Troy High (9 page)

“WE HAVE TO TALK,” HUNTER SAID, CORNERING me at home the next morning.

I tried to push past him, but he blocked my way to the bathroom. “I have to get ready for school,” I said.

“This will just take a minute,” he told me. “I don’t want you to see that Greg Mennon again. Got it?”

I looked at Hunter as if he had lost his mind. “What?”

“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and it’s not a good idea for you two to be friends right now. Don’t call or see him or anything.”

He must have fallen out of bed during the night and hit his head. He couldn’t possibly think that he had any right to tell me who I could or couldn’t be friends with.

“Greg is my best friend,” I said.

“You two haven’t been much of best friends lately,” Hunter said, crossing his arms. “Usually you’re at his house all the time, but in the last few weeks you haven’t even mentioned him. Did something happen? Has he hurt you?”

What happened was that I acted like an idiot and kissed him. But there was no way I was telling my brother about that.

“Nothing happened,” I said. “But if I want to see Greg, I will. You can’t stop me.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” Hunter said. “I’ve heard some of the other guys on the team talking and they don’t like that my sister hangs out with a Spartan. Do you want people to think you’re passing along information to the enemy? Do you want them to think you’re not on our side?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

Perry’s bedroom door opened and he walked into the hall, his cell phone pressed to his ear. “I miss you too, snuggle bear,” he cooed.

Snuggle bear? Gag me.

Hunter snatched the phone out of Perry’s hand and hung it up.

“Hey!” Perry exclaimed.

“You can talk to your girlfriend at school,” Hunter
said. “Right now you need to help me talk some sense into our sister.”

“What crawled into your Frosted Flakes and died?” Perry muttered. He looked at me. “Why does Cassie need sense talked into her this time?”

“She refuses to stop seeing that Spartan.”

A slow grin spread across Perry’s face. “Oh, you mean her boyfriend who she won’t admit is her boyfriend?”

I gave Perry a quick punch in his side, causing him to double over and moan. “Both of you need to back off of me. I’ll be friends with whomever I choose. Fight your stupid battle, but leave me out of it.” I marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

“You’re a part of it whether you want to be or not,” Hunter called after me. “You’re a Trojan.”

I was so tired of all the stupid games that people at Troy and Lacede were playing.

Greg and I had been friends for more than two years. It was stupid to let this school rivalry tear us apart.

After I got home from band practice that afternoon, I jumped on my bike and headed over to Greg’s house. It was time to end this not-talking-to-each-other thing. I didn’t want to lose my best friend, or whatever else we could be to each other.

Greg opened the door at my knock. He stared at me without saying a word.

“Hi.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Look, I’m really sorry about how things have been between us. This rivalry has taken over everything. But it’s not important and it’s not our fight. I want us to be friends again.”

Greg didn’t say anything for a few moments.

Finally he spoke. “We were always still friends. Even if I’m mad at you, I haven’t stopped being your friend.”

I smiled. “I’m glad. Because I don’t want to lose you.”

Greg looked at me with a strange look in his eye. For some reason, it made me blush.

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” he told me. He stepped back and held the door open wider. “Do you want to come in?”

I stepped into the house. “So where is Lucas? I don’t see his car outside.”

Greg gave me an annoyed look. “If you’re wondering whether he’s out planning any more pranks against Troy, he’s not. He and my dad went fishing.”

“Lucas fishes?” I asked incredulously.

“No, he doesn’t. But my dad talked him into going. My parents thought it might be good for Lucas to get out and do something relaxing. Dad offered to take me, too,
but I told him I had a lot of studying to do.” Greg grinned. “Fishing’s not really my thing.”

We went to the den. Greg picked up his game controller and pressed the Start button to continue the video game he was playing. I sat on the couch and watched him play in silence for a while, sneaking glances at his profile every now and then. I liked the curves of his face and his strong jawline. I liked the way his bottom lip stuck out just a little farther than the top.

I was in love with my best friend.

I shook my head and pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes.

“You okay?” Greg asked.

I opened my eyes to see a fuzzy shape leaning close to me. After blinking a few times, the image came into focus and I could see Greg’s concerned face.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just a little tired. I haven’t slept well lately.”

Greg frowned. “Neither have I.”

What did he mean by that? Had he not slept well because he worried about the rivalry? Or had he not slept well because he was thinking about me?

I had to change the subject. “Hunter told me this morning that I had to stop being friends with you.”

Greg raised his eyebrows. “He did
what
?”

“He says he’s worried about me, but I kind of think he’s just worried about how it makes him look. You know, that his own sister hangs out with a Spartan.”

“Did he threaten you?” Greg scowled.

“My brother wouldn’t threaten me,” I said. “Anyway, he has a lot to learn if he thinks he can push me around. That was what made me decide to come here and make things right between us. You know when someone tells me not to do something, I do it anyway.” I grinned.

