The Bad Boy's Princess

Ch. 13 - The table of the gods

"Are you alright, West?" He tilted his head and stared at me, slightly amused at my reaction. "Did you miss me that much while I was gone?"

"What? I did not..." A whisper, great progress Avery, "I was just-"

"I missed you, too." He was enjoying every second of this. Despite the fact that the entire school was here, staring at us and probably wondering why Jace Vanderbilt was here talking to me, he was calm and collected. As if no one were here. 

And him asking these absurd questions did not help, how could- 

Wait. Did he just say he missed me? Out loud? Did I hear him right?

"What? Did you not miss me?" He pouted.

"No, I-" With that, he laughed. He bursted into laughters and got up to take the seat next to me. Now he was only inches away from me and I stopped breathing. I didn't dare to look at him. Great. I could feel the heat travel to my face. Great. I did not just say no out loud to that question.

"I like that you missed me, Avery." Jace Vanderbilt whispered into my ear and every single hair on my body stood up. All I could hear was the repetition of his sentence. Oh, god. Oh, god. He was so close that I could feel his breath on my skin.

"You... I..." I murmured. "Stop, Jace..."

"What?" He chuckled. "Are you embarrassed of me?"

"No, I-"

"Come with me. My friends want to meet you." He grabbed my wrist softly and was about to pull me up when he stopped and turned to Daniel and Nicole, who were trying to hide their laughters. "May I borrow her for today?"

Nicole couldn't speak from trying to hold in her laughter so he just nodded her head and Jace pulled me across the cafeteria to his table. There was noises that filed back into the cafeteria but the attention was very much still on us. There were three guys whom I recognized from the parking lot and a bunch of cheerleaders who didn't have the nicest looks in their eyes. But Jace completely ignored it all and sat down with his friends who were staring at us, mostly me, with amusement in their eyes as Jace instructed me to sit down.

I was at Jace Vanderbilt's table.

The table of the gods, as everyone here called it. 

"Yo, yo yo, look what we have here." Charles, I think, smirked and took my books from me and placed them on the table. "Hi, Avery West!"

"H.. Hi. Charles right?" Charles was attractive, his whole friends group was attractive for crying out loud... It was unfair to the rest of the male population at this school.

"Yes, it's nice to finally meet the famous Avery West." He smiled. 

"I'm Cameron, we have AP Chem together." Cameron was in Nicole's group in Chem. And also the guy who pulled Jace away that night when we ran into a drunk and scary Jace on the streets. "I'm surprised this dickhead hasn't scared you off yet." 

"Hi, it's nice to meet you." I smiled at him who thought to himself for a moment before nodding his head. "And he's not that awful, most of the time."

"If you can handle Jace, then you can handle anything so let's study for the awful chem tests together." Cameron set his lunch down and pulled me into a light hug and I tried to hide my reaction but I knew Jace saw it when he glared at Cameron who looked confused as ever. As much as I hated it, I was still very much uncomfortable with a guy's touch, despite it had been years since the incident. 

"I usually study in the library for lunch with my friends, so if you want to come join us..."

"Oh, come on!!!" Harrison groaned and rolled his eyes at me. "Aren't you worried the hoes around here might just gobble your man alive if you weren't around to keep an eye on him?"

And then my face burnt up, I was as red as a tomato. My man? Jace? Never. 

"We're not-"

"He's just messing with you, Ave. Ignore him." Jace smacked Harry who just laughed. "Behave, Harry. Before I change my mind about letting you use my jet and ruin your vacay plans with what's her name." 

"You wouldn't dare..." Harry pouted and glared at Jace. "Jacey-"

"Don't even go there." 

"So, Ave, please ignore the children's fight." Charles rolled his eyes at his friends who were still bickering over the jet. That wasn't really a conversation you would usually hear every day in the cafeteria but then I learned that with Jace, nothing was impossible. "So I heard you and West, well, the other West, are siblings?"

"Yeah, Landon is my brother." I smiled. Landon has been busy, even at home, practicing with the team. He was never around for lunch as he was always doing some chemistry group work, science was Landon's thing. Made me jealous sometimes. 

"But I never see you guys together at school..." Cameron chimed in. 

"At our old school, Landon was always really protective of me so I was always glued to him but since it's my last year of high school, I wanted to make friends for once." And I could tell Jace's eyes on me as I spoke. 

"Did you not have friends over there?" Harry asked, but Jace smacked his head again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it in that way!"

"It's okay!" I smiled. "I'm not very good at making friends but I'm working on it." 

"What? How is that possible when you are so beau-" Charles cleared his throat. "I mean, very nice and stuff." 

"Well, you've made three more friends today and I would say it's a pretty good start, Avery." Cameron cut in and put his arm around me but quickly moved it when Jace cleared his throat. It was like they had some sort of code talking happening between them and I was too slow to catch on so I didn't want to ask. 

"Thank you, I'm truly honored." I laughed, which made them laugh, too. Although it was uncomfortable to have so many eyes on us but the guys didn't seem to care, so it was nice to sit with them. It also helped that they were extremely funny. 

Jace and the guys started talking about his party this weekend, which was when I realized that they lived in a world I was not familiar with at all. Nothing in the world seemed impossible to have, to these guys. And as they were discussing ways that sounded to me like a debate over which is the cruelest way torture the cleaning crew after his party, I was clawing my brains out over thinking what I wanted to get Jace for his birthday. 

What do you even get a guy who had the world at his finger tips?