Coop groaned and Bubba sighed, but Jake said nothing. In fact, the muteness from him worried me more than the smugness from Archie.
“He had other plans,” I said. “Don’t get used to it.”
Archie’s good mood fled and guilt prickled under my skin even as I enjoyed puncturing his attitude.
“Maybe we save all of this for later?” Bubba suggested.
“Sure,” I agreed, reaching for another slice of pizza. “No problem.”
I put up with their girlfriends foryears. They would learn to be polite to Mathieu or they wouldn’t be seeing me at all.
That idea was far more disquieting than it should be, but I refused to look at it too closely. Giving in had never gotten me anywhere and I needed to hold onto this anger.
If I didn’t, our history had long since proven they’d all just mow right over me.
Chapter
Six
ARCHIE
Matthew. Mathieu. Matty. Disdain curled through every syllable as I repeated them in my head.
Mah-tew.
Matt-pew.
All the way through our first class of the day and the year, Frankie hadignoredme. No, not ignored. No, she pretended this was all fine. That herdatingsome stranger was fine.
Since when did she date?
Thatwas the stinger.
She ripped into me about herrightto date. I never said she didn’t have a damn right to date. I’d been asking her out for years. I’dtakenher on dates.
But for some reason, she never noticed. Whether it was me or Jake or Bubba or even Coop. She hung out with us, cuddled, leaned on, but ultimately, we weren’t—fuck it,Iwasn’t her boyfriend.
I should have been.
We shouldbeone of those couples that made it from freshman to senior year as unbeatable. It had taken a long time to admit, that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t her type. None of us were. Maybe she liked girls too? Like us?
That would suck—even if it was kind of hot to imagine—but like, I’d learn to live with it. But nope. Rachel Manning had been hitting on her for two years and it went right over her head. I’d seen other guys try, and she just didn’t respond to the flirting.
So maybe she was asexual?
That was a thing. I didn’t totally get it, but I’d done some research. Talked to Coop about it. Based on the way my phone was blowing up, I wasn’t the only one at a loss.
Jake was stalking the guy. Bubba was trying to talk us all down, but he couldn’t fool me. I’d seen him at lunch. For just a little while, we got Frankie to ourselves.
Then she reminded me I had to get used to fucking Frenchy.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
Coop had sweet talked a girl in the counselor’s office into giving him Frenchy’s schedule. He’d sent us all photos of it.
We had no classes in common. None.
He was in Frankie’s French class. Bastard.