But Greg didn’t smile back. He looked annoyed as he punched at the buttons on his controller. “I can’t believe he said that,” he muttered. “Hunter can do whatever he wants to me or Lucas, but he better leave you out of it.”

His tone made me nervous. But I decided to change the subject again.

“So the Troy homecoming game is about a month away,” I said. “There’s going to be a dance after, and everyone tells me that I
have
to go because everyone else does and it’ll be the first dance I’ve ever attended and maybe you could come with me?”

I stopped, horrified at the words that had just spilled out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say that.

Greg looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “You want me to go to a dance at
Troy
?”

My neck grew hot and I stared at the floor. “No,” I said.
“I mean, not unless you want to. It’s just a stupid dance. Forget I mentioned it. Elena has been talking my ear off about it for the last couple of weeks and apparently we’d have to get dressed up if we went.”

Greg was silent. I knew he didn’t want to go. Why would he want to go to a dance? With
me
? I should have kept my mouth shut and saved us both from the agony of another uncomfortable moment.

“Are you sure I should go?” Greg asked. “I mean, the guys at Troy don’t really like Lacede guys very much right now.”

“Well, you going could help them see that you’re not the enemy,” I said slowly.

What was I doing? Why was I trying to convince Greg to go to a dance? As my date?

“But you don’t have to,” I forced myself to add. “We can do something else that night, like go to the movies or play video games.”

Greg paused his game as he chewed his lower lip. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’ll go to the dance with you.”

I couldn’t have heard him right. “Huh?”

“I said I’ll go to homecoming with you. I’ll be your date.”

My heart pounded against my ribs as his words sunk
in. He had said “date.” He was going to be my date to the dance.

“Wait,” I said suddenly. “You’re not going so you can play a prank against Troy at the dance, are you?”

Greg scowled. “I’m going as your date because you asked me to, that’s it. We’re going to dance and have a good time. And hopefully the guys at Troy will see that Spartans are not so bad and will back off.”

I smiled. “Okay. Thanks.”

He smiled back at me. “No problem. That’s what friends do, right?”

I tried not to let my face show my pain at the word “friends.”

“That’s right,” I said.

Greg unpaused his game and turned back to the TV.

“You know,” I said after a moment, “the chickens in the school were pretty funny.”

Greg didn’t look away from the TV, but I saw the corners of his lips turn up into a grin.

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY WE’RE SHOPPING already,” I said as I pushed aside dresses that were too frilly, too pink, too revealing, too not-me.

“You can never start shopping too early,” Elena told me. She took a pale yellow, gauzy gown from the rack and held it up to her body in front of the mirror on the wall. “What do you think?”

Mallory looked up from the rack she was browsing through and said, “The yellow blends in with your hair too much. I think you should go with a blue.”

Elena ran her hand over the fabric wistfully, then nodded. “You’re right. I love the dress, but it’s not really my color.” She put it back on the rack, still frowning.

This was why I didn’t like shopping. I had no idea
what my colors were. And everything in Gina’s Formal Wear just looked … well, too formal. I wasn’t the type of girl who liked to get all dressed up and get her hair and makeup done. I was a jeans and T-shirt girl. I wore my long, brown hair either loose or in a ponytail. And I had absolutely no clue what to do with makeup.

But I couldn’t admit that to Elena, Mallory, and Kelsey. They would think I was even more of a loser than they already did.

I hadn’t told them yet that Greg was my date to homecoming. If I thought my lack of girlyness would freak them out, telling them that I was bringing a Spartan to a Troy dance would very likely give them strokes. And besides, I wasn’t too eager for my brothers to find out.

“Found anything you like yet?” Elena asked me.

I pretended to look through the gowns in front of me. “No,” I said. “Nothing is really my style.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Elena said. She reached past me and pulled out an emerald-green satin gown with spaghetti straps and a row of sequins along the neckline. “This dress was made for you. This color would be gorgeous with your hair and eyes.”

“Definitely,” Kelsey spoke up from a couple of racks away.

The dress was pretty, but I still wasn’t sold. “Aren’t these straps a little thin?”

“Cassie,” Mallory said, “no offense, but you really don’t have much up top that big straps need to hold in place. The spaghetti straps are fine.”

Why couldn’t the floor open up and swallow me right then?

“Just try it on,” Elena urged me. “You won’t know how it looks until you see yourself in it.”

“Fine,” I said, grabbing the dress from her hands and hurrying toward the dressing rooms.

Once I had locked myself in a stall, I pulled off my sneakers and clothes. I just wanted to get this shopping trip over with. It really didn’t matter to me what I wore to the dance, because I felt too nervous about going with Greg to put much focus on my wardrobe. Just as long as I didn’t look completely stupid, I couldn’t care less what I wore.

After I’d slipped the gown on, I turned around to look in the mirror on the back of the door. What I saw reflected back stunned me. I didn’t look like the regular Cassie Prince, I looked more like Elena. Well, of course I didn’t look
exactly
like Elena, but I looked like the kind of girl she was. The kind of girl who could kiss a guy and he would actually like it.

