halls at night and waking everyone up with her hacking cough.”
“Matron?”
“Yep. Just another way life is unfair on the girls’ side. Matron is in charge of our dorm. I’m guessing they trust you guys to look after yourselves.”
“We don’t have a matron or anyone like that. That’s unfair, isn’t it, Adam?” I looked at him with huge eyes, sending him telepathic waves to say something.
“It’s unfair,” he repeated.
“Tell me about it.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. My friends and I are warming up for the racing trial. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Melody turned and walked off, but not before tossing one last smile over her shoulder. “You too, Adam.”
