Call It What You Want(23)

I know from experience that he’s flirting with every girl who approaches. Half of them will make a donation for the chance to talk to him.

What a rip-off. Especially since it’s for the athletic department, which is the best-funded division in school. When the marching band has a bake sale, their cookies are a quarter. Even then, they can barely get anyone to buy anything.

The real irony here is that Connor is manning the table. His dad once wrote a letter to the school board to say that kids who couldn’t afford to buy lunch should have to work with the janitor to earn it. He told my dad about it. Teach them a little work ethic, he said.

Owen sets down his sandwich, then picks up another chip and eats it.

I wonder what it’s like to watch other kids hand over disposable cash when you’re condemned to eat cheese sandwiches every day.

And then the lunch lady judges you for trying to make the most of the money you get.

Suddenly I want to give him the rest of my food.

“You look like someone kicked your dog,” Owen says.

I have to clear my throat. “I don’t have a dog.”

My eyes drift across the cafeteria again. I remember those bake sales. I bet they’ll pull in over a thousand dollars by the end of the day. Especially if they set up again after dismissal.

And for what? New jerseys? A few new lacrosse sticks?

“You going to turn the page again or what?”

Owen’s voice pulls me back.

“Sorry.” I turn the page automatically, though I haven’t read the one before it. “What are you doing here, Owen?”

“I’m eating lunch.” His voice lowers and turns serious, an obvious mockery of my own. “What are you doing here, Rob?”

I don’t try to hide the tension in my voice. “Why are you eating with me?”

“Because your mom makes a mean roast beef sandwich.”

“I made this.”

“Fine. Because you make a mean—”

My voice lowers further. “Don’t mess with me.”

Any mockery disappears from his face, and he almost draws back. For one split second, I remember what it was like to be the kind of kid someone like Owen wouldn’t dare speak to. Even the underclassmen at the end of our table pick up on my tension.

“I’m not messing with you,” he says earnestly.

“I’m not going to be some secret path to popularity and hot girls,” I say tightly. “No one talks to me anymore.”

“Okay, for the record, I don’t need a path to girls.”

Oh.

Owen puts another chip in his mouth. “I wouldn’t mind a secret path to Zach Poco, though. Any chance he’s speaking to you?”

Zach Poco plays right wing for the varsity soccer team. His parents own several strip malls in the county, and they’re close with Connor’s parents. I don’t know Zach well, but even if he’d talk to me, I know for a fact he’s not gay. “No.”

Owen shrugs. “Long shot.”

“The longest.” I pick up a chip.

“What about you?” he says.

“What about me?”

He rolls his eyes as if I’m being dense. “Do you need a path to Zach Poco?”

“Oh. No.”

“Oh, right. You used to date that girl with the purple streaks in her hair. Karly or Kaylie or something?”

Callie, but I’m not going to correct him. She wanted us to have a Serious Relationship. You could hear the capital letters every time she brought it up. Between sports and school and interning for my father, I didn’t have time to be serious. Or any desire, if we’re getting down to details.

Then my life fell apart and took serious to a whole new level.

I haven’t talked to Callie since it happened. When Connor didn’t return my texts, I didn’t reach out to anyone else.

None of them reached out to me.

I don’t want to think about the past. “Are you some kind of stalker, Owen?”

“My best friend graduated last year. I have a lot of time to watch people.”

I guess that’s true.

Owen’s eyes glance up, over my head. “Prick alert. Twelve o’clock.”

“What?” I say, just before a hand smacks me on the back of the head.

I whirl. Connor walks right past me. “Heads up, Lachlan.” Then he cracks up.

I watch his departing back. It’s not that he hit me very hard or that I can’t take it.

Like everything else, it’s a pointed reminder of our dead friendship. Something he would have done in the locker room, if we were joking around. Words once said without any vitriol.

Heads up, Lachlan.

I’m striding away from the bench before I realize I’m moving. Walk right up behind him.

I smack him on the back of his head so hard that he stumbles and drops what he was carrying: the cash box from the bake sale.

It bursts open on impact. Coins tinkle all over the laminate floor. Cash flutters out and away from the box. Money goes everywhere.

Connor finds his balance and turns. His eyes could generate laser beams. He looks truly furious. “You asshole.”

For some reason, his ready anger lessens mine. “Takes one to know one.”

“Rob Lachlan!” Mr. Kipple, the vice principal, is storming across the cafeteria. “I saw that. You’ll clean up this mess, right now.”