Elena was right, the color suited me. It brought out the tiny green flecks in my gray eyes and made my dark
hair look warmer. The dress fit me perfectly, revealing a waistline that I had never really noticed before.

A knock sounded on the door. “Come on out,” Elena called. “We want to see.”

I opened the door and stepped out of the dressing room, ducking my head so that my hair fell in front of my eyes. I felt a bit embarrassed standing there being scrutinized by them.

“Well?” I asked.

Elena clapped her hands, grinning wide. “Oh, Cassie, you look beautiful!” she said. “You’re a Trojan princess.”

“People at school will be amazed when they see you,” Mallory told me, nodding her approval.

“You should wear your hair up,” Kelsey said, reaching out to twist my long hair up toward my head. “To show off your shoulders. Guys love that.”

For the first time, as I looked at our reflections in the mirrored wall, I felt like I really was one of them. Like I actually fit in.

I had never realized how much I had missed out on, being a loner at Troy and not having girlfriends to hang out with. It was nice having three girls fuss over me and argue about how I should wear my hair and makeup.

Maybe, if I could learn from them about how to be a
girl, the next time I kissed a boy he would want to kiss me back.

After we were done at Gina’s, we headed over to the mall food court for a snack. We had just gotten milk shakes and were headed toward the benches in the center of the mall to sit, when Mallory stopped suddenly.

“Spartans,” she whispered.

We saw them at the same time they saw us. Lucas turned around and said something to the others with him—Greg, Owen, Ackley, Patrick, and a couple other guys from the football team—and then they turned in our direction.

“Ugh,” Elena muttered. “I do not want to deal with him right now.”

But Lucas sauntered toward us across the tile floor, his eyes locked on Elena.

“Hello, traitor,” he greeted her.

Elena rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Lucas?”

Lucas shrugged. “Nothing, we just came by to say hi.”

“Hi,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we were just leaving—”

Elena tried to step around him, but Owen moved into her path. The other guys fanned out to form a half-circle around us. Greg stood at Lucas’s side and refused to look at me.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk in such a long time, Elena,” Lucas said. “Not without your pretty boyfriend present.”

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” Elena said. “We broke up.”

“No,” Lucas told her, his voice low. “
We
didn’t.
You
did.”

“Greg,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm. “Don’t let him do this.”

Lucas sneered at me. “What’s wrong, Cassie? Afraid?”

Greg stepped forward between Lucas and me, facing his brother. “Hey,” he said. “Leave her out of this. Say what you want to Elena and then let’s go.”

Lucas stared at his brother for a moment, but Greg didn’t back down. Finally, Lucas turned back to Elena.

“After everything we’ve been through,” he said to her, “I can’t believe you would run off with the first coward who would smile in your direction.”

“Coward?” Mallory said, stepping next to Elena. “You’re calling Perry a coward?”

Lucas looked around. “I don’t see him anywhere, standing up for his girl. The only thing I’ve seen Perry Prince do is run away as fast as he can as soon as the action starts. He doesn’t want to mess up his pretty-boy looks. I call that being a coward.”

“Perry was protecting Elena,” Kelsey said.

Lucas looked back at the other guys and they laughed, all except Greg, who stood tense.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Lucas said. “Keep pretending Perry is some great hero instead of the sniveling baby he really is.” He punched his fist into his other hand. “If he was here right now, I’d—”

“What?” said a deep voice behind the Spartans. “What would you do?”

Lucas and the other Spartans spun around to see Hunter standing behind them. None of us had noticed him approaching. Even alone, he gave off an aura of strength and power as he stared down at the Spartans.

“What were you saying?” Hunter asked, his glare locked on Lucas.

There was a moment of silence, and then Lucas seemed to regain his composure. He stepped forward, but then Greg and Owen grabbed his arms, pulling him back.

“Are you insane?” Owen asked. “That guy is twice your size. He’ll stomp you into a pulp.”

Lucas wrenched his arms free. “I’m not afraid of him. Or his coward brother.”

“Neither am I,” Patrick said, stepping forward toward Hunter even though my brother towered over him by several inches.

Ackley grabbed his best friend’s arm. “Back off, Patrick.
If anyone’s going to do this, it’ll be me. It’s payback time.” He curled his hands into fists as he sneered at my brother.

Hunter looked at each of the Spartans in silence, then he looked past them to me. “Cassie, you okay?” he asked. “Are they bothering you?”

I swallowed hard. I knew Elena and the girls wanted me to say yes so that Hunter would save the day and get rid of them for us. But I couldn’t give him a reason to go after Greg.

“We’re okay,” I said. “We’re done now.”

Hunter nodded once and I grabbed Elena’s arm, pulling her away with Mallory and Kelsey following. I looked over my shoulder to see Lucas watching us leave.