Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(2)
“But the movie is still really cool,” Grace said with a shrug. “Even with its total lack of respect for the laws of physics.”
“And biology,” Alec added, which earned him another shrug from Grace. “What? All good zombie movies at least pretend there’s some kind of biological reason for their zombies.”
I pressed my hands flat to the table and sat forward. “Okay, this is something that’s been bugging me for a really long time. Did you notice that the people in Zombieism all have perfect vision? Totally not realistic.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Em mouth, “Here we go again,” to Grace.
I continued.“Will someone please tell me why no one in dystopian or apocalyptic novels has bad vision? I’m so blind without my contacts that, if we ever have a nuclear or zombie apocalypse, I’m screwed. I won’t even be able to get contact solution, and, if my glasses break, that will totally suck. If the world was ending and people were scrambling for their lives, you know there would be some people going ‘Guys? Guys? I can’t see where you are.’”
“Well, if the world is ending, we’ll just leave you behind to fend for your half-blind self.”
“Thanks, Em. Thanks so much.”
“I’ll blindly fight off the zombies with you.” Came a voice from behind me. I looked up to find Dev standing over me with his lunch tray. He pointed at his eyes. “Contacts. We can stand back-to-back and just swing at whatever blurry things come our way.”
I blinked dumbly at him. Dev usually sat on the other side of the lunchroom with some of the other theatre and band people, but this was the fifth time this month he had just showed up at our table.
“Um, I guess that might work.”
Em scooted over to make room for him next to me. “What are you doing over here in misfit land again? I don’t know if we can allow clarinets at our table. This is firmly flute territory.”
“I’m working on breaking down barriers to musical diversity, one table at a time.” He snorted at his own joke, then said, “Actually, I heard the word zombie and couldn’t resist.” Dev grinned at me. “Are you talking about Perfect Zombieism?”
“We were until Feebs started going off about glasses and stuff,” Alec told him around a mouthful of hoagie.
“I was not going off.”
“If the world were a book and my glasses were melted by a glittery dragon, I’d be screwed,” Grace said in a high-pitched mock imitation of me.
I made a face at Grace and Em patted me on the back. “It’s okay, we like the weird book-y world you live in. Makes the rest of our lives look a lot more normal.”
“Normalcy is definitely overrated,” Dev said, and I wondered if he had heard my earlier conversation with Em. Before I could ask, though, he looked past me and started a long, boring discussion about Perfect Zombieism and something about decapitation with Alec.
I let their voices blur together and thought about pulling the book back out of my bag when Kris passed our table. Kristopher Lambert. Junior class president and an exact match to the mental picture I had of Aedan from Golden. Well, if Aedan was real and not a creature out of Irish legend. Tall, aristocratic features, almost black hair that was always neatly combed into place, and golden brown eyes that I could look into forever. Time slowed and, for a second, only he and I existed. I let out a silent sigh, trying my hardest not to look like the girls who mooned over the football players.
Em reached around Dev to nudge me. “Not Kris again. What do you see in him?”
With an awful thud, time sped up again. “He’s our class president and incredibly smart,” I shot back at her, then dropped my chin into my hands and refocused on Kris, who had put on his campaigning expression and was talking to some of the guys from the football team.
Em stared at me like I had said I was going to run naked through the cafeteria. “Smart? He’s a dumbass. How he even made it to junior year is beyond me.” She poked me in the arm, a knowing grin spreading across her face. “You only like him because he looks like the guy in your book.”
“I do not.” At her look, I backed down a little. “Well, not entirely.”
“You like Kris?” Dev asked. He took my silence for a yes and shook his head. “He’s such a self-centered jerk. He only got class president because his family, like, founded this town and he’s related to half the class.”
I narrowed my eyes at Dev. “He’s smart and ambitious…”
“... and looks like a fictional hottie.” Em finished for me. “What about real hotness? You know, like five foot ten of this?” Dev asked, pointing at himself and posing as if he were waiting for someone to take his picture. “My name does mean ‘god’ in Hindi,” he added, winking a greenish-hazel eye at me. Between his athletic build, those eyes, and the straight black hair that kept threatening to fall into them, he definitely qualified as one of the cuter guys in our class. Half of the girls in the band and, if Em was to be believed, the drama club, were in love with him. But he was just so…Dev. He’d seen me freak out over the giant spider in the band room and geek out over the book fairs in middle school and I’d seen him in his ridiculous band uniform cleaning spit out of his clarinet reed one too many times.
I laughed at his goofy pose. “Don’t worry, Dev. Fictional crushes pale in comparison to you. You’re so hot, you’re totally out of my league,” I said, patting his cheek in mock consolation. “I’ll just have to settle for boys in books.”