Paper Princess (The Royals #1)(28)
Smiling is not my natural state. In fact, it kind of hurts. My face is so unused to it but I keep smiling because I want this nice lady to like me.
“I start baking at four but I won’t expect you until five-thirty. I’ll need you every morning during the week—you’ll work until classes start. And on Thursdays and Fridays you’ll need to come back after school and work until close, which is eight p.m. Will that interfere with any after-school activities?”
“Nope.”
“Not even Friday?”
“I’m more interested in this job than anything the school has going on Friday nights.”
She gives me another smile. “All right. Pick out a scone then and I’ll make you up a coffee. My name’s Lucy, by the way. And the rush starts in about an hour. You might change your mind after you see what a madhouse this can be.”
* * *
Lucy is right—the bakery is jam-packed, but I don’t mind the rush. Bustling behind the counter and serving baked goods for two hours distracts me from worrying about what will happen when I get to school.
I feel weird wearing a uniform, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon. I notice the other girls at school have found ways to sexy up their attire. Like Savannah said, skirt lengths have been altered, and a lot of the girls leave nearly half their shirt buttons undone so you can see the lacy tops of their bras. I’m not interested in drawing attention to myself, so my hem stays at my knee and my shirt stays buttoned almost to the collar.
I have precalc, Entrepreneurial Studies, and English in the morning. Valerie isn’t in any of those classes, but Savannah is in all three, and Easton is in the English class, but he sits in the back of the room with his buddies and doesn’t say a word to me. I don’t care. I kind of hope he ignores me all semester.
Being ignored seems to be the theme of the day. Nobody says a word to me except my teachers, and after making several attempts at smiling at kids in the hallway and getting no response, I eventually give up and pretend they don’t exist either.
It isn’t until lunch that I finally see a familiar face. “Harper! Get your butt over here.” Valerie waves me over from the salad bar in the cafeteria.
Actually, cafeteria might not be the right word to describe this cavernous room. The walls are wood paneled, the chairs are leather upholstered, and the food area looks like the buffet setup of a luxury hotel. At the far edge of the room are endless sets of French doors, all open and spilling onto an outdoor eating area for students who want to sit outside when the weather’s nice. It’s not even the end of September, so the sun is shining and I suppose we could sit outside, but I spot Jordan Carrington and her friends out there, as well as Reed and Easton, and opt to stay inside.
Valerie and I load our trays with food and find an empty table in the corner of the room. I glance around, realizing that all the students look older. “No freshmen?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Their lunch is an hour earlier.”
“Gotcha.” I stick my fork in my pasta and keep looking around. Nobody meets my eyes. It’s like Valerie and I don’t exist.
“Get used to your cloak of invisibility,” Valerie says knowingly. “Actually, you should wear it like a badge of honor. That just means the rich bitches don’t care enough to torment you.”
“What’s their idea of torment?”
“The usual. Spray-painting rude shit on your locker, tripping you in the hall, trashing you online. Jordan and her minions aren’t very creative.”
“So she’s the female-equivalent of Reed, huh?”
“Yeppers. And if it were up to her, she’d be on his arm every day and screwing him every night, but alas, my poor cousin can’t seem to land her man.”
I snicker. “How is it you know everything about everyone?”
Valerie shrugs. “I watch. I listen. I remember.”
“All right. Then tell me more about the Royals.” I feel awkward asking, but after all my run-ins with the Royal brothers, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to arm myself with ammo against them.
My new friend groans. “Oh no, don’t tell me you’ve got the hots for one of them already.”
“Ew. Never.” I force myself not to think about the way my heart pounds whenever Reed Royal enters a room. I’m not crushing on the guy, dammit. He’s an asshole and I want nothing to do with him. “I just want to know what I’m up against.”
She relaxes. “Okay. Well. I already told you about Easton and Claire. One twin has a girlfriend, the other is a slut like his big brothers. Reed, I’m not sure about. Half the chicks in this school claim to have slept with him, but who knows if that’s true. Only one I know about for sure is Jordan’s friend Abby—trust me, my cousin wasn’t happy about that hookup.”
“What else? Scandals? Rumors?” I feel like a detective questioning a suspect.
“Their dad has a trashy girlfriend. I think that’s been going on for a couple years.”
The memory of Callum and Brooke’s dinner shenanigans flashes in my mind. “I know all about the girlfriend,” I say with a sigh.
“Okay…what else…their mom died a while ago.” Valerie lowers her voice. “From an overdose.”
My breath hitches. “Really?”