Love and Fame Games (Book 1)

05

For God's sake, I thought. "Do you even know those people's names?"

"Sure I do—Fresh Meat Number One and Number Two. One for each of us, and you get to pick first," Alex replied, giggling. I shook my head and ignored her generous offer. She fixed her gaze on a spot ahead of us, and then, facing me, pointed and smiled a chilling kind of smile. "Whoops, never mind. You already have the love of your life, waiting for you right there."

I looked over to where she was pointing and expected to see Seth. Not because of what Alex called him (that would be stupid) but because he was the only person I was keeping an eye out for. So far, Off-Kilter was a no-show and there was no word on whether that was going to change. The suspense was killing me, but even so, I was loath to be the first one to text again.

It wasn't Seth that Alex was talking about but another boy in our grade: Matt Engels. I groaned aloud. He was standing with some people by a row of lockers and caught us looking. He was easily within earshot, too. I could have murdered Alex right there and then.

Matt was another boy Seth and I grew up with. He was a pretty good friend, too, once upon a time. He could easily have been the fourth member of Off-Kilter, except, when the time came, he picked up a basketball instead of a musical instrument and ditched all his old friends to hang with people who made similar life choices.

He was so not the love of my life—although not from lack of trying on his part. Since eighth grade, he had been asking me out every chance that he got. Apparently, I was good enough to try to hook up with but not to actually be friends with. I had tried every way I could think of to let him down easy but some people just couldn't take a hint.

"Shut up, Alex. You're so embarrassing to be around sometimes. I swear, I can't take you anywhere," I said through clenched teeth.

"That's real nice." Alex feigned a hurt expression and brought a hand to her heart. "After I brought you two together."

"You did not bring anyone together! Do we look like we're together?" I protested, with teeth still clenched. Matt waved at us, and Alex and I waved back, with phony smiles on both our faces.

I grabbed Alex's arm and tried as subtly as possible to walk away faster, in case he tried to talk to us. I knew that if Alex were around when he asked me out, she would make sure to blow holes in any excuse I made up to turn him down. That was Alex—always looking out for my love life.

The good news was, he was busy talking with other people and could not approach me. The bad news, I didn't move fast enough to not hear what Matt's friends had to say about me, after I gave him the brush-off.

"Dang, that's cold."

"Stuck up little bitch. Man, who does she think she is?"

"You just gonna take that from her? I sure as hell wouldn't—just saying."

I didn't mind the name-calling; I did my fair share of it, so I couldn't be overly sensitive. The last one, however, made me stop in my tracks. The blood in my veins began to boil and I had half a mind to ask the person who last spoke just what it was, exactly, that he was planning to do instead of just taking it. I turned on my heel, about to do, so when Matt spoke up.

"Nah, she looked like she was in a hurry and probably didn't have time to talk. I'll catch up with her later," he said. He draped an arm around the last guy who had spoken and led him away. The others in his group followed. "We should get moving, too."

As soon as they were some distance away, Matt glanced back and nodded in my direction. The expression on his face struck me as contrite, and it seemed like I wasn't the only one who noticed